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That would work.
“Are you going to…”
“Cook something?” I gathered the ingredients in my arms, placing them haphazardly on the kitchen counter. “Somethingfor sure. It’ll be cream of chicken and mushroom since that’s all we have, but I assume you’re not picky.”
More like Iknewshe wasn’t, but that didn’t stop the worry I had that she would hate what I was cooking.
“My mother loved it,” she said, her voice close to me.Again,I hadn’t heard her as I was too busy in my own feelings. “I, on the other hand, thought it was bland. Though most of what my mother cooked was bland.”
I turned to her with a smile.
“Come from a family that doesn’t like salt?”
She was about a foot away from me, and already my body craved to pull her closer. She sent me a forced smile. I realized this was the first time she talked about her parents since I met her, and maybe this was territory she didn’t want to explore at the moment.
“I don’t remember much about my mom,” I admitted. “But I did remember that she madereallygood clam chowder.”
I could still taste it in my memories. Still smelled it as it filled the house that stayed forever blurred in my memories.
All I could remember was the feeling of the house. The comfort and warmth it brought. Of the softness of my sheets.
I couldn’t remember my mother’s face or voice. Those fell away long ago. But at least this much I could remember. I tried not to let what happened to me ruin those feelings. Maybe it was a delusion or a hope that my parents weren’t as bad as Rolf told me.
“Was she the one that taught you?” she asked. “Before everything?”
I couldn’t look at her anymore for fear of what she would see on my face. For fear that the hurt, anger, and betrayal would be far too obvious. I had told her too much already. How long until she puts the pieces together?
“No,” I said as I turned to the refrigerator and pulled out the rest of what I needed. “I took… survival-like classes, though they really only teach you how to live on what you have. Nothing fancy.”
“Pity,” she said with a sigh. I looked back to see her leaning against the counter. “I would have really enjoyed a clam chowder right now.”
“Me too,” I muttered under my breath. It was such a small truth, but it felt so vulnerable spilling from my lips.
She was silent as I prepared the food, looking deep in thought. I didn’t want to intrude and just let us linger in the moment without forcing anything.
It was hard to admit to myself just how much I liked having the company.
“How much do you remember about them?” she asked. “Do you have a dad? Siblings.”
Don’t answer. This isn’t vital to the mission.
What I should be doing is going through her stuff to find the USB I knew she brought. I tried to find it when she was talking to her coworkers, but it was nowhere to be found.
She was steps ahead of me already.
“Dad, yes. Siblings, not from what I can remember. Though maybe once I was gone, they could have expanded their family. I only remember some things from them, including the smell and taste of soup and…” My throat threatened to close. “The ocean. It was cold, and I hated it.”
But the same child who screamed and cried not to go in the water was now screaming at me to return one day.
I didn’t understand it.
The ocean was cold and unforgiving. I remembered how scared I had been of it, and later, when Rolf realized my weakness, how he would force me into it as a child, kicking and screaming.
It didn’t scare me much anymore. The depths of it sure, but it was more the memories of it that haunted me. The memories of how it felt to be held down, unable to breathe, saltwater burning my eyes and throat.
“They gave me to him,” she admitted after a while.
I tried not to pause as I stirred the soup.A story for a story.
