alternated between checking the job’s progress and checking the shortbread. She’d rolled it pretty thin so it would burn quickly if not carefully monitored. The bottom was a golden brown, the top just barely beginning to darken when she pulled the tray from the oven. The aroma filled her nostrils, and without warning tears spilled down her cheeks.
The apartment smelled like Grammie’s kitchen. She’d died the year before Jesse, and they’d agreed they’d bake her cookies in her memory each year. But Jesse died too early in the holiday season to bake Christmas cookies, and while his mother insisted on a big baking party “for the grandkids,” Thea stayed home, in their darkened house.
The tears welled up and trickled down her face while she slid the waxed paper onto the counter to cool enough to frost, but it was as if her eyes were completely detached from the rest of her body. She breathed normally, no sighs or sobs or gasps, but the tears kept coming, so she found a spot in the living room where she couldn’t see the shortbread or the stacked presents and sat on the floor to wait out the tears.
Time passed. How much, she wasn’t sure, but the scent faded as the cookie cooled. The storm outside continued unabated as she got to her feet and went about dotting the holly berry imprints with a dab of red frosting, tracing the stems of the ivy with just enough green to give the whole thing a hint of color and texture. And all the while, tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped them away with her sleeve, working steadily. When she finished she laid another sheet of waxed paper over the decorated top, then carefully placed the whole thing in a long, flat Tupperware storage container and sealed it for the trip to the church.
She pulled her earbuds out to wash her hands and face. Sirens rose and fell in the swirling snow, filtered through her windows and sank into her empty, aching head. Ronan. His parting words at Idylle surfaced through the dark void.
You keep trying to drown this out. I’ll keep doing my thing, but I’m not going to help you go under.
So determined. But, she thought as she looked at her pale face in the mirror, the only color her red-rimmed eyes, she was barely hanging on at the end of each day. How on earth could she possibly get involved with a man like Ronan? He’d been through so much, and stood on the opposite shore with grace and courage and resolve. He deserved more than a woman who couldn’t handle making a simple shortbread recipe without losing it entirely.
Never in a million years had she thought he’d get attached to her. On St. Patrick’s Day she saw a pack of men in uniform, drinking, prowling, and she’d taken her therapist’s advice and met someone new. Her therapist had in mind coffee or maybe a lunch date, but Thea couldn’t imagine sitting across a table from a man, searching for small talk in the void. She could, however, imagine a far more primitive need: sex. Small talk emerged from the front of the brain. Sex came from the reptile brain, the stem that governed the most basic functions of life. Food. Fight. Fuck. That’s all she had in her, all she wanted from Ronan. All she had to give.
It was all she’d ever have to give.
And it wasn’t fair to him. This had to end, before he got hurt again. Tomorrow, after he’d delivered the presents to the soup kitchen, she would end this.
Chapter Six
December 22nd
Thea needed three trips with both of the building’s luggage carts to haul the presents to the lobby. She left them and Ronan’s full name, rank and detailed description with the doorman, then hurried with her shortbread to the subway stop to catch a downtown train. The Open Table weekly soup kitchen was hosted in the basement of a church on Park Avenue near Eighty-Sixth Street. Most of the buildings in this upscale neighborhood cleared their sidewalks promptly, the gray-coated doormen looking like any other suburban homeowner as they blew the snow into mounds
The apartment smelled like Grammie’s kitchen. She’d died the year before Jesse, and they’d agreed they’d bake her cookies in her memory each year. But Jesse died too early in the holiday season to bake Christmas cookies, and while his mother insisted on a big baking party “for the grandkids,” Thea stayed home, in their darkened house.
The tears welled up and trickled down her face while she slid the waxed paper onto the counter to cool enough to frost, but it was as if her eyes were completely detached from the rest of her body. She breathed normally, no sighs or sobs or gasps, but the tears kept coming, so she found a spot in the living room where she couldn’t see the shortbread or the stacked presents and sat on the floor to wait out the tears.
Time passed. How much, she wasn’t sure, but the scent faded as the cookie cooled. The storm outside continued unabated as she got to her feet and went about dotting the holly berry imprints with a dab of red frosting, tracing the stems of the ivy with just enough green to give the whole thing a hint of color and texture. And all the while, tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped them away with her sleeve, working steadily. When she finished she laid another sheet of waxed paper over the decorated top, then carefully placed the whole thing in a long, flat Tupperware storage container and sealed it for the trip to the church.
She pulled her earbuds out to wash her hands and face. Sirens rose and fell in the swirling snow, filtered through her windows and sank into her empty, aching head. Ronan. His parting words at Idylle surfaced through the dark void.
You keep trying to drown this out. I’ll keep doing my thing, but I’m not going to help you go under.
So determined. But, she thought as she looked at her pale face in the mirror, the only color her red-rimmed eyes, she was barely hanging on at the end of each day. How on earth could she possibly get involved with a man like Ronan? He’d been through so much, and stood on the opposite shore with grace and courage and resolve. He deserved more than a woman who couldn’t handle making a simple shortbread recipe without losing it entirely.
Never in a million years had she thought he’d get attached to her. On St. Patrick’s Day she saw a pack of men in uniform, drinking, prowling, and she’d taken her therapist’s advice and met someone new. Her therapist had in mind coffee or maybe a lunch date, but Thea couldn’t imagine sitting across a table from a man, searching for small talk in the void. She could, however, imagine a far more primitive need: sex. Small talk emerged from the front of the brain. Sex came from the reptile brain, the stem that governed the most basic functions of life. Food. Fight. Fuck. That’s all she had in her, all she wanted from Ronan. All she had to give.
It was all she’d ever have to give.
And it wasn’t fair to him. This had to end, before he got hurt again. Tomorrow, after he’d delivered the presents to the soup kitchen, she would end this.
Chapter Six
December 22nd
Thea needed three trips with both of the building’s luggage carts to haul the presents to the lobby. She left them and Ronan’s full name, rank and detailed description with the doorman, then hurried with her shortbread to the subway stop to catch a downtown train. The Open Table weekly soup kitchen was hosted in the basement of a church on Park Avenue near Eighty-Sixth Street. Most of the buildings in this upscale neighborhood cleared their sidewalks promptly, the gray-coated doormen looking like any other suburban homeowner as they blew the snow into mounds
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