Page 35 of The Orc’s Comfort

“He knows how to be in a room with someone and still be entirely alone. He’s been doing it for eight years. Don’t let him.”

He leaves.

I sit with that for a while. Then I reach for my phone. There’s a text from Eliza already waiting: Committee confirmed for the 21st. Harrison wants your presenter bio by Friday. Please tell me you have one.

I type back: I have one. Give me an hour.

Then I open a new message. Are we still on for tonight? I type. I thought I might cook.

The three dots appear. Disappear. Reappear.

I would be honored. May I bring anything?

Just yourself. And maybe a little patience. My kitchen skills are not what yours are.

His reply comes after a moment.

Patience I can provide.

Should I also bring emergency provisions?

I laugh out loud.

That’s rude.

Preparedness is not rudeness.

You think this is going to be that bad?

The dots appear almost immediately this time.

I think you are trying something difficult because it matters to you. Those attempts deserve backup plans, not criticism.

I smile despite myself.

Come hungry anyway.

Always.

I set the phone down and look at his grandmother’s recipe, perhaps her most cherished possession, written first in his native language, with the English translation in a separate column. Every measurement exact.

I pick it up and carry it to the kitchen.

Chapter Fifteen

Julia

I start at two in the afternoon.

This seems reasonable until I actually look at the recipe, which has seven spices, three stages, and a note in the margin in his handwriting, added after the original in slightly different ink, that says simply: patience is the ingredient most people forget.

I read it twice. Then I order groceries.

By four o’clock, my counter looks like a specialty food store unpacked itself across my kitchen. Bone broth, the right parsnips, seven spices sourced from three different places because two of them apparently aren’t the kind of thing a normal grocery store carries. And the volcanic salt substitute he mentioned once in passing, which I tracked down through a specialty delivery service, paid an embarrassing amount for, and spent forty minutes anxiously refreshing the tracking page until it arrived.

I know what I’m doing. Approximately.

The cast-iron pot is the first problem. It lives in the bottom cabinet, and it’s heavier than I remember. My wrist objects the moment I shift my grip. For one hopeful second, I think I’ve got it. Then my bad ankle rolls slightly on the kitchen mat. I lurch into the counter, catching myself with my hip. The bag of flour tips sideways, splits against the edge of the counter, and erupts over every surface within a three-foot radius.