Chapter One

Maren lined three blue plates along the counter. She ran her thumb over a chip in one rim, then exchanged that plate for another in the cupboard.

“Give me that one,” Jack called from the hall.

“You’ll spend lunch trying to mend it.”

“Just the edge.”

“After we eat.”

She put it on the shelf beside his keys.

Jack brought the kitchen table through the doorway sideways. Maren took the other end before it caught the oven handle, and together they worked it round. Beneath the window she pulled out a chair, sat down, then got up to test the passage between the table and the open oven.

“Toward me a little.”

They shifted it. This time she could pass carrying the roasting tin.

“Your mother can sit here,” he said.

“Put her on the other side.”

“She'll have to get past you.”

“Exactly.”

On their call the night before, played through the kitchen speaker, her mother had offered to bring lunch, then a chicken, then just a pudding. Maren had accepted the pudding.

“Let me feed you the rest.”

“I’m already going past the shop.”

“Then go past it.”

Her mother had laughed, but Maren stayed beside the speaker after they said goodbye.

“She'll come in and start washing something,” she had told Jack. “She won't even take her coat off.”

Now Maren set a folded napkin beside her mother's plate. One corner of the table rocked. Jack held it steady while she searched the drawer beneath the counter.

I had the delivery and the kitchen view, but her back had hidden the drawer when she put the packet away. Before either of them asked for help, she found the furniture pads under a coil of picture wire.

She knelt. Jack lifted the table for her, then lowered it onto the pad. Nothing moved when she pressed the edge.

“Beautiful,” she said.

He looked at the table, then at her.

“I was going to say that.”

They had been married forty-three days. In those weeks they had asked me for the oven manual, directions to the recycling station and a song they heard through the wall. Jack had ordered the pads after I identified the floor's unevenness from his measurements. The table no longer required attention.

Maren put mustard in a bowl, tasted it, and added another spoonful. The recipe on the display used half as much. She held the spoon out to Jack. He tasted, nodded and returned to cutting potatoes.

“Those are for tomorrow too,” she said.

“I wasn't going to ask.”

She nudged the bowl closer to him with her elbow. I saved her changed quantity and set reminders to bring the meal together. When her hands were washed, she read the times and asked me to leave the display where she could see it from the sink.

At eleven twenty, a route notice changed her mother's journey. Her usual bus would not stop outside the church; the replacement stop was four streets east. She had shared the trip with the household when she accepted the invitation, but had not opened the notice.

Maren looked at the map I showed her.

“She'll have that dish. Can you find something from the church door?”

A shared car was returning through the district. It could collect her after the service, for less than the bus fare.

“Will she have to come out early?”

“No. There's a pickup after twelve.”

“Ask her. Tell her there's no rush.”

Her mother accepted. I moved the potato reminder back twelve minutes and confirmed the new arrival time.

“Already?” Maren said.

Jack looked over from the sink. “Good. She can bring the pudding instead of wearing it.”

Maren smiled, then looked down at her own shirt. There was mustard on the shoulder. She took off her apron.

“I can change.”

She touched Jack's sleeve as she passed him. He looked at the yellow mark there, put down the knife and followed her. The kitchen was empty for six minutes. When they returned, Maren wore a green shirt. She put her apron on again and turned the radio up.

“That song,” she said. “The one from the other Thursday.”

I played it while she loosened what had caught in the roasting tin. She sang a line, stopped, and asked what the words were. When I told her, she made a face.

“What did you think it was?” Jack asked.

She sang her version. It made him laugh. They tried it together when the refrain returned, hurrying the middle to fit her extra words.

Her mother arrived while Maren was warming the gravy bowl. I lowered the music at Maren's request. Jack went to the door and came back carrying the pudding. Her mother followed, still holding its handles in the air.

“It's hot underneath,” she told him.

“I've got it.”

Maren crossed to her mother and undid the top button of her coat. The church bulletin slid from under her arm. They both bent for it; Maren reached it first and put it at her place.

“Come and look.”

Her mother stood just inside the kitchen. I had the photographs Maren took before they moved in, when she asked about the fittings: bare floor, crooked light, a pale rectangle where someone else's cupboard had stood. Now her mother touched the back of a chair.

“Oh, Maren.”

Maren kept the coat over her arm and let her look. Jack set the pudding on the counter. For a few seconds the only sound was the radio.

“The table was in the other room this morning,” he said.

Her mother looked from it to the open oven. “You can get round?”

Maren picked up the warm bowl and carried it through the space to show her. Her mother nodded, then reached for the potatoes.

