Page 25
His attention immediately shifts to another egg and I offer, “Maybe let me…”
His eyebrows rise. I abandon the sentence. “Fine. Second attempt.”
This time he taps the shell with enough force to crack it and no more. His thumbs find the opening, and the egg drops cleanly into the bowl. He studies the intact shell halves, then looks at me.
“Better.”
“Much.”
He reaches toward the carton again, not because he knows how many eggs anyone should eat, but because cracking them has become interesting in its own right. I move the carton out of range. “Hold on. Those are breakfast, not a hobby.”
Kell looks from the eggs to the bowl. Then to me.
“You eat. I eat?”
The question stops me. Locke doesn’t need food, and he’s never shown much interest in eating for its own sake. Somehow, I carried that fact straight into this kitchen and handed it to Kell without asking whether it belonged to him.
“Well. That was presumptuous.”
“Presumptuous.”
“I assumed you wouldn’t care about breakfast because Locke doesn’t need food.”
The name gets his full attention. “Locke no food?”
“He can taste things. He just doesn’t need it.” Kell barely pauses.
“I want.”
Clearly.
“Then you get breakfast. We’ll start small and see what happens. Crack two more.”
The first one goes well. The second is nearly perfect.
“You’re a fast learner.”
He looks pleased with that. I whisk all the eggs together and pour them into the pan. Kell stays at my elbow while they cook, following every addition closely enough that I end up naming things as I use them.
“Butter. Salt. Pepper.” He repeats each word, then points when I take bread from the bag.
“Toast?”
“Not yet. Right now it’s bread.”
Kell studies the slices. “Want toast.”
“That I can do.”
I put four slices into the toaster. When I point toward the lever and mime pushing it down, Kell does so, waits approximately one heartbeat, then reaches to pull it back up.
“Leave it.”
His hand pauses. “Why?”
“Because it isn’t toast yet.” He bends enough to peer into the slots.
“You don’t have to try everything this morning.”
