Page 6

If she squinted, Fiona could see it all again—the squalor, the despair, the grief.

Dirty clothing on the floor. Unmade beds. Crusty dishes in the sink. Spoiled food on the table.

By force of will, and with the help of the Munros, Fiona had managed to save her uncle, and his business, and forge a new family.

Nick, Michael, Nell, Mary, Alec, and Ian—they were her family now, hers and Seamie’s, and she could not imagine her life without every single one of them in it.

It was selfish, her wish to see Michael and Mary wed; she knew it was.

But only a little. Most of all, she wished for the happiness of two people she loved.

If they lost each other, there would be days—many of them—when they would struggle to convince themselves that what they were living was not a second-best life, pale and sad .

She knew that well enough, for she had lost the one she loved—Joe Bristow, the boy with the whole world in his smile.

They’d grown up together on the same shabby street, she and Joe.

They’d planned to marry, and dreamed of opening a shop together.

They’d scrimped and saved to make that dream come true, but one drunken night, Joe had made a terrible mistake and had smashed that dream into a million jagged pieces.

And Fiona’s heart with it. And yet, she still held him inside her broken heart.

She still talked to him in her head. Still whispered her hopes and dreams to him as she closed her eyes at night.

She knew she would never love any man the way she’d loved Joe.

There are many kinds of love , Mary had said. But Fiona knew she was wrong. There is one kind of love—true love. Everything else is a consolation prize.

“Throw the ball to me, Ian! I can catch it!”

The sound of Seamie shouting carried up from the backyard, shaking Fiona out of her thoughts. It was getting late. Ian was already home from baseball practice. Nick was waiting for her, supper had to be made and served, and her dining table was covered with papers, ledgers, and bills.

Her heart felt as heavy as a brick as she walked into the kitchen.

She didn’t know how to get Mary and Michael to talk to each other.

How to chase Milton Duffery away. How to keep her family together.

And what about Saturday’s family dinner?

Would there even be one? Milton Duffery was taking Mary out again. Who would cook it?

“How do I fix this? What do I do?” she said aloud in the empty kitchen, frustration getting the better of her, but the kitchen had no answer.

Fiona’s shawl was right where she’d left it, draped over the back of a chair.

She picked it up and was about to settle it on her shoulders when she saw that the clean dishes from last Saturday were still in the drainer and the scrubbed pots and pans were still on the stovetop.

She knew that often it was all Michael could do to get Nell fed and bathed and in her bed in a timely fashion, so she set her shawl down again and started to put things where they belonged, hoping it would make her uncle’s evening a little easier.

A few minutes later, she was nearly finished and reaching for the last thing in the drainer—an old blue-and-white striped teapot with a chipped spout.

It belonged on an open shelf, next to the cookbook, but as Fiona went to put it there, she saw that the cookbook had fallen on its side.

She stood it back up and wedged the teapot into place beside it, but as she turned to go, the book toppled over again and smacked into the teapot.

She whirled around and barely caught both objects before they tumbled to the floor.

Heart thumping, she carefully pushed the teapot back into place with one hand, and pulled the book off the shelf with the other.

She would leave it on the table to prevent it from toppling again and rearrange the entire shelf when she had more time.

But as she was about to put the book down, the title, embossed in black on the front cover, caught her eye: Mrs. Beeton’s Cookery Book .

She ran a finger over the words. You could cook the Saturday dinner , a voice inside her said.

Fiona shook her head, chuckling at the notion. She had little interest in cooking and even less interest in cookbooks. To her, balance sheets made for exciting reading, not recipes. And hadn’t Nick told her just days ago that she was a terrible cook?

“Egregious, actually,” Fiona said to herself, her eyes lingering on the book.

She was about to put it down when, without quite knowing why, she opened it instead. As she did, her eyes fell on an inscription, written in a spidery hand.

14 May 1887

For dearest Molly, on the joyous occasion of her wedding.

With love,

Aunt Margaret

Fiona caught her breath, moved by the bittersweet discovery.

The book had been a wedding gift. She pictured Molly and Michael, arm in arm after their ceremony.

Setting up their flat. Sharing their first meals as newlyweds.

Starting a life together. The young bride who’d unwrapped this book and held it in her hands, her heart so full of happiness, had no idea how short that life would be.

Nick with his paint brushes, Seamie and supper, the mountain of work awaiting her—Fiona forgot them all as she started to turn the pages.

The book had been well-loved. Its edges were bumped, its spine cracked. There were stains and splatters on many pages, and notes scrawled in margins. Double the cinnamon. Reduce baking time by ten minutes. No garlic for Alec .

“Molly also cooked for the Munros,” Fiona murmured. “They were family then, too. ”

She kept turning the pages and found recipes clipped from magazines and newspapers tucked within them, as well as advice on growing flowers and easing headaches.

There were cheerful poems about tidy homes, old friends, and new babies.

There was a business card with Michael Finnegan, High Class Grocer printed on it, a ticket stub from Coney Island, a pressed violet, a Valentine’s card, a green foil shamrock.

Mrs. Beeton’s had been more than a cookbook to Molly, Fiona realized.

It had been a scrapbook of the life she had Michael had begun to make together, and Fiona felt that she was getting to know her aunt a little through her notes and keepsakes.

She rarely asked Michael about Molly because remembering her made him so sad.

As her fingers skimmed over recipes for consommé, fricasseed chicken, and Lady Baltimore cake, Fiona felt as if Molly were in the kitchen with her, seated at the table, hands curled around a hot cup of tea, urging her to read on.

The clock chimed from Michael’s sitting room.

Five o’clock. Nick will be wondering where I am , Fiona thought. She knew she should go downstairs. She didn’t budge.

Sausages with onion gravy, lamb and barley stew, shepherd’s pie…

many of the recipes were familiar to her and brought her back to suppers with her family in London.

Her mother and countless other East London women had kept their large broods together by keeping them around the dinner table. On nothing more than a pound a week.

If they could do it, why can’t I ? Fiona wondered. All I have to do is choose a few recipes and follow them. How hard can it be ?

“Fee, come on!” a voice bellowed from the doorway. “We’re hungry!”

Fiona snapped out of her trance. “Coming, Seamie!” she shouted back. She grabbed her shawl and wound it around her shoulders.

What do I do ? she had asked despairingly, just a little while ago.

As she slipped the cookbook under her arm, then slipped out of Michael’s flat, she was certain she’d found her answer.