Molly O'Keefe - Baby Makes Three

The foyer still had the cut-glass vase filled with overblown pink roses in it—she’d always loved putting it there—and the walls were adorned with their photos. Black-and-white shots from their various trips. Those were the pictures Charlie had referred to. Gabe was in some of them, standing next to the Vietnamese fisherman and the Mexican grandmother who made the best tortillas he’d ever tasted.

What is she doing with these still on the wall? He wondered. He’d emptied all his frames of her, his wallet and photo albums. Looking at his apartment, you’d never guess he’d been married. Looking at her house, you’d never guess she’d been divorced.

He stalked through the house and turned right toward the kitchen, resisting the urge to check out the family room and the back lawn.

More roses sat on the kitchen table. These were fresh, bright yellow buds still.

The kitchen was spotless. Their expensive renovation still looked modern and elegant, such a reflection of his wife.

Ex-wife. Ex.

An image—one of the few to have survived the war between him and Alice—came and went like smoke in sunshine.

The memory was of a random night—a Wednesday or something in March—when nothing special was happening. Alice had come home late from shutting down the restaurant and he’d woken up while she showered. He’d waited for her in this kitchen, dark but for the bright panels of moonlight that lay over the furniture like a sheet. She’d walked in wearing a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else.

She’d smelled sweet and clean. Powdery. Her hair a dark slick down her back. Her lithe body taut and graceful, her skin rosy and fresh.

“You’re better than sleep,” she’d said to him, pressing a kiss to the side of his neck, just south of his ear. He’d touched her back, found those dimples at the base of her spine that he’d loved with dizzying devotion.

And then they’d made slow, sleepy lazy love.

It surprised him at odd times when it seemed as though his Alice years had happened to someone else. When he thought he’d finally managed to put it all behind him.

But looking at his former kitchen, the memory ambushed him, rocked him on his heels and had him struggling for breath that didn’t taste of his ex-wife.

He tore open the maple cabinets, as if he could tear that stubborn memory out of his brain. But in cabinet after cabinet he only found empty shelves. Which was not at all like her. She used to say that having an empty pantry made her nervous. If there wasn’t pasta, garlic and olive oil on hand at all times she wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.

Something in his gut twinged. Remorse? Worry?

No, couldn’t be. He was divorced. Papers, signed by both of them, exonerated him from worry and remorse.

But his gut still twinged.

He pulled open the cabinet above the fridge only to find it fully stocked with high-end liquor.

No need for the Beaujolais.

Another cabinet over the chopping block was filled with freeze-dried noodles and cereal.

Charlie’s small stake in the kitchen.

Something warm and fluffy brushed up against his ankles and he looked down to find Felix, their French cat. Another thing she’d gotten in the divorce.

“ Bonjour, Felix,” he said with great affection. The gray-and-white cat wasn’t really French—he was south-side Albany Dumpster—but they considered him so due to his love of anchovies, olives and lemon juice.

Gabe opened the fridge and found enough anchovies and expensive olives soaked in lemon juice to keep the cat happy for aeons.

He pulled out a slick, silver fish and fed it to the purring cat. “What’s happening here, Felix?” he asked, stroking the cat’s ears.

During their last big fight, Alice had told him that she would be better off without him. Happier. And he’d jumped at his chance for freedom, relieved to be away from the torture they constantly inflicted on each other.

But, as he looked around the home that hadn’t changed since he’d left, he wondered if this empty kitchen was really better.

Is this happy?

He stopped those thoughts before they went any further. That cold part of himself that didn’t care about her happiness, that only cared about creating the life he needed, the dream that had helped him survive their divorce, slid over him, protecting him from any reality he didn’t want to see.

SHE STUCK AROUND way after her shift, even went so far as to contemplate sleeping in the front corner booth in order to avoid Gabe.

Maybe he’s left, she thought hopefully. She longed for her home, her couch. Her scotch.

Her promise not to drink had evaporated in the heat of Gabe’s smile. She needed a drink after today. She’d barked at Trudy—who only ever tried to be kind to her, even when she was a nag—she’d burned her hand and screwed up two tables of food. And now, as penance, she mopped the tiled floor around the stainless steel prep table as if her life depended on it.

Maybe I should not be a chef, she considered. Maybe she could get into the cleaning profession. Work in one of those big high-rises after hours.

She imagined going back to her home and telling Gabe that she couldn’t be his chef because she was making a career change.

She almost laughed thinking about it.

“Alice?” Darnell poked his head out of the back office that adjoined the main prep area. “Can I speak to you a minute?”

She set the mop back in the bucket and propped it against the wall, making sure it wouldn’t slip, and stepped into the minuscule manager’s office.

“Go ahead and shut the door,” Darnell said from behind the cluttered desk. She had to move boxes of recipe and conduct manuals out of the way in order to shut the door that, as long as she’d been here, had never been shut.

She guessed Trudy had tattled. Again.

“Have a seat.” He gestured to the one folding chair beneath the giant white board with the schedule on it. She had to move a stack of staff uniforms in order to sit.

“If you wanted me to clean your office, Darnell, you could have just asked.” She thought it was a joke, but Darnell didn’t laugh. His brown eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses were stern and a little sad.

Maybe she’d have to up the apology to Trudy. She could buy drinks for the whole staff after work sometime. That should put her back in everyone’s good graces.

“What are you doing cleaning the kitchen?” he asked. “Did you, by chance, not notice the staff we have for that?”

“I was just helping out,” she said. “I’m a team player.”

His mouth dropped open in astonishment for a brief moment, and then he sat back, his chair creaking. “I can only guess you’re kidding.”

She sighed, pulled off her hairnet and yanked out the clasp that held her hair back. She scratched at her scalp. If she was going to get lectured, she was going to do it in some comfort.

“Do you want to be a chef here?” Darnell asked.

No. “Of course.”

“Is that why you show up late, take too many coffee breaks—”

“Everybody does that.”

“And order your coworkers around?”

“No, I just do that for fun.”

“Trudy doesn’t think it’s fun,” he said through pursed, white lips. “I don’t understand why you pick on her. She’s the nicest—”

That’s why Alice picked on her. Nice made her feel mean. Kindness hurt. “I’ll apologize—”

Darnell leaned forward on his desk. “I hired you based on your reputation and the few amazing meals I had at Zinnia.” Her gut clenched at the name of her failed restaurant, her baby, her reason for living after Gabe and she ended. “I thought you’d make this franchise something special.”