pajama-clad feet coming to their bed early on a Christmas morning. Too small and, of course, too early. Carl’s low, deep voice welcoming the toddlers into the warm circle of their two bodies, her arms reaching to enclose the sweet smell of her grandchildren, her hand touching Carl’s face. And after, her thoughts too large for sleep, as she lay and watched them while Christmas morning came in through the windows.
“C’EST FINI?” Lillian was touching her shoulder gently, a stack of used plates in her hand.
Helen raised her eyes to meet Lillian’s.
“Oui,” she replied, her voice soft. “Merci.”
And passed her plate to Lillian.
CLASS WAS OVER—the chocolate long gone, several more wine bottles emptied. Claire and Isabelle were on dish-duty, elbow-deep in warm water, washing the fondue pots and talking about tricks for helping a baby sleep through the night. Tom was helping Chloe with the recycling. After they finished wiping down the counters, Helen and Carl bid the rest of the class farewell and walked down the brick pathway from the restaurant toward the gate.
Ian stood in the kitchen door, watching them. In the mixed light, it looked at first as if Carl and Helen were following each other, but then Ian saw that their hands were linked, the edges of their coats brushing against the lavender bushes that lined the path.
“They are lovely together, yes?” Antonia came up next to him.
“They are.” Ian paused. “I was wondering. I mean, I’d like to cook you dinner. Lillian is always saying we should practice and….”
“Yes, Ian,” Antonia replied. “I think I would like that.”
Ian
Lillian’s.” The voice that answered the restaurant kitchen phone was young and masculine. The sound of dishes and voices clattered in the background. “How can I help you?”
“Is Lillian there? Tell her it’s Ian.”
The phone clunked down on the stainless-steel counter and Ian listened to the voices of the cooks in the background, their conversations slipping in between the sounds of chopping knives and water running over dishes and vegetables. Lillian’s voice came on the line.
“Ian? What is it?”
“She said yes to dinner—what do I do now?”
“You cook, Ian.”
“I know, but what?”
“Well… how do you feel about her?”
“She’s beautiful and smart and…”
“I mean,” Lillian’s voice was patient, “what do you want?”
“I want…” Ian paused, and then his voice cleared. “I would want her for the rest of my life.”
“Then that is how you cook.”
THE GIFT CERTIFICATE for Lillian’s cooking class—a thick, elegant, chocolate-colored card—had come in a birthday letter from Ian’s mother the previous July. Ian had called his sister after opening the envelope.
“Do you know what she gave me? Cooking classes. Is there enough irony for you there? Cooking classes from a woman who almost never cooked—and when she did she burned what she was making because she’d get all wrapped up in some painting she was working on.”
“Ian, I love you.” In the background, Ian could hear the sound of toddlers claiming victory or possession, it was hard to tell. “It’s your birthday. Why don’t you give yourself a present and let go of some of that? She was an artist.”
“But why cooking, of all things?”
“I don’t know—maybe you should ask her.” Ian’s sister paused, and he could hear her taking the object of contention from one toddler, sending both howling companionably into the other room. “Are you going to go? To the classes?”
“Of course”—Ian’s voice sounded defiant, even to himself—“someone has to learn how to cook in this family.”
WHEN IAN WAS YOUNG, he would sneak up to the attic space his mother used as a painting studio. After the darkness of the steep, narrow stairs, the light in the room glowed like sunshine through flower petals, luminous and golden. His mother would be standing with her profile lit by the window, brush poised in one hand, surveying the canvas in front of her with an appraising eye. Still hidden by the partly closed door, he would wait, not breathing, for the moment he knew would happen, when her expression would clear and become joyous and the brush would reach first for paint and then toward the easel.
During those early years, Ian associated the smell of paint, thick and intoxicating, with that happiness on his mother’s face. The only time Ian had ever been scolded as a child—for he was, in the main, a very good boy, never in the way, the kind of boy who would always get the straight A’s his parents cared little about—was the time when he had snuck up to the