Five Shadows

Chapter Twenty-Five

The day began beautifully. Barbara's internal clock seemed in sync with mine. We went for a walk right away and the cool autumn air was even better than coffee. The sun began coming up, coloring the stretchy clouds. "It's hard to beat this view, Barb." It occurred to me I'd gone from talking to mystical shadows to talking with a dog. Good thing I was able to laugh at myself.

I had texts from Gwen that she'd sent after I went to bed the previous night. There were many exclamation points. Her final text was in all caps, "I CAN'T WAIT TO MEET BARBARA! LET'S FACETIME SOOOOOOOOON!!!" I sent her thumbs up. Barbara and I played for a bit. We worked on her tricks. It turned out she was the smartest, most clever, little puppy the world had ever seen. And I told her so one hundred times. It wasn't even noon when I decided I was sick of all the Netflix shows I'd been binging. I scrolled through looking for something new, but nothing appealed to me. I finally clicked the TV off and tapped my fingers on Barbara's head for a while, wondering what to do next.

Pa's voice bounced around my empty apartment, "Focus on others, honey. Focus on others." Okaaaaay. But how? I looked around the living room at Barbara's absurd amount of toys and silently thanked Little Cut again. I snapped my fingers. "Got it. Barb? We are going to make Little Cut a thank you meal."

A quick text to Marnie and I learned Little Cut loves French Onion soup. "Well, he's in luck," I announced to Barbara, "because my French Onion soup is second to none. I ran to the market down the road and back as fast as I could. It was probably a fifteen-minute errand, round-trip, but you'd think I was gone all day, as excited as Barbara was when I got home. No wonder people loved dogs. She was quite the esteem booster. I lay out all my ingredients and breathed in. My apartment smelled heavenly: onion, garlic, all the seasoning. It transported me to a time I cooked with the human Barbara. My eyes burned with tears, and not from the onions.

I pulled myself together and took inventory. Okay. I could do this. Thankfully I hadn't thrown out all my aprons. Though both had their own emotional heaviness. I pulled out one my mom gave me when I began culinary school and the other I'd taken from her very kitchen. She'd worn it through my childhood. I stroked it, but pulled the other one out and tied it on.

I yanked the apron strings tight and felt a determination as I did so. I could do this. Cooking is what I do. I organized my ingredients and began chopping onions. My muscle memory kicked in and I didn't even have to think about the knife or the onion. I moved on to the next one. My favorite big pot was on my highest shelf where I kept all the things I couldn't bear to get rid of, but also didn't want to lay eyes on every day. I pulled a chair over and hopped up on the counter to bring it down. It was dusty from unuse. I washed it off. "Much better," I told Barbara. Her tail thumped on the ground. "You hold down the fort for a sec, I just have to go to the bathroom." She thumped again and I took that as agreement.

It was so good to be useful in the kitchen again. I could not deny how much I missed buzzing around the kitchen, tasting and smelling and creating. Most of all the creating. But cooking has always come at a price for me. And this time was no different.

Later, I would kick myself, hate myself for the fussing I did in the bathroom. The leisurely way I scrubbed my hands, investigated my forehead for wrinkles. Then I made my bed. I hadn't made my bed in years, but wasn't I ambitious that day? Never again, I swore later. Never again will I make my bed. But I did. I smoothed out the sheets, fluffed the pillows, lay my comforter perfectly on top. By the time I got back to the kitchen, the damage had already been done.

At first I didn't realize how bad things were. I registered that Barbara was on the chair I'd left by the counter from getting my pot down. I registered that there was a mess of ingredients on the floor, splayed around like a tiny tornado had whipped through with a vengeance for onions. Barbara was still munching away and looked guiltily at me when I admonished her. "Barbara! The onions?!" Half of the onions were gone and a skin hung from the dog's lip. She licked if off before her back began to arch. Constricting like a boa constrictor in reverse. I lifted her off the chair in time for her to promptly puke on the floor.