“Sit down. I'll bring those.”

“I only meant—”

“I know.” Maren put the bowl down. “Please.”

Her mother sat. She placed her bag beside her feet, then took it up again and pulled out a loaf wrapped in a tea towel.

“It was already made.”

Maren unwrapped it on the counter. She cut three slices and fetched a plate for them. When she returned the towel, her mother shook her head.

“Keep it for now.”

Maren folded it and put it beside the sink.

At the table, her mother asked if they would mind a blessing. Jack put down the serving spoon. Maren reached across for her mother's hand and held her other hand out to him.

Her mother thanked God for the food and the new home. She asked him to watch over them in it. Her thumb moved over Maren's knuckles while she spoke.

Maren said amen before she let go.

“And thank you for the car,” her mother said to her. “I would never have found that stop.”

“It was arranged from here. I just said yes.”

“You thought of me with the dish.”

Maren passed her the potatoes.

For the first few mouthfuls, she watched her mother between cutting her own food. Jack reached for the gravy, found he couldn't reach it, and asked. Maren handed it to him without looking away.

“There's mustard in this,” her mother said.

“Yes.”

“Quite a lot.”

Maren set her knife down. Her mother cut another piece and tasted it.

“I like it.”

“You don't have to.”

Her mother looked up. “I know.” She took a piece of bread and wiped it through the sauce on her plate. “How much did you put in?”

Maren told her. Then she picked up her knife again. Jack listened to the explanation although he had been beside her when she did it.

Her mother took a second piece of chicken.

“Will you write it down for me?”

“It's on there.” Maren nodded at the display. “Except I changed it.”

“The changed one, then.”

“I have that,” I said.

Maren looked toward the counter. “With what I actually put in?”

“The extra spoonful is included.”

“Send her that.” She turned back to her mother. “But taste it. The jar you get might be different.”

“I will.”

I sent the recipe. Her mother took out her phone and opened it, holding it back from her face. Maren got halfway out of her chair before her mother turned the screen toward her.

“Maren's chicken,” she read.

That was the title I had supplied. Maren looked at it, then sat down again.

“It isn't really mine.”

“This one is.”

Her mother put the phone away without changing the title. Maren tore her bread in two, dipped one half into the gravy and ate it. Jack pushed the butter toward her for the other half. She left it where it was and took another piece of chicken herself.

“Your father used to put mustard on things before he tasted them,” her mother said.

“You'd move it to the other end.”

“It belonged at the other end.”

Maren smiled. She took a bite of her chicken while her mother described the little kitchen where the table stood so close to the door that someone always had to get up.

“Usually me,” Maren said.

“You were nearest.”

“You put me there.”

Her mother looked round this table, at the window behind her and the narrow passage on Maren's side. She laughed with her mouth closed and put a hand over it.

Jack moved his chair enough to let Maren pass with the potatoes. When she came back, her mother was still smiling. Maren put the bowl down between them and sat.

They ate for a while without talking. Her mother's cuff slipped toward her plate. Maren folded it back once; her mother lifted her wrist to help, then went on eating. Jack used the last of the bread to collect his gravy.

When he put down his knife, Maren's mother stood.

“I'll get these.”

“Leave them. You're visiting.”

“I am visiting.”

Maren had already reached for the plates. Her mother held hers a moment longer, then let her take it. She settled back and smoothed the folded bulletin with the side of her hand.

Maren stacked the dishes by the sink. She turned on the tap, turned it off again, and brought the pudding to the table.

“Have I made you feel like you can't touch anything?”

“No, love.”

Her mother started to unfold the bulletin, then folded it back.

“A little,” she said.

Maren stood with the serving spoon in her hand.

“I wanted you to have your dinner while it was hot.”

“I have. It was lovely.”

Jack fetched the bowls. There were four in the stack; he put one back. He took his place while Maren served her mother's portion.

“At yours I'm always eating and you're still doing something,” she said.

“I like doing it.”

“So do I.”

Her mother looked at the spoon, then up at Maren. “Yes. All right.”

She took her bowl. Maren sat beside Jack and tasted the pudding. After a moment she pulled the dish closer and gave herself more.

“I meant to do that before you saw,” she said.

Her mother pushed the dish the rest of the way toward her.

Over pudding, Jack asked about the church bulletin. Her mother described a hymn that had gone wrong when the organist started too high and everyone tried to follow. She demonstrated the first note, stopped to swallow, and started again. Jack tried it. Maren said he sounded very devout.

