Chapter 32
The skillet smoked too hot. I pulled it off the burner, let the hiss fade, and wiped my palms on my shorts. Mom always said the pan should sing, not scream. Butter was not supposed to burn—it was supposed to melt like a secret.
She had a lot of weird sayings like that when we cooked together. I could still hear her voice even now. Especially now.
The house sat dead quiet, just the occasional low roar of the dishwasher and the distant click of the hallway thermostat kicking on. I liked it this way. No noise. No questions. No pretending.
I cracked a dozen eggs into a mixing bowl and whisked, one hand holding the bowl, the other doing the work. She’d taught me that. She’d taught me everything, really. Except how to live without her.
I didn’t think about her every day anymore. That used to make me feel guilty. But today, on Mother’s Day, she was everywhere. In the eggs. In the toast that had to be golden, not brown. In the pan. In the space between the burner and my chest.
She started to teach me to cook on my eighth birthday. I’d stood on a stool so I could see the counter. Her hands had been over mine, guiding, patient. She hadn’t yelled like Dad did. She’d just let me try.
I’d never asked her if she was okay. I hadn’t even known what it would’ve meant if she’d told me she wasn’t.
I didn’t talk about her at the Quinns’. They knew, obviously. The history. That whole wreck of a story. But I didn’t say it out loud, at least not often. Suicide still seemed like a word you had to whisper. Like if you said it too loud, it might happen again.
The bacon popped in the pan behind me. I shook the handle and cracked one more egg, just in case.
I didn’t cry and break down. She wouldn’t have wanted any of that. What she would’ve wanted was a real meal on a Sunday morning, hot coffee in her chipped orange mug, and someone taking care of her for once.
So, that was what I did. For someone else now.
Mrs. Quinn had never tried to be my mom, and maybe that was why I liked her.
She never tiptoed around me. She didn’t pity me.
She handed me a list of chores, complimented my seasoning, and reminded me to get my ass in bed when I unraveled.
So, this morning? I could at least give her breakfast.
By the time Gavin wandered in, I had plates lined up and the table halfway set.
He froze in the doorway. “Uh... you’re up early?”
“It happens,” I said.
He yawned and rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand. “You good?”
I didn’t answer that one. Instead, I motioned toward the plates. “Can you finish setting the table?”
He stared for a beat longer than necessary then nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”
Zach emerged fifteen minutes later, and Mrs. Quinn came in last, right as the coffee finished. She didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at the table. Looked at the food. Looked at me. Her eyes didn’t do the misty-mom thing. But they softened.
“I didn’t expect this,” she said, sliding into a chair.
“Didn’t want to wait for someone else to burn the toast,” I said.
“You realize you’ve outdone anything the boys can do for future Mother’s Days, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “They’ll live.”
She took a bite of the eggs and paused mid-chew. “You used the smoked paprika?”
“Figured you’d want it right.”
She nodded. “Always.”
We ate mostly in silence. Gavin talked about a test that was coming up. Zach joked about skipping class for the third time this month. I listened, hands curled around my orange juice, the morning settling around me.
Finally, I was home. And I knew it. It was a family my mom would’ve liked. Even if I didn’t say her name around them.
After the dishes were washed and the kitchen fell back into silence, the house felt too still.
I parked myself on the back deck with a cool glass of lemonade and the fading remains of a sunburn on the tops of my shoulders.
The breakfast smell had long faded, replaced by the usual suburban quiet—kids yelling in the distance, a lawnmower a few houses over.
I should have been at peace. But instead, there was still a hole waiting to be filled.
Behind me, the screen door creaked open. I didn’t turn.
“You okay?” Mrs. Quinn asked.
I nodded, though she hadn’t needed an answer. She knew I wasn’t. She stepped out onto the porch and sat in the chair next to me.
“You cooked like you were thinking about her,” she said after a minute.
“Yeah,” I said, eyes fixed on the grain of the railing. “I learned it all from her. Eggs, stews, how not to burn pancakes. Said it was the one thing no one could take away from me.”
“She sounds like a smart woman.”
“She was. She just... didn’t believe it herself most days.”
The wind tugged at a loose thread on my sleeve. I didn’t look over. Didn’t want to see pity in her eyes.
“I’ve never visited,” I said. “Not since the funeral. Not once.”
She didn’t gasp or offer a softly spoken, “Oh, Easton.” Instead, she let the words hang in the air. Then, as if she’d been waiting for me to ask but decided I never would, she said, “Want to go?”
Mom’s face circled me as I decided. “I think I’m ready.” I finally glanced over at Mrs. Quinn. She already had her keys in her hand.
The cemetery appeared smaller than I remembered. I guessed everything seemed bigger back when I was grieving and sixteen.
The gravel crackled under our shoes as we walked.
The rows of stones stood neat and unbroken.
It smelled of wet grass and death. I kept half-expecting it to be colder.
Wasn’t that what grief was supposed to feel like?
Cold? But the sun shone, warm and indifferent, like the world had the audacity to keep spinning.
I didn’t talk. She didn’t ask me to.
We stopped in front of the grave, and my breath caught when I read the words for the first time in three years.
ANNABELLE CHASE
LOVED DEEPLY. LOST QUIETLY.
“I picked that line,” I murmured. “The words. The stone was prepaid, so I didn’t get to choose much else.”
“She would’ve liked it,” Mrs. Quinn said.
“She would’ve hated it,” I said, a hollow laugh behind the words. “She’d say I was too sentimental.”
I crouched. Not all the way, but enough to touch the ceramic angel stuck into the dirt beside the grave. The paint had faded. A chip marked the edge of one wing, the broken pebbles long missing.
“I got her this,” I said. “From a gas station, believe it or not.”
“Sometimes the best gifts are the ones you buy on a whim.”
I brushed a leaf away from the foot of the stone. “She didn’t want me to know she was struggling. Not really. But she made sure I knew how to cook. Taught me how to clean up after myself. Do laundry. Plan meals. Little things, but all at once. Like she was handing me a manual for after.”
Mrs. Quinn crouched beside me. She didn’t touch the grave. Just watched. “You never have to explain her to me, Easton,” she said. “You carry her with you. Every time you cook, every time you don’t quit on someone. She’s there.”
I looked up at her. “Is that what being part of a family is? Not quitting on them?”
She smiled, but it was tired. “Sometimes. Other times it’s getting grounded because you broke curfew.”
I let myself smile. “I didn’t think I’d get handed another one,” I said. “Another family.”
Mrs. Quinn stood up slowly. “You didn’t get handed one. You showed up every day and treated the boys like they were your brothers. That’s how it works.”
I stared at the stone for a while longer. There wasn’t anything else to say. No words would undo it or make her more alive or less dead.
But I finally whispered, “I’m okay, Mom.” It was half a lie. Maybe even more. Still. Saying it felt like a step.
I stood, brushing the dirt off my hands. We walked back to the car in silence. Somehow, the good kind—where you knew the person next to you wasn’t going anywhere.