Free The Flavours of Love by Dorothy Koomson Page A

I managed to bring them all in from the car, at which point I admitted defeat – I couldn’t take it all up three flights of stairs to her room in the loft, too. And Zane was so exhausted afterwards he could barely bring himself to complain about having fish for dinner.
    Phoebe, who I suspect was more distressed by crying in front of us than outing herself, escaped upstairs until dinner time, at which point she made it clear by the look on her face that she wanted no one to bring it up again.
    Aunty Betty was contrite and quiet for most of the evening, and even offered to wash up after dinner to show sorry she was (for upsetting Phoebe, not for tricking me into letting her move in).
    Everyone headed off upstairs at the same time and I’d sat on the edge of Zane’s bed and asked him if he could bear to keep Phoebe’s pregnancy a secret for now. ‘Too right!’ he’d replied. ‘Do you know how babies get inside? I’m not telling anyone she’s done that!’ Then added: ‘She has done that, hasn’t she?’
    ‘Yes,’ I confirmed.
    Now, I can sit at my dining table and be alone for a while. I spend a lot of time in here because it was Joel’s favourite room. Everywhere else in the house we shared the input into decorating, but here, Joeltook over. He knew exactly what he wanted – the range cooker over there, the stainless steel fridge behind me. The double sink, the rolltop edging on the white marble worktops, the shelves on the walls for the dried food, herbs and oils. The white floor tiles. It all came from his vision, his idea of the perfect kitchen for creating his culinary delights (and his many, many disasters, but we never talked about them).
    I pretend to myself I can feel him in here, sometimes. That I can see him standing at the cooker, wooden spoon in hand, turning constantly to talk to me or to catch the latest footie scores on the television on the wall behind. That I can recall him standing at the worktop, fork in hand as he mixed a batter for gluten-free blueberry muffins. I can sense him opening the fridge and staring into it, wondering what it was exactly he wanted when he went there. And I can hear him, dressed in his black Run DMC apron, singing, ‘
J-J-J-J-J’s House!
’ right before he started cooking.
    The kitchen is about more than just his cookbooks being lined up neatly next to the knife block, and a line of herbs on the window sill, or the selection of pans and utensils he’d assembled. It is about him being there, at the table, at the sink, at the stove, at the window, at the back door about to go out. I remember how he was everywhere in this house, but mostly in here. In this space that was his.
    I idly leaf through the mail. A lot of them are white or brown window envelopes containing demands for money and I can ignore them for now. These days, bills don’t cause my stomach to clench with the sheer terror of not being able to afford them, but I still don’t open them straight away. After Joel died and I spent all those months trying to sort out his ‘affairs’, I promised myself I wouldn’t let things become so disjointed and disorganised ever again. I’d keep on top of things so whoever had to sort out my ‘affairs’ had an easier time of it. I’ve let that slip.
Again
. I must get back on top of it, I must sort things out.
    Among the bills and leaflets and circulars one letter stands out. It is in a cream envelope without a postmark or stamp but addressedto Saffron Mackleroy with my full address. I turn it over in my hands, considering it. The formal nature of fully addressing it suggests the person was going to post it to but changed their mind and came all this way to deliver it from wherever they were. I assume they live a way away because otherwise, why write to me in the first place?
    The writing in blue ink is uniform but not neat, considered but a little wild. It is written in straight lines, perfectly centred on the envelope. I don’t recognise it, and very few