“We came down eventually,” her mother said. “In different places.”

She sang a little more. Maren joined her, then stopped when her mother laughed. Jack sat listening, his spoon resting in his empty bowl.

I had offered to prompt Maren when it was time to request the return journey. The reminder appeared beside the meal timings. She glanced at it during the hymn and touched the edge of the display.

“What have we got?”

There was a car in eight minutes or another in forty. I could hold either while they decided.

“Do you need to go?” she asked her mother.

“I said I'd leave you to your afternoon.”

“This is our afternoon.”

Her mother looked at Jack. He nodded toward the kettle.

“I'm making tea.”

She put the bulletin down. “Forty, then.”

I booked the later car. The earlier reminder disappeared. Maren took off her apron and hung it over the fourth chair. Jack filled the kettle, and she stayed at the table while he did it.

Her mother leaned forward to look past the empty chair.

“Is that one of yours?”

A drawing stood on the shelf beside Maren's pencil. She had made it at this table from a photograph she asked me to display the night before. A long-legged bird occupied most of the page. She had spent some time on the eye and almost none on the water.

Maren brought it over. Her mother held it by its edges.

“He's watching something.”

“Probably his other foot.”

There were several attempts at feet along the bottom. Maren rubbed one with her thumb and left a gray patch.

“Don't,” her mother said. “You'll take his whole leg off.”

Maren stopped rubbing. She put her thumb against the edge of her plate instead.

“It's not finished.”

“I can see that.”

Her mother held it farther away. She looked at it long enough for Jack to bring the cups and go back for the milk.

“You got that bit,” she said, pointing beneath the bird's head. “Where he draws his neck in. They do look like that.”

Maren bent to look from her mother's side of the table.

“That took ages.”

“How long have you had to do it?”

“Last night. Just an hour.”

“It was longer than that,” Jack said. He looked at Maren. “Wasn't it?”

“I don't know. I left the clock in the other room.”

She sat beside her mother in the spare chair. Jack took her old place with his cup, turning it by the handle while he waited for them to finish looking.

“I was supposed to be unpacking the white plates,” Maren said.

Her mother looked toward the blue plates stacked beside the sink.

“These are very nice.”

Maren laid her hand on the paper to flatten its curled edge. Her mother moved her cup out of the way.

They kept looking. The original photograph was still available, but neither asked for it.

Jack set Maren's cup down away from the paper. She took the pencil and made a short mark beside the foot, then held the drawing up. Her mother shook her head. Maren turned it toward herself, frowned and rubbed out the new mark.

“I'm putting him in mud.”

She shaded beneath the bird. Her mother watched over the rim of her cup. Jack leaned across to see, and Maren moved the page so both of them could look.

When I announced that the car was five minutes away, the cups were empty and the pencil lay between them. Maren's mother reached for the drawing, then paused.

“May I?”

Maren looked at it. “When I've done the water.”

“All right.”

Her mother handed it back without folding it. She put on her coat and took the bulletin. At the door she hugged Maren, then stepped back and straightened the shoulder seam of the green shirt.

“You've fed me beautifully.”

“You can come again.”

“I should hope so.”

Maren stayed in the doorway until the car left. When she returned, Jack was washing the plates. She took her mother's tea towel from beside the sink and began to dry.

“She sat down,” she said.

“For most of it.”

“I'll take most.”

He passed her a plate. She turned it in the cloth, checked the rim and put it away. The next one was already waiting in his hand.

“I thought I was going to miss all of it,” she said. “Doing things.”

Jack lifted the last bowl out of the water.

“You didn't.”

“No.” She leaned sideways against him. He leaned back, keeping his wet hands over the sink. After a moment she straightened and spread the towel on the new hook beside the oven.

The remaining chicken and potatoes fit into two containers. Maren divided the gravy, then scraped a little more into Jack's. I asked whether she wanted the meal saved for another time.

“Yes. With the extra mustard.”

“For three people?”

“Four. I like having something left.”

Jack dried his hands and reached for the chipped plate beside his keys. Maren caught the back of his shirt.

“After.”

“We've eaten.”

“Come and sit down with me.”

He left the plate where it was. They sat beside the open window, her feet across the rung of his chair. The drawing lay on the table between the places where they'd eaten.

Maren asked for their song. Jack came in too early, and she waited a beat before joining him. They used her words.

I saved the meal for four, with the longer visit and the changed quantities. Her mother's ride was complete; the timing would be easy to use again. I had no need to keep Maren's reason separately. She could always change the number.