Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Stella woke to the smell of butter melting.
For a moment she didn’t know where she was—armchair, blanket, weak grey light through unfamiliar curtains. Then it came back. Margo’s living room. Anne with an E. Her mother falling asleep mid-episode.
The couch was empty now. The blanket Stella had draped over Fiona was folded neatly on the cushions.
Sounds from the kitchen. Cupboards opening. The soft clink of a bowl.
Stella untangled herself from her own blanket and padded toward the light.
Fiona stood at Margo’s counter in the early morning quiet, still in yesterday’s clothes, hair pulled back in a messy knot. Ingredients spread out in front of her — flour, oats, a tin of something golden, butter softening in a saucepan on the stove.
“Mum?”
Fiona looked up. Her eyes were tired but calm. Something different in her face that Stella couldn’t quite name.
“Did I wake you?”
“No. Smelled something.” Stella came closer, studying the spread. “Is that golden syrup?”
“Found it in the back of the cupboard.” Fiona held up the tin. “I’m making Anzacs. If that’s alright.”
Stella’s eyebrows rose. “Anzac biscuits? You haven’t made those in years.”
“I know.”
“Nana’s recipe?”
“The only one worth making.”
Stella stared at the assembled ingredients. The oats, the coconut, the butter starting to glisten in the pan. She hadn’t seen these things together since before the twins. Since before everything changed.
“Can I help?”
Something flickered across Fiona’s face. “I’d like that.”
They worked side by side as the kitchen slowly warmed, the sun rising outside Margo’s window. Fiona talked her through each step — the way Stella dimly remembered from years ago, from a time when her mother had time for things like this.
“The butter and syrup have to melt together completely. See how it’s getting that amber color?”
“Yeah.” Stella stirred carefully, watching the gold deepen. “Nana always said you could tell a good Anzac by the color of the butter.”
“She did. She was very particular about her Anzacs.” Fiona measured bicarb into a small bowl. “She was very particular about everything, really.”
“I remember. Sort of.” Stella kept stirring, reaching for memories that felt fuzzy at the edges. “She always smelled like lavender and she had that drawer full of butterscotch candies that she pretended she didn’t have.”
“That drawer.” Fiona smiled and shook her head. “She thought she was so sneaky. Your grandfather found her stash once and replaced all the butterscotches with individually wrapped Brussels sprouts. She didn’t speak to him for three days.”
Stella laughed, surprised by it. “That sounds like Pop.”
“It was very much Pop.”
They added the bicarb to the butter mixture, watching it foam up in a way that felt almost magical. Stella remembered this part — the transformation, the chemistry of it. Her mother’s hands guiding hers.
“Not too close,” Fiona said as Stella shaped dough balls onto the tray. “They spread.”
“I remember.” Stella placed another one carefully. “That time you made them for my class and they all merged into one giant cookie.”
“That was a disaster. Your teacher was very polite about it.”
“She ate like four pieces. Said it was ‘efficient baking.’”
They slid the first tray into the oven. The smell of butter and oats and coconut filled the small kitchen, and Stella felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time. This was familiar. This was before.
Fiona leaned against the counter, watching Stella shape the second batch.
“You’re good at this,” she said quietly.
“I learned from you.”
“Did you?”
Stella looked up. Something was different about her mum this morning. She couldn’t name it, but it was there.
“Yeah,” Stella said. “You used to cook with me all the time, remember? Before—” She stopped.
“Before the twins.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” Fiona picked up a stray oat, rolled it between her fingers.
“I know I disappeared. After they were born. I told myself I was managing. Juggling. Keeping all the balls in the air.” She looked at Stella.
“But some of those balls were people. And people notice when you stop catching them.”
Stella didn’t say anything. Kept shaping dough. Waiting.
“I’m sorry,” Fiona said. “I’m sorry I stopped cooking with you. Stopped teaching you things. Stopped—” Her voice caught slightly. “Stopped seeing you.”
“Mum.”
“Let me finish. Please.” Fiona took a breath.
Steadied herself. “I’ve spent my time here being angry and scared and convinced you were making a terrible mistake.
