Page 24 of Clever Little Thing

“Whatever you want,” Irina said, pulling out some crochet hooks, not the plastic kind. These looked like steel, antique. “Long ago, I learn with these same hooks,” Irina said. “Belong to my mother’s mother’s mother.” The two of them moved into the living room and settled onto the sofa. Stella seemed absorbed in Irina’s instruction.

As Stella’s needle found a rhythm, the phrasemother’s mother’s motherrepeated in my head. The nausea was gone, and the most ordinary sensations felt luxurious. I went upstairs and got into bed, and the sheets had never felt so soft, as if they’d been hand-washed in a stream and dried in the sun.

•••

When I woke up, it was 6:30 p.m. I panicked at the realization that I hadn’t started dinner yet, but then I heard Irina and Stella murmuring in the kitchen. The sound of chopping followed, the click of the gas igniting on the stove. I dozed. Still later, a smell crept into the room: rich and savory, better than any scent that you could buy.

I followed the smell to the kitchen. Irina stirred something in my Le Creuset Dutch oven, a wedding gift I hadn’t used in years. “Gomgush,” she announced incomprehensibly, her cheeks pink from the heat. “Special banquet stew.”

I knew then what that rich, savory smell was. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Stella should have told you. We don’t eat—” Then I stopped. Stella was laying the table with cutlery and napkins. She folded each napkin into a careful triangle. I smelled mint, maybe, andpaprika. Something about it was familiar, like it was the home cooking of my childhood, although in my actual childhood, Edith had merely opened tins and packets. The kitchen felt cozy, with steam-clouded windows. Would it hurt if Stella ate meat this once? This was better than scarfing cold french fries behind her closed door. On the table was Stella’s crochet project, a cream-colored doily, already half-finished. Didn’t she learn to crochet only a couple of hours ago? “That’s amazing,” I said.

“Beginner work,” Irina corrected me. Stella appeared unbothered by this criticism, which was weird because she’d grown up having me say, “Good job,” even if all she did was go down the slide.

“Irina says I won’t win the contest of the seven beauties,” Stella said as Irina carried the pot to the table.

I was confused. “A beauty contest?”

“Crochet,” Irina corrected. “Girls must try to crochet the best stockings in shortest time.”

“Ah, that’s…”

“Now eat,” Irina said. Stella sat down, and I suddenly realized what governed whether she would sit at the table for a meal: Irina’s presence. But I would puzzle this out later—for now I focused on the miracle of Stella eating stew. She was gobbling it up. I ate the carrots out of my serving as I looked on.

“Now she grow,” said Irina with satisfaction. I smiled at her. I wasn’t about to start eating meat, but maybe I could work a little harder to make home-cooked food and to make dinner special. We relied too much on readymade food from our favorite gourmet shop. It was decent quality, but it had no soul. Was that why Stella would no longer eat at the table when it was just the two of us?

I heard the front door opening, and then Pete came in, looking tired but handsome with a five o’clock shadow. For a moment I regretted making our downstairs into one huge room, because there was no hallway in which I could intercept him and explain what was going on.

“Baby, I can’t believe you’re back already!” I went to hug him. “This is Irina, Blanka’s mother.”

Irina stood, wiping her hands on the tea towel she had tucked into her waistband as an apron. She shook hands. Pete was about a foot taller than her. Irina had wiped her brow at some point and smudged her right eyebrow. I felt a pang for her.

“Hello, Stella Bella,” Pete said, and Stella got up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, and stood in front of him as if expecting a hug. Pete stared at her for a minute and then put his arms around her. Our eyes met: This was a miracle, she never submitted to hugs. But also, what was Irina doing here? And why was our daughter eating meat? We’d always been lucky that we were a couple who could communicate everything with their eyes.

“Excuse us a minute,” I said to Irina. I followed him upstairs into our bedroom, where he opened his suitcase and pulled out the various zippered pouches in which he kept his stuff organized when he traveled.

I sat on the bed. “I thought the meeting was this morning. How are you back already?”

“Nathan persuaded the key players to meet us for golf on Sunday instead.”

“How was it?”

“Good,” said Pete firmly. “It’s great we touched base with them,but we need to circle back and confirm the key deliverables.” When Pete took a work trip with Nathan, he always talked like this afterwards.

“Sounds like they want to do a deal! That’s amazing.”

“We’re moving in the right direction,” Pete said.

“Cautiously excited, I get it,” I said.

Pete scratched at his beard. “Stella eating meat?”

“Irina made the stew,” I said, “and Stella seems to love it, so I decided to let her have it this once. You know, she had that day where she didn’t eat, so I really want her to eat.”

“Fine,” Pete said. “It’s dead now, I guess. Do you think this visit is a little—well, odd? We don’t know her, but all of a sudden, she’s making dinner in our kitchen?”

“I felt sorry for her. Well, yesterday that was why she came over.”

“She was here yesterday as well?” He emptied the dirty-laundry pouch into the hamper. “You’re seeing quite a lot of her.”

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