This wins a half-hearted smile. He tosses a rock toward the water. “Yes. That is unfortunately the story of my days—not working.”
“What are you not working on?”
“A novel.”
“Really.” I look toward the house on the cliff. “You must be a very successful writer to live in that house.”
“It was my wife’s. She was an actress.”
I’m intrigued, drawn in by the pearlescent details he brings out. “Hmm. Does that mean you met on set? Are you famous, Mr. Not Working?”
“No. We met because she wanted to make the movie of one of my novels, but it never came to fruition.”
“Now you have to tell me your name.”
He meets my gaze. A lock of hair falls in his eye. “Ayaz.”
I repeat it, to remember. “Ayaz.”
“And what am I to call you?”
I take in a breath, feeling the freshness all through my lungs, and let it go. I think of oysters and grit. “Call me Maya.”
“All right, Maya.” He eyes the water, creeping ever higher. “I believe I shall now make my escape. And so should you.”
We stand, and just for a minute, I don’t want to turn away. Something about his sadness draws me in.
But I lift a hand. “See you around, Ayaz.”
My bare feet make wet marks across the patio, and I smell something baking as I push open the door. Meadow is awake. She’s playing light Celtic music through the Bluetooth speakers, and her hair is swept up into a messy bun. I see gray streaks in the hair of her nape. “Good morning,” she calls, busily chopping. “Did you work up an appetite?”
“I thought you’d left,” I say, and point to the bowl on the counter. “I was going to make artichokes.”
“For breakfast?”
“Why not?”
“It’s too early for local artichokes. They must be imported from Mexico,” she comments. “Sorry, not judging. Just observing.”
Snapping annoyance rises up my spine. As if he knows it, Cosmo rockets out of the salon and dives into my ankles, all squishy adorability, and looks up at me with the worshipful gaze only a dog can offer. His little mouth smiles widely. What can I do? I bend down and scoop him up, kissing his nose as he wiggles and licks my face. Irritation subsides. “Rory and I were talking about the elaborate scheme Dad set up to get us to eat artichokes, and I got a heavy craving.”
“Your dad didn’t do that,” she says, slicing a chunk of cheese from a block and handing it to me, high above Cosmo’s eager nose. “I did.”
I break off a tiny bit of cheese and give it to him, popping the rest in my mouth.
“You shouldn’t feed him anything except in his bowl,” Meadow says.
“Right. I notice how well you follow that rule.”
She shrugs.
The easy green globes of artichokes gleam in their blue bowl. “I mean, yes, you grew the artichokes, but Dad was all about making it into this big thing.”
“Nope.” Calmly, she scores an orange. “It was my idea.”
I feel a ping somewhere in my body, a recognition, and I pause, reaching back through time to find the memories. The fenced garden, the way my father teased us with the adult nature of artichokes. Meadow is nowhere, but that’s impossible. “You have to be right,” I exclaim. “My dad never grew a single thing in his life. Why do I remember him at the middle of it?”
A small, wistful smile touches her mouth. “Because he was Augustus, I suppose.”
Cosmo squirms to get down and I let him go, glancing toward the doors that lead to the pool, which are closed. “Yeah.”
“He was a big personality,” Meadow comments. She drops a handful of thinly sliced red peppers into a pan and they sizzle.
It smells great and my stomach growls in anticipation, but I also feel a weird tenseness in my neck. Still. I wish, very badly, to be completely alone. Rehab was such a crush of people, all the time.
To be honest, I am also a little afraid of myself, of what I might find—do—if I’m alone. At least Meadow means well, and just wants to take care of me. I should let her. “What are you making?”
“Herbed biscuits and scrambled eggs with chives and parsley.”
My stomach growls so vividly in approval that Meadow laughs. “I’ll make you a fresh cup of coffee.”
Her cooking is a tsunami of love. I give in to it, sinking into a chair at the island to watch her cook. She’s plump now, an hourglass sort of plumpness that is perfect for two little granddaughters to curl into. The kettle has been held at a simmering temperature, and she pours hot water into a french press. “These are some beans from the Brewed Bean,” she says.