Margen
The first time it was salt. 'Just a little, if you have some,' she said, her fist closed like a nest. Then an egg. Then an onion, two bay leaves, a splash of white wine she carried off in an old Nutella glass.
Always Thursdays, always the same time, always a single thing. I had been living alone since March, and some weeks that door was my only conversation without a screen in between.
Yesterday she knocked and asked for nothing. She was wearing her apron. 'It's ready,' she said.
On her table, set for two, steamed a stew made of all my Thursdays: my salt, my egg, my bay leaves, my glass of wine. 'I didn't know how to invite you,' she said, 'so I invited you piece by piece.'
We ate slowly. It was good. Above all, it tasted of the ten weeks it had taken her to dare.
On my way out she handed me a folded piece of paper: the recipe. The last ingredient on the list was me.