She stood at the counter while I unpacked the containers. She didn't help. She didn't move.
"Plates?" I said.
She blinked and went to the cabinet over the sink, pulling two down.
"Hey."
She looked up.
"You don't have to entertain me. Sit. I'll plate it."
She sat.
I plated.
"Caldwell came by," she said.
She didn't lead with it. We'd eaten for a few minutes without saying much, and I'd let it be quiet on purpose—like you let a scared dog come to you instead of going to it. She'd forked the crust on her pie back and forth across the plate twice before she ate any of it. Moose had come over and put his chin on her knee, and she'd dropped her hand to his head without looking.
My fork stopped.
"When?"
"About an hour before you did."
"Here?"
"Front porch. Wouldn't come in. Said he just wanted to welcome me back."
I felt my hand close around the fork before I'd told it to, setting it down.
"And?"
She put the fork down, too, looked at her plate, and took a breath she didn't quite manage to hide.
"And he said the town can't really support two practices. He said he'd hate to see a young woman put everything she has into something that wasn't going to take."
I didn't say anything for a second.
I had three months of bringing my grandmother's dog into that man's office sitting on the back of my tongue, and the longer I sat with what he'd said to her on her front porch, the less the chicken pot pie I'd brought looked like what this kitchen needed.
I kept my voice level.
"Those were his words?"
"His words."
"And you said?"
"I said I was sure there was room."
"Good."
"It wasn'twhathe said." She was looking at the table, fingertip tracing the rim of her plate without seeming to know it. "It washowhe said it. Like he was being kind to me. Like he was warning me, but softly." She paused, then huffed something that wasn't quite a laugh. "I had a mother-in-law for six years who used that exact voice on me. Polite. Hands clasped at the waist. She'd stand in my kitchen with a glass of wine in her hand and tell me, softly, every single thing I wasn't going to be good enough at for her son. Caldwell did it for a few minutes, and it took me thirty seconds to forget I was a grown woman with a license."
My hand tightened on the fork again, and this time, I noticed it before I set it down.
"You're not a grown woman with a license," I said.
