Page 9

Flushed, sweaty, and covered in flour, Fiona set the platter down on the kitchen table, then stepped back, hands on her hips, a triumphant smile on her face.

Nick, Alec, Ian, Michael, Seamie, and Nell all stared at the thing sitting in the middle of it, expressions of dread on their faces.

Michael was the first to speak. “What is it?” he asked.

“What do you mean, What is it ?” Fiona retorted. “It’s a roast beef!”

Michael shook his head in disbelief. “ That’s the top round I gave you? Jaysus.”

“Mind your language at the table. It’s supposed to look like that.”

Nick tilted his head, his eyes still on the charred, lopsided lump. “It’s supposed to look like a deflated rugby ball?”

“A crusty one?” Seamie said.

“That crust is called a sear,” Fiona said knowledgeably. “It locks the juices in.”

Ian pointed to the small, dark objects framing the roast. “What are those?”

“Potatoes. What did you think they were?” Fiona asked, returning to the stove .

“Chunks of coal,” Ian said, under his breath.

Fiona carried a bowl of soupy creamed spinach to the table, and then a plate of biscuits that were as flat as manhole covers. Nick picked one up and tried to take a bite of it. It was like trying to bite into a slab of marble.

“Um, Fee?” he asked lightly. “I’m curious…did you use baking soda in the biscuits or baking powder?”

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“I can’t remember. Aren’t they the same thing, roughly?”

Nick hid the biscuit under his napkin. “We’re in for it, chaps,” he whispered.

Fiona put a gravy boat on the table then sat down herself, still wearing her apron, her shirtsleeves rolled up.

She’d worked on the supper for three hours and was excited to finally serve it.

She hoped to be able to do what her mother had done.

And her Aunt Molly. And Mary. She hoped to make her family and friends feel well fed and cared for, to unite them around the table.

And the meal did unite them. Just not in the way she expected.

“Alec, would you say the blessing?” she asked.

Alec shook his head. “Not me, lass. This is a job for the pope.”

Michael shot him a look and he grudgingly put his head down and blessed the food.

When he finished, Fiona handed the carving knife and fork to her uncle. “Would you do the honors?”

Michael eyed the charred joint, took the utensils from Fiona, and took a deep breath.

He poked the prongs of the fork into one end of the roast and started to cut, but the blade slipped off the blackened crust. He tried a second time, but it slipped again, clanging loudly against the platter.

Frowning, he stood up, and like a safecracker hacksawing his way through solid steel, managed to carve off several dry, stringy slices.

He plated them, garnished each with potatoes, then passed the plates down the table until everyone had been served.

Nick served himself a spoonful of spinach, then watched as it oozed across his plate like something scooped from the bottom of a pond. He bravely took a bite, gagged, and smiled.

Seamie attempted to spear a potato with his fork, but it shot off the plate and landed in the gravy boat with a plunk.

Ian attempted to cut his roast beef, but couldn’t, so he surreptitiously picked the slice up and tried to tear off a bite with his teeth.

He pulled so hard that the meat ripped apart violently and his hand slammed down on his plate, flipping it.

It hit the vase of flowers on the table and almost knocked it over.

One by one, the diners put their forks and knives down in silent surrender.

“Fiona, lass, God love you for trying,” Michael said, “but the damn thing’s inedible.”

Fiona exhaled a long, defeated breath, her hopeful expectations for the meal congealing like cold grease. “It is a bit well-done, isn’t it?” she said.

Alec’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “Well-done? It’s incinerated!”

“I’m sure we can salvage it somehow,” Nick said stoically .

Everyone else looked terrified at the mere suggestion. They all stared at the spinach in its bowl, now turning a sinister shade of gray, at the gravy with a half-inch of grease floating on top of it.

Alec pushed his plate away. “What’s open for supper near here, then?”

“Whelan’s Ale House,” Michael replied.

“Over my dead body,” Fiona said.

Whelan’s was where she’d first found her uncle, sunk in grief, drunk and incoherent, after she and Seamie had arrived from London.

“We won’t have to go far. Whelan just moved. He’s across the street now,” Michael said.

“Did he bring his beer kegs with him?” Fiona asked archly.

“It’s not the same place it was,” Michael assured her. “Whelan got married. To a nice German lass. She cleaned things up. Cleaned Whelan up, too. They have sausages and sauerkraut now.”

“Let’s go!” Seamie piped up.

Everyone got to their feet except for Fiona. Ian and Seamie pounded down the hallway to the door. Alec was right behind them. Michael hauled Nell out of her chair and followed.

Only Nicholas lingered. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked her.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Don’t be like that, old girl. Come with us,” Nick coaxed.

“You go. I’m exhausted,” Fiona said, looking around at the colossal mess she’d made .

“Put your feet up,” Nick advised, “and don’t go near those dishes. I’ll help you with them when we get back.” As he finished speaking, his stomach let out a long, loud growl.

Fiona gave him a sympathetic smile. “Poor man. Go. Before you starve to death.”

As soon as she heard the door close, she rose and attacked the mess.

Though she was tired, she wanted to rid the kitchen of all evidence of the evening’s catastrophe.

First, she scraped everything into the trash, sighing with regret at the waste, then she stacked the dirty dishes, set the pots and pans to soak, and started to scrub.

“How on earth did Mary manage it?” she said aloud, up to her elbows in sudsy water. How had her own mother made delicious, filling suppers night after night after night?

Under Fiona’s frustration were darker, harder feelings.

She had hoped to remind her uncle how important family meals were, and talk to him afterward about approaching Mary, but she wouldn’t get the chance now.

She’d hoped to keep things from changing, but she was too late—things had already changed.

And even if she learned how to cook like a five-star chef tomorrow, what did it matter?

Milton Duffery would soon ask Mary to marry him, and the days of them all crowded around the rickety kitchen table would fade into memory.

An hour later, when everything had been washed, dried, and put away, Fiona decided to join the others at Whelan’s.

She tried to spark a little hope inside herself.

Maybe she could still find a moment to talk with Michael.

Maybe she could ask Nick to take Seamie home and walk back here with her uncle on the pretext of some business matter that needed discussing.

The important thing was to not let him think she was trying to corner him. Which she was.

Fiona took off her apron, then glanced around the kitchen to make sure she hadn’t missed a crumpled napkin or a dirty glass and as she did, her eyes fell on the cookbook, still lying open on the windowsill.

“You have a lot to answer for, Mrs. Beeton,” she said, scowling at it. Then she picked it up, meaning to put it back on its shelf, but as she started to close it, a piece of paper slipped from its pages and fell to the floor. She knelt down to retrieve the paper. It was folded in half.

“Where did you come from?” she murmured, puzzled.

When she’d first opened the book, a few nights ago here in Michael’s kitchen, she’d turned every page, and examined every memento pressed between them, curious about her aunt, eager to know her better. How had she missed this one?

As Fiona unfolded the paper, she saw that there was no photograph inside it, no ticket stub, or lacy valentine.

There were only words.

And as she began to read them, her hand came up to her heart, and tears came to her eyes.