“It’s very sad, of course,” I say. “We are all in mourning. But we must soldier on. The show must go on, as they say.” I smile sadly.
“Who’s going to play the King?”
“Forget the King,” I snap. “Do you really want to hobble around the stage playing an ailing, old wretch with a fistula? If I’m being honest, Ellie, I never wanted that for you. Never.”
Suddenly I can’t help but feel like my mother backstage. The way she’d look at me furiously whenever I used to get stage fright as a child, her painted smile tight. Why won’t I simply go out there and shine like we talked about, huh? Like we’d practiced so many times in the living room? Me in my fourth-grade Dorothy Gale costume and red satin shoes, my mother nodding gravely from the couch in her kimono, goblet of wine in one hand, cigarette in the other, mouthing the words along with me. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.
Outside, the sun is going behind a cloud. I watch its shadow pass over Ellie’s still-troubled face.
“Just leave all that to me, okay?” I tell her, gently now.
“Helen,” I say, “is the most important thing right now. And I really can’t think of an actress more suitable. Will you do it, Ellie?”
She’s smiling again. That grin is creeping across her face in spite of herself. It reminds me of when I first tried pork belly, the curl of my lips at the first taste of the crackling.
“Yes,” she says. “I’ll do it. Thank you. Thank you so much, Miranda.”
“You only have yourself to thank, Ellie. Really. You earned it.”
“I mean, thank you for seeing something in me. Most people—”
“Most people are idiots.”
She smiles at me gratefully.
I hop off my desk to signal the end of the meeting. Ellie takes her cue and rises from her chair. “Oh, I have something for you.”
She reaches into her canvas bag. Pulls out a plastic baggie and hands it to me.
I look at the bag of salt, punctuated hither and thither with dried pink and purple petals. Tiny green needles. Broken bits of twig. It exudes an overwhelmingly botanical scent, like I’m being punched in the face by a thousand flowers.
“What’s this?”
“Another bath. Since the others worked so well. It seems to be working wonders for you.”
I forgot I even had them. They’re funking up a drawer somewhere. A few others are stuffed with the first, in the glove compartment of my car, making it smell like a rank forest.
“It really is working wonders, Ellie. You’re a magician. You’re healing me.”
* * *
At the grocery store that evening, I weave the cart dancingly, lightly, between the aisles. Standing on my tiptoes. Standing on my heels. Sometimes jumping up on the cart, letting it sail with the forward momentum of my body. Letting one foot dangle off the edge. So fun. I say hello to all the shoppers I pass.
“Hello, hello.… How are you?… Oh, excuse me, ha ha.… Pardon. Pardon me.” Beautiful, everything so beautiful. Raspberries so red. Blueberries so blue, like the dark part of the ocean. Apples, so many varieties. I take my time thinking what’ll I buy, what’ll I have tonight? Because I’m going to cook again tonight. Something complicated and lovely, something that requires stirring, what do I feel like tasting? Last night, I made risotto. Mushroom. I stood there at the counter on legs that did not buckle, chopping the celery, the onion, the carrot. Finely, patiently, into little dice-size bites. The knife had grown dull sitting in the drawer for so long, so I sharpened it. Poured myself a glass of wine, sipped it slowly. Poured the last of my prescriptions—the benzos, the painkillers—down the sink. I hadn’t taken one for weeks, but I’d held on to them all the same, still kept them in my pockets, then in the car, then in the bathroom cabinet, just in case. Until, finally, I felt safe enough to drop them down the drain. Didn’t need them to kill anything, to numb anything anymore. Instead I could savor a single glass of wine. I could take my time. Admire the amber color, how it caught the light from the kitchen window. I soaked the dried porcini in hot water for ten minutes, witnessed the miracle of those little shriveled husks resuming their true shape. Stood at the stove stirring for twenty-five minutes, pouring the hot stock in, ladle by ladle. Watched it bubble away. Watched the pearls of rice fatten and swell. Everything transforming, coming into itself. It was beautiful. When it was all ready, I ate sitting down at the table. Sat down, stood up, sat down. Sat down. I lit a black candle. I raised my amber glass to the man in the window who was sitting at his own meal. He hesitated. But he smiled and raised his drink to me too.