Chapter 23: Ask Nothing

That night Chiara stood in Elio's kitchen with her mother's recipe card propped against the sugar jar.

He had gone out and come back with six lemons, a bag of flour and a whisk, because he owned none.

"You don't have to do this," he said.

"I want to know if she left anything else out."

"Who?"

"Gemma. She said my mother told her how to make it."

He leaned against the counter and watched her roll a lemon flat under her palm.

He did not ask what it meant that she was baking her mother's cake hours after she had refused to forgive her.

He did not ask what Dr. Coombs's message said, though he had read it over her shoulder on the courthouse stairs.

He asked nothing at all.

It was the strangest gift anyone had ever given her.

She zested two lemons and creamed the butter and sugar.

She cracked the eggs one-handed, the way her mother had, and heard herself laugh.

"What?" Elio said.

"I remember her doing this."

"In the kitchen?"

"On my birthday. I was seven. She let me lick the whisk."

She stopped.

The memory was whole and warm, and for the first time it did not hurt.

She stood with the whisk in her hand and tears running down her face, and Elio put his hands on the counter on either side of her and said nothing.

He did not hold her.

He waited.

"You can," she said.

He wrapped his arms around her from behind.

She leaned back into his chest and cried until the batter had gone flat in the bowl.

When she was done he turned her around, thumbed the wet from her cheeks and kissed her forehead.

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