“What’s all this?” She asks, eyes narrowing in on the bags in my hands.
I mentally shake my thoughts and plaster on my usual smile. “We’re cooking.” I hold up the bags as she takes a step back, letting me in.
“We’re…”
“That’s right, babe.” I walk past her shocked face and drop the bags on the counter. “We’re cooking dinner.”
She moves robotically beside me and watches with wide eyes as I begin to unload an onion, a carton of eggs, and a bag of flour.
I continue pulling out my grocery haul when she stands up on her tiptoes, peeking into the other bag. “What’s in this one?”
“That’s for you.”
She eyes me with that suspicious look that I’ve come to adore.
“Open it.”
I run my tongue along my molars, fighting the grin that’s trying to pull at my lips.
One of her perfectly full eyebrows quirks up as she studies it. “Mmm, I’m not really sure this is my style.”
“Put it on.”
She playfully rolls her eyes but does as I ask, draping the cotton material over her head.
“I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one.” I turn her around, my fingers making quick work of tying the strings at her lower back. I rest my hands on her hips, inhaling her soft vanilla scent that’s always laced with a hint of those damn oranges. I drop my lips to the side of her face. “This‘It’s not going to lick itself’lollipop apron was made for you,” I whisper.
Her head falls back onto my chest as she smiles with a full throaty laugh, and I can’t stop myself from wrapping my arms around her.
Admittedly, when Savannah told me she never learned how to cook, I assumed she meant she never learned how to cookwell. I know now, after witnessing her eat only takeout, s’mores flavored foods, and her beloved oranges, that she meant at all. Selfishly, though, this night is just as much for me as it is for her. Classes have been getting more intense as we approach the halfway mark of the semester, the NCAA conference tournament is approaching as well, and my dad has significantly ramped up my training schedule. The weight I feel to give my everything in multiple different directions now is beginning to feel suffocating. It’s like a boulder on my chest, holding me down under an unruly current. But when I’m with Savannah, it’s like I get to break the surface for a little while and come up for air.
Savannah spins out from my embrace and looks up at me with a gleam in her eyes and a beaming smile. It’s not her usual tight smile, the one where the corners of her lips pull down because she’s fighting like hell to hide it. No, it’s an all-out ear-to-ear smile, and an all-out shot to my heart.
“Alright.” I bring my first to my mouth and clear my throat. “You’re going to be in charge of dicing the onion,” I say, dropping the onion in her hand. “Can I trust you with a knife?”
“Probably not, but this bird has gotta fly some time right?” She shrugs.
The bird crashed and burned.
Fat tears rolled down Savannah’s face while cutting the onions. Emphasis on cut—not diced or even chopped—but cut, haphazardly, like a three-year-old working with scissors and Play-Doh for the first time. After wiping streams of tears, I propped her up on the counter where she’s been spectating since.
“Did your mom teach you how to cook?” she asks, taking a bite of a peperoncino.
Shit.My jaw tenses and I fight to keep stirring the sauce. I should have anticipated that cooking might bring up thoughts of her late mom. Whenever I make pasta sauce, I’m reminded of being a little boy, watching my mom cook in a large but mostly dark home. The majority of my meals were scarfed down in the car on the way to and from practices, but every night, I would come home to find my mom standing at the stove, stirring her sauce, while I sat at the breakfast counter. My dad and sisters would have long since been asleep. I can still clearly see the little black-and-white checkered lamp with the red shade that sat on the counter. Sometimes we would talk about our days—mostly mine. Other times, we would just enjoy each other in a comfortable silence.
I know I shouldn’t feel guilty for being able to grow up watching my mom cook, but irrationally, I’m angry that Savannah didn’t get that same chance. I don’t want to risk bringing up any more bad memories, so I continue to stir my sauce and nod my head.
“What’s she like?”
I look over my shoulder to find Savannah with one leg tucked under her, while the other dangles from the counter. She tears off a piece of bread before smashing it through a slice of butter, completely unaware of the battle I’m now having with myself.
“What’s wrong?”
Okay… maybe sheisaware.
She studies me a moment longer, something I can’t place crosses over her face and her head falls to her shoulder.
“Come here.” She reaches a hand out to me and I take her fingers in mine, moving to stand in front of her.
