“Here’s the deal.” She held up the peanut butter jar. “You spread this on Club crackers.” She set the jar, the crackers, and the preserves by his plate. “Then you put jelly on top of it. If you prefer—I won’t judge—you can eat the peanut butter straight from the jar. Peanut is a legume with a lot of protein. The jelly comes from fruit. It’s sweet.
“We have peaches for dessert. Go ahead, eat.”
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I’m having tuna. I have to mix it up.”
“I’ll wait for you.” He took a seat at the bar.
She hated opening a whole jar for a single meal but even sealed, mayonnaise had a limited shelf life. Wasting it would be not using it at all. Conscious of his scrutiny, she drained the tuna and emptied it into a small bowl then added mayo, dried diced onion, and lemon pepper and mixed it all together. She’d eat it with the saltines.
She got water for them both and joined him at the kitchen bar.
His nose wrinkled. “Your food has a…pungent odor.”
“Fishy,” she said. “Because it’s fish.” She scooped some tuna salad onto a cracker and took a bite. Tuna had never tasted so good. She made a note to get more from the store before she left town. She’d probably get sick of eating it, but tuna offered a great source of protein, and it would last a while. She could pick up some little packets of mayo from the diner in town.
He opened the jar of peanut butter and made a face.
“Oh—you need to stir it up. The oil separates.” She mixed it for him then scooped out a spoonful and offered it to him. The way his mouth worked reminded her of a dog eating peanut butter, lapping, lapping, lapping. She laughed.
He swallowed. “Sticky.”
“Jelly will help it slide down easier. Try the peanut butter on a cracker with jelly.”
She ate another tuna-topped saltine and watched as he prepared a cracker. He took a hesitant bite. Blue-blue eyes lit up with pleasure.
She grinned.
“This is good!”
“PB&J—the staple of children everywhere until allergies became a thing.”Shit, what if he’s allergic?She hadn’t given any consideration to food allergies. All food would be by-guess-and-by-golly with him. At least she had Benadryl in her pharmaceutical stash—assuming a human drug wouldn’t harm him.
But he’d be on his way soon, and his health and well-being wouldn’t be her problem. His impending departure depressed her more than it should. “Before you leave, we should go back to the cave. I can give you survival rations to take with you.” She knew which ones he could eat.
“I can’t carry much. I can’t use the pack I had.” He wrinkled his nose.
“I can give you a knapsack.”
“Okay, thank you, then.” He smeared more peanut butter and jelly on a cracker.
“You can take the peanut butter, too.”
“I would like that.”
She considered suggesting he stop at the diner in Big Creek and get some packets of jelly but doubted he’d know what to look for and probably couldn’t tell the diner from the bank. If he found a restaurant, he could end up with mayo, mustard, or rancid butter.
“Can you read my language?”
“No.”
“Take the jelly, too.” She hesitated to load him up with a bunch of heavy jars, but two wouldn’t be too bad. “How have you been getting food? How can you tell what’s safe for you to eat?”
“By scent, mostly. I can smell if it has meat in it.” He glanced at her empty tuna salad bowl and grimaced.
“Ready for dessert?” As she divided the canned peaches into two bowls, she heard the washing machine shut off. “The clothes are done. Can your pants go in the dryer?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
