*
After Russell left her house that morning, Claire was a cooking fool. She finished making fig and pepper bread, and started in on soup. Simmering soup on a cold day was like filling a house with cotton batting. The comforting scent of it plumped and muffled and cuddled. She went on to make egg custard tarts for dessert, longing for pansies to place on top to decorate them.
That night, Claire served the homemade vegetable soup, fig and pepper bread, and tarts to her slightly perplexed husband and daughter. She understood their confusion. It had been a long time since she’d spent the day cooking real food for them, let alone set the table in the small dining room, where they ate with real silverware and cloth napkins.
They should use the dining room more often, she decided. When Grandmother Mary died, Claire used her life insurance to remodel the kitchen, which ended up taking most of the dining room where Mary had once served her boarders. But it was just the right size now for the three of them.
“That was delicious, Claire,” Tyler said at the end of the meal.
“Yeah, it was great!” Mariah agreed. “But don’t use potatoes in the vegetable soup next time.”
“Why not?” Claire asked.
“My best friend doesn’t like them.”
Good old Em. They couldn’t get through a meal without Mariah mentioning something about her. “How did Em know we were having vegetable soup?” Claire asked as she stood to gather the empty dishes.
“I don’t know.” Mariah shrugged. “She just knew.”
“Did you call her?”
That made Mariah laugh. “Why would I call her? She’s right here.”
Claire and Tyler exchanged glances. “What do you mean, she’s right here?” Tyler asked.
“She’s here. In this room with us.”
“Why can’t we see her?” Claire asked as the curtains fluttered slightly.
Mariah shrugged again.
“Can you see her?” Tyler asked.
“Sometimes. Mostly I can only hear her.”
“So Em isn’t a friend from school?” Tyler asked.
“No. She doesn’t go to school. She says I should go to my room now, that you two need to talk. May I be excused?”
Claire nodded and they both watched Mariah shoot up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
“Em is imaginary!” Tyler said. He slapped the table and laughed. “You know what? I’m relieved. I thought I was missing something. I kept thinking to myself that if you had been taking her to school and picking her up, you would have known who Em was. You would have known her parents and what they did for a living and their favorite food.”
Claire was still holding the empty dishes, still staring at the staircase. “She’s a little old for imaginary friends, isn’t she?”
Tyler got up to help her clear the table. “She’s choosing her own path,” he said, walking to the kitchen. “I look at her sometimes and can’t wait to see what she becomes.”
The curtains were still fluttering. A gust of air shot by Claire and up the stairs after Mariah. Then the curtains went still.
Together in the kitchen, they loaded the dishwasher. Tyler was rinsing the bowls before handing them to Claire, when she suddenly said, “I’m getting out of the candy business.”
Tyler didn’t miss a beat. “You finally decided to sell to Dickory Foods in Hickory?”
“No. I’m just ending it. It wouldn’t be the same if someone else made it. It wouldn’t be … Waverley.”
“Okay,” Tyler said amiably. He turned off the faucet and dried his hands. “Is that why you actually cooked tonight? Is this a preview of coming attractions?”
Claire closed the dishwasher with a firm click, confused by this reaction. She’d tried to think of ways to tell him all day, fearing she was letting him down in some way. “That’s it? What about what this means for our finances? It’s going to take a while for me to get my catering business back to what it was. What about Mariah’s college fund? I thought you were worried about it.”
“I had no idea you’d taken those words to heart. Candy has been very good for her college fund, but we were doing fine with it before.” He put his hands on her waist. “I know you haven’t been happy with the candy business for a while. We’ll manage.”
“Was I that obvious?”
“You think I’m not paying attention when I’m staring into space?” he asked as he brought her closer.
“I know I worry too much.”
“It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.”
“Exactly!” she said, looking up at him. “Will you please tell that to my sister?”
“No way. She’ll cut my hair into a mullet, like the last time she did when she got angry with me. I had bad luck for weeks after she did that. Three flat tires before my hair finally grew out.”
Funny how easily he accepted Sydney’s gift, but not her own. Tyler began to nuzzle her neck when she asked, “Have you ever believed I could do special things with food?”
“Of course I believe it. But there’s so much more to you, Claire. Sometimes I think I’m the only one who can see that.” He kissed her like he meant it, leaving her breathless against the cabinets. “I’ll meet you upstairs.”
After tidying the kitchen, Claire walked upstairs and found Tyler in the hallway, lost in thought as he rearranged his paintings hanging there, a series he called “Claire’s World,” which he’d painted when they first married. She wasn’t actually in the paintings, he wasn’t a portrait painter, but they were beautiful studies in light and color—leafy greens, black lines that looked like lettering, bright apple-red dots. If she stared at them long enough, sometimes she thought she could make out a figure, crouched among the greens. Claire wondered, not for the first time, what she did to deserve this man, her husband. She’d done everything in her power to dissuade his interest in her when they first met. She had been fine alone. She used to think that if she didn’t let anyone in, she wouldn’t get hurt when they left, because everyone she’d ever loved had left her. But, that was just it, she had no power over him. None of the Waverley kind, anyway. He loved her for every other reason but that one. And she still didn’t know why.
She was just glad he did.