9781250816214

“Are you?” Sophia said, and as she remembers it, she suspects she
might not have sounded very nice about it, even though she felt nice toward
the old dears. “Happy, I mean.”
“Of course,” the shopkeeper whispered hoarsely, his eyes fixed on the
clucking bird she cradled in the angle of her elbow. “Of course we are.”
Sophia hurried away, clutching their pretty red hen and their emerald
peas and their sugar-clotted dates and figs and their blue eggs and their clay
jar of cream she could bring back or not any time it was convenient for her
and their trembling and their words in her arms.
She should have answered politely, she knows better, and she curses her
own manners. She will go back tomorrow and apologize. After all, she is
happy. What is so hard about saying so, and to those who have never done
her any harm? What if this makes them surly toward her husband when he
comes to buy his coffee and his bacon? She could not bear that.
She is happy. Sophia is happy. Why could she not tell them?
She clears away the detritus of supper in silence. For a moment, she
wishes Mr. Semengelof was there to play his piano and fill her head with
something other than herself. But she remembers the actuality of Mr.
Semengelof and retracts her wish as quickly as a cat’s claws.
Sophia flows into the rituals of the kitchen. She steps up and down from
the stepstool her husband made her as she gives each object over to its
proper home. Plates in the great cabinet. Glasses in the china case. Pans to
soak in the sink. Bones in the silver pot on the stove to render into broth for
tomorrow’s soup, liquid golden fat in a jar in the icebox for tomorrow’s
frying. Nothing wasted. Nothing left out. Flatware in the drawer, knives
washed and laid out to dry, ready to be slotted neatly back into the wooden
knife block. Sophia slides the biggest blade into the biggest slot.
But it does not fit. It catches on something. The blade will not go. It
makes a sound when it finds its obstruction. A scratching and a clunking.
Sophia sets the long carving knife down on the counter and tips the knife
block over, patting the bottom like a bottle of oil to get the dregs out. The
obstruction tumbles into her hand.
It is a bone.
Brown and dry and old and small. It has not known meat or juice for
years. It must be a bit of chicken bone. I overlooked it stuck to the knife and
shoved it in, she chides herself. Lazy. Slovenly. But her heart beats fast and