Page 83 of Torin

I laugh.

He puts the potato down. “Usually, I just eat in the forest, but Torin told me to feed you.”

I get a little pang in my chest. “What is it?” I ask, indicating the meat.

“Deer.”

“You hunted it?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a touch of pride in the way he says it.

I glance from the venison to the potatoes.

“I’ll cook.”

“You sure?”

“Very.”

He considers that, then steps away from the counter. “Tell me what to do.”

I find a peeler in one of the drawers and hand it to him.

“Start with those.”

He takes the sack of potatoes over to the sink while I see what else I can find.

There’s butter in the fridge. Garlic. Carrots. A bunch of rosemary wrapped in damp paper. Better than I expected.

By the time I’ve chopped the onions, Orson has peeled half the sack.

“You know there are only two of us, right?”

He looks down at the pile. “You said peel the potatoes.”

I laugh. “I did. Maybe stop now though.”

He drops it back into the sack.

I get the venison browning while he chops the carrots. He doesn’t ask why I want anything done a certain way. I tell him what size, he cuts it that size. I ask for the rosemary, it appears beside my hand.

“You’re very good at following instructions.”

“Torin trained me.”

That makes me laugh again.

Orson slides the last of the potatoes into the roasting tin.

“How’d you learn to cook?” he demands.

“My mom taught me.”

The answer comes automatically, and for a moment, I can see her hands instead of mine. Her wedding ring flashing as she showed me how to hold a knife, then taking it away again because apparently nine-year-old me was trying to remove a finger along with the onion.

A memory so ordinary it hurts.