Free Kernel of Truth by Kristi Abbott

abandoned in Minneapolis in January, you pretty much carry it forever. Antoine had been taping a segment on winter comfort food. As the tapingfinished, he’d gotten a call from his agent telling him that he had a gig in Miami the next day. Antoine sent an assistant to get his stuff from the hotel and check out.
    I’d left the hotel to go to the Guthrie for the day. I came back to find out I had no hotel room and no clothes but the ones on my back and that my husband had already flown from the frozen wasteland of the upper Midwest in January to go to sunny Florida. He’d forgotten I was even there.
    â€œYou have no idea how sincerely I regret that lapse in memory,
mon coeur
, but now we have more important things to discuss. It is not safe for you in this Grand Lake. Your friend, your mentor, your neighbor has been murdered! You must come back to California where I can keep you safe.”
    I felt a twinge. Life with Antoine had definitely been easier. I hadn’t had to work unless I wanted to. Doors opened for me magically, if for no other reason than someone behind the door wanted to get to Antoine. I hadn’t had to worry about paying bills or calculating sales tax or how to take a day off. I also hadn’t been very happy.
    I considered all the various responses possible to me. I settled on, “No,” and hung up the phone.

Six
    Coco’s Cocoas stayed dark Sunday afternoon. There was no sandwich board on the sidewalk advertising whatever Coco had picked to feature that day. There were no lights on in the window. No fudge set out on doily-covered crystal platters in the window. It would have been disrespectful for Jessica to open the shop so soon, but my heart twisted uncomfortably in my chest anyway when I saw the dark windows. Jessica had already made an overture to Allen about selling the shop. She might never open the shop again. I wasn’t sure she should. She’d never be able to do Coco’s recipe honor. She didn’t have the kitchen sense.
    Kitchen sense, however, was pretty much the only decent sense I had. I certainly didn’t have good sense in picking men. Or life paths. Sense and cooking muscle memory led me through my prep in POPS’s kitchen. Well, sense and Sprocket occasionally nosing me to break me out of staring into space.
    Grief sucked.
    Everything was almost ready. I flipped the sign on the door from Closed to Open and flicked the switch that lit up my window display. I was still putting popcorn balls on display trays when Janet Barry came in, pushing her double stroller.
    â€œI wasn’t sure you’d be open,” she said as I held open the door for her. It wasn’t easy getting one of those land cruiser strollers through a door on your own. Her two-year-old, Lucas, was asleep in the back of the stroller, one chubby arm flung up over his head, the other dangling a woolly stuffed sheep over the side. The one-year-old, however, was wide-awake and banging his
Yo Gabba Gabba!
teether on the front rail of the stroller like he was auditioning as a drummer for Yo La Tengo.
    â€œI wasn’t sure I would be, either,” I admitted. “Was there something in particular you wanted?”
    â€œA tiny bag of the caramel cashew?” She said it as if she were asking for a little bag of crack, all whispery and furtive.
    â€œIf you give me a second. The fresh batch is almost ready. It’s best when it’s warm.” I patted little Jack on the head and turned to go into the kitchen.
    He pointed the teether at Sprocket and said, “Bow wow wow!”
    Sprocket replied with something along the lines of “Aroo roo.”
    Jack laughed with such an open mouth that I could see all four of his teeth. Then he pounded even harder on the stroller. Sprocket crept closer and sniffed his tiny sneaker. The baby giggled.
    â€œI’ll be right back.” I’d barely made it into the kitchen when Sprocket dashed past me to his bed in