Kitchen — Abby Winters

Abby wasn’t cooking for anyone in particular. That was the lie she told herself as she diced onions with military precision. She was cooking because the alternative was sitting alone in the living room, scrolling through photos of friends’ engagement announcements, feeling the sharp little pinprick of a life she hadn’t quite figured out how to want—until she realized she did want it. Just not with him.

She stood over a simmering pot of tomato sauce—her grandmother’s recipe, the one written in fading ink on an index card stained with olive oil. The windows were fogged with steam. Outside, the first real snow of December was beginning to fall, thick and quiet.

Abby, on impulse, ladled two bowls of tomato soup. She tore off a hunk of sourdough and set it between them like an offering.

Abby blinked. Then, despite herself, she laughed. It came out rusty, unpracticed—like a drawer that hadn’t been opened in months.