And then I saw your photographs and I realized — you’re not making a mistake.
You’re not running away from something. You’re running toward something. Toward people who see you.”
Stella set down the dough. Her hands were shaking slightly.
“I talked to your father,” Fiona said. “Yesterday, after seeing your art.”
Stella went very still. “About?”
“About stopping the fight.”
The kitchen was quiet. Just the hum of the oven, the distant sound of birds waking up outside.
“I’m not going to drag you home,” Fiona said. “I’m not going to make you choose. You’ve already chosen, and I need to respect that.”
Stella felt her throat tighten. Felt the thing she’d been bracing for — the conditions, the negotiations, the but what about — and realized it wasn’t coming.
“I’m going to sign the papers,” Fiona said. “The guardianship transfer. Before I leave.” Her voice was steady now. Certain. “You’re staying. With my blessing. Not because I gave up — because I finally understand.”
Stella pressed her hands flat on the counter. The way she always did when she was trying to hold herself together.
“I thought—” she started. Her voice came out wrong. Too small. “I was so scared you’d never—”
“I know.” Fiona’s eyes were wet. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”
The oven timer beeped. Neither of them moved.
Stella had imagined this moment. In the weeks since she’d decided, she’d pictured a hundred versions of it — her mother angry, her mother resigned, her mother guilt-tripping her into coming home. She’d prepared arguments. Defenses. Reasons.
She hadn’t prepared for this.
For her mother just... letting go. Choosing to let go.
“Stella.” Fiona’s voice was smaller now. Almost hesitant. “Will you come home for Christmas? To visit, I mean. Just visit. The twins miss you, and I—” She stopped. Swallowed. “I’ll miss you. I already miss you.”
Stella looked at her mother. At the tired eyes and the messy hair and the flour on her sleeve. At the woman who had flown across the world to fight for her and was now choosing not to fight at all.
“Yeah,” Stella said. “Yeah, Mum. Of course I will.”
“You don’t have to. I know you have a life here now, and I don’t want you to feel obligated—”
“Mum.” Stella came around the counter. “I want to. I want to see the twins, and Pop’s grave, and—” She smiled, shaky. “I want you to teach me the pavlova. The good one, not the terrible one.”
Fiona laughed—a wet, surprised sound. “Pop’s pavlova was terrible.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true. Tasted like sweet cardboard.” She wiped her eyes. “But he was so proud of it.”
“Then teach me how to make a good one. And we’ll pretend it’s his recipe.”
“He’d approve of that.”
“He absolutely would.”
The oven timer was still beeping. Stella reached over and silenced it while Fiona pulled out the first tray, hands steady now, the biscuits perfectly golden. Edges crisp, centers slightly chewy.
“These are perfect,” Stella said, leaning in to smell them. “Gosh, these are perfect.”
“They’re Nana’s recipe.”
“They’re your recipe now. You’re the one who makes them.”
Fiona stared at the tray for a long moment. Then she set it down and turned to face Stella.
“When you come at Christmas, I’ll have Nana’s recipe box ready. The whole thing. All the cards with her handwriting.”
Stella’s eyes burned. “Really?”
“She would have wanted you to have them. You’re the one who cooks now.
” Fiona reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind Stella’s ear — the same gesture she’d made a thousand times when Stella was small.
“And when you come at Christmas, we’ll cook through the whole box together.
Everything she taught me. Everything I should have taught you. ”
“Deal.”
They finished the second batch in silence. Two trays of perfect golden biscuits cooling on the counter, the kitchen warm with butter and coconut and something that felt like peace.
Stella hugged her then. Sudden and fierce, the way she used to hug when she was small, before she learned to hold herself back.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For biscuits?”
“For letting me go.”
Fiona held her tighter. Stella felt her mother’s breath catch against her hair.
“That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Fiona whispered back.
“I know.” Stella pulled away just enough to look at her. “That’s why it matters.”
They stood in the warming kitchen, surrounded by flour and butter and the smell of something baking, holding onto each other and letting go at the same time.