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As if the dog understood me, she headed off to the kitchen. I wondered if she was going to be disappointed to learn it was the healthy dog food we sold at the clinic. Mabel and I followed her into the kitchen. Esmerelda sniffed the food with disdain, then wandered off again without eating.

“What are we having?” Mabel asked, looking around the kitchen curiously.

It wasn’t that exciting. It was your basic galley kitchen, and hadn’t been updated for a while, but it was clean and functional. I’d lived in this same apartment for years. I was long past the point where I could afford to rent something nicer or even buy a house, but for some reason I’d never gotten around to moving. It never seemed important enough to put in the effort.

“I’m making chicken pot pies,” I told Mabel. “It’s my mom’s secret recipe, with homemade crusts and fresh vegetables.”

Mabel looked impressed. “Real pot pies?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anything but the kind you get in a box.”

“You’re in for a treat then. These are nothing like those frozen ones.”

I made a salad while Mabel leaned against the counter, telling me about her day. It was nice. Domestic. By the time the salad was assembled, the pies were ready to come out of the oven. We brought all the food to the dining room and we settled at the small wooden table that I’d picked up from a thrift shop when I was still an intern. Esmerelda immediately went underneath the table to lay down at Mabel’s feet.

“She’s praying to the dog god for us to drop some food.”

I looked up with a forkful of salad halfway to my mouth. “Did you say the dog god?”

She nodded. “Yeah, humans have their own god, so I figured that dogs have one too.”

“Why can’t the human god cover the dogs too?” I couldn’t resist asking, even as I marveled at these strange conversations we seemed to have.

“Please, like the human god is going to focus on things like dropped food and slow squirrels. He’s much too busy for that.”

“But the dog god isn’t?”

She shook her head. “No, the dog god is focused solely on helping dogs.”

“Hmm.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I punctured the pie crust on my pot pie and scooped up a chunk of chicken. It immediately fell off my fork, hit the table, and rolled onto the floor. Before I took my next breath, Esmerelda had it in her mouth, chewing loudly.

“See?” Mabel said smugly. “Esmerelda put out an intention and the dog god delivered.”

Mabel

Icould tell that Joshua thought I was nuts, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. Instead, he seemed kind of… charmed. I thought of all the times I’d shared theories like my dog god theory with my ex-husband.

“You’re being ridiculous Mabel,” he’d say. “Where do you even get these crazy ideas? You need to get your head out of your fantasy world and act like a grown up.”

My ex had never appreciated my innate sense of whimsey, or the somewhat unique way I had of looking at the world. It was just who I was. He’d done his best to kill that spark inside me, but now that he was out of the picture, I was embracing myself just the way I was.

That was the great thing about being forty. I’d heard from so many of my friends that when they turned forty they’d stopped worrying so much about what other people thought, so turning forty and getting divorced in the same year was like giving myself permission to become a new person. The person I was always meant to be, even if some people found her outrageous.

I took a bite of my pot pie, gathering a piece of flaky crust with the savory ingredients inside. I moaned in pleasure.

“This pot pie is one of the most delicious things I’ve ever put in my mouth,” I told Joshua.

His eyes darkened as his gaze flew to my lips. I didn’t have to be a mind reader to follow his train of thought. Oops. I hadn’t meant that to be sexual. Joshua shook his head slightly, realizing that he was staring.

“It’s one of my favorite things to make,” he said, his voice a little gravelly.

He’d looked so at ease in the kitchen that I couldn’t help but picture us doing that every night. I’d always wanted a partner to cook with. Then I pushed that idea aside. I’d tried the happily ever after route and it hadn’t worked out for me. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again, even for a life-changing pot pie.

I looked around at his apartment. It was nice enough, but his place was smaller and more dated than I’d expected with Joshua being a doctor. Not that material things mattered to me, but this looked like the kind of apartment a man moved into right after his divorce. It was spartan and lifeless, like the kind of place you’d hang out in while you looked for a better place to live.

“Have you ever been married?” I asked him curiously.

“No.”