Page 8 of Hypothetical Heart
“Logan? Is Winnie with you?” Wren asks from the kitchen.
“I’m here!” I yell in return, taking my shoes off before walking through the house toward the kitchen.
“Good, good.” She wipes her hands down the front of her apron. “I made your favorite!”
“My favorite…” I trail off, racking my brain for my favorite dish of Wren’s.
All of her food is amazing, and I can’t recall a time when I favored one dinner over another.
“Your dad gave my mom all of your mom’s recipe cards last night,” Logan tells me.
There’s no way for me to comprehend the feelings coursing through my body. The one that screams that I should be upset–upset that something that was my mom’s is no longer just her’s anymore–but I can tell this is important to Wren, which makes me force those feelings away.
This is the first time anything like this has happened.
“He did what?” It’s so unlike my dad toevergive away anything of my mom’s, but Wren would have been my first choice as well.
The Callaghan family dinners and Wren’s cooking have given me a type of familiar solace since my mom died. My dad’s never been the biggest cook, not to say that he nevertried, but my brother and I really relied on Wren for the first few months after Mom’s death.
Wren getting her best friend’s recipes is the best-case scenario.
“How did you know which is my favorite?”
Wren grabs the laminated note card from the counter, holding it out for me.
I recognize the stationary instantly, remembering the way these same cards used to scatter our kitchen island when Mom would try to decide what to make for dinner.
Tears fill my eyes, seeing her familiar handwriting. When I read the title at the top, chicken parmesan, I also notice the smaller scrawl next to it:Winnie’s favorite.
That’s really what makes me lose it, and Logan wraps his arm around me, pulling me into his embrace.
There have been a lot of moments where I thought the best thing to do for my well-being was to try and forget about the fact my mom died. My brain tricks itself into thinking Mom is still here as a way of comforting itself. It’s made it so only part of me has learned to live with the fact.
But right now is one of the few moments where all of me is pushed to come to terms with reality. Mom is dead. She’s not coming back. She’s never cooking dinner for me again.
“This is crazy,” I sigh, tears soaking Logan’s sweatshirt.
It’s been nearly three years since she passed, and for the past three years, I have been avoiding everything that reminds me of her.
But seeing the way the things that were important to her could continue to live on through the people she loved makes me so happy.
“She’s been preparing this all day,” Logan tells me, his grip around my arms tightening.
I notice Wren step forward in my peripheral vision. “I didn’t overstep, did I?”
Maybe a stronger person would be upset. Maybe someone who has fully come to terms with a death would find this overstepping. I don’t.
I love Wren, and her doing this for me is more fulfilling than saddening.
I free myself from Logan’s embrace. “No, no, of course not.”
Wren sighs in relief before wrapping her arms around me and pulling me into her.
“There is no one else I would rather my dad give the recipes to,” I say sincerely. “This means so much to me, and I know my mom would be so happy.”
“I hope you know how much I loved your mom.” Wren wipes her own tears from her cheek. “I will never forget the day she told me she was pregnant with you. After she had Weston quite young, she had been waiting around for the rest of us to be ready before she got pregnant again.”
My mom had told me this story before. She was only twenty-two when she gave birth to my brother, Weston, and after that, she agreed she would have one more, and only when her friends were ready. That was five years later when the rest of her friends were all settled down.
