Chapter 22: The Porch Swing

I cooked my mother's chicken and rice in my mother's pan, on a stove that took three tries to light.

Sullivan sat at the small kitchen table with his sleeves rolled to the elbow and did not offer to help once.

I noticed that, and liked him for it.

He ate two plates.

"This is the best thing I've had in a year," he said.

"It's rice."

"It's your mother's rice."

"She would have said you were flattering her," I said. "Then she'd have given you a third helping."

"Does that mean I'm allowed a third?"

I laughed, and it came out easily, and I realized I had not laughed like that in the whole of the spring.

After the dishes, he dried the pan while I washed.

The window over the sink was open, and the night air smelled of cut grass from the yard next door.

"I took the wedding picture down," I said.

He did not look up from the pan.

"Sunday morning. It's in a box in the garage with the album. June said she'd decide what to do with it."

"You don't owe me that."

"I know. I wanted you to have it anyway."

He set the pan on the rack very carefully.

Then he turned and leaned against the counter and finally looked at me.

"I thought you'd go back to him," he said.

"That night in your kitchen, I looked at that photograph and thought you'd be gone by Monday."