Free MacAllister's Baby by Julie Cohen Page B

professional in the classroom as he was in his kitchen.
    ‘Okay, open your eyes,’ he said. ‘Danny, what’s your best meal?’
    He always started with Danny. If you didn’t listen to Danny first, he just burst in anyway. The boy had a compulsive need to be noticed, a feeling that Angus recognised in himself.
    There was a lot of Danny that Angus recognised in himself, as a matter of fact.
    ‘I had this mate Azhar, right?’ Danny said. ‘This was when I was like ten. And one night he invited me round his for tea. His mother was the best cook ever. She had this lamb, and these lentils, and rice. I didn’t know it then, but it was her spices made it taste so good. She must’ve ground them herself, and she used loads of coriander and that. It was just like—oh, I don’t know, like every mouthful was different. I’ve had curries since, but never like that one.’
    Elisabeth had been listening to Danny closely. ‘I know Azhar,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you were friends.’
    ‘Nah. We sort of stopped being mates when I came up to school here,’ Danny replied, looking uncomfortable.
    Angus got it. Danny’s favourite food was the taste of innocence, the days when he was a kid and his friends could be any race, belong to any group. A time when he’d been allowed to express wonder.
    Angus caught Elisabeth’s eye and saw that she understood, too.
    When had he been able to communicate like this with a woman?
    ‘What about you, Jennifer?’ He leaned forward to catch her words.
    ‘Chicken soup. With noodles. When I got a cold. My mother used to cook a whole chicken all afternoon to make it for me. Before she died.’
    Angus didn’t like to push Jennifer too much; he knew the girl liked him, but he wasn’t sure of her comfort zones yet, even after four weeks. But Elisabeth seemed to know how to draw the girl out.
    ‘What was it like?’ she asked.
    ‘Deep. Golden. With some sort of green herb. The noodles were like slippery velvet.’ She raised her eyes from her lap, to meet Elisabeth’s. ‘I only had it two or three times.’
    ‘It must have been delicious,’ Elisabeth said, and he could hear her unspoken words. You must miss her very much.
    She was always doing this.
    He’d had to work at getting the trust of these two kids. He’d had to plan what he was going to say, to put himself in their shoes and imagine how they’d react. He’d actually sat down before he’d met them and worked out a strategy based on the information that Elisabeth had given him.
    But she just seemed to do it naturally. She knew how to clear a space so that people could be themselves around her. And she didn’t even have to think about it first. Angus could charm people; Elisabeth could understand them.
    God, he liked her. And on top of that, he liked who he was when he was with her.
    Without her, he would probably have barrelled in here, given some cooking lessons, talked to the press, and forgotten about the entire thing. Because of her, he’d taken the time to get to know Danny and Jennifer. He’d thought about how he could actually help them.
    And that felt good. As if some of her passion had rubbed off on him, filled up some of the emptiness he’d been feeling for so long.
    ‘What’s your favourite, Elisabeth?’ he asked.
    ‘Oatmeal cookies,’ she said, and she looked so surprised at her own words that he grinned at her.
    ‘Who made them?’ he asked.
    She tilted her head as she remembered. ‘There was this woman who lived down the street from us when we lived in Calgary. Her name was Miss Wood. I must have been about twelve years old and she caught me stealing her lilacs.’
    ‘Miss!’ Danny exclaimed.
    Elisabeth smiled and shrugged. ‘My parents believed that property was theft. I didn’t think she’d miss a bunch or two. Anyway, she caught me before I could cut any. Miss Wood had a sixth sense about her flowers, I think.’
    ‘I hope you were very ashamed of yourself,’ Angus said in mock seriousness.