Dot smiled; she knew just the thing.
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Their kitchen was very large and airy, stainless steel, hard wood floors, lit supernally by a skylight. The noon sun in its place.
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*Everything* in its place, and the thought came—why, this kitchen might belong to a cooking show.
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On an otherwise uncomplicated expanse of shining granite, a perfect white cake lay beneath glass, missing a single piece.
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In a breakfast nook, on a small oak table, lay the missing wedge, half eaten.
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Somewhere nearby, a dirty fork could be discovered on the terra cotta tiles.
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Dot had not moved the fork yet, because for now the floor was the right and pleasing place for the fork
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Heavy glass doors covered the back wall’s expanse; you could swivel them on hinges in the middle to let the air in.
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The doors, open, offered a prospect onto the patio and then the back lawn and finally the place where the garden used to be.
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She stood abruptly, selected a medium-sized mixing bowl from the mixing bowl cabinet, and emptied into it three cups of water.
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From a steel rack, a wire whisk hung among various other utensils, like a prisoner under interrogation.
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It had been hanging there for a long time, Dot thought, hanging from its feet, but still it hadn’t confessed—tough, like all whisks.
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Into the pantry for some brown sugar. A basting brush from the drawer. Dot eyed the range, but decided finally she should serve it cold.
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No need to take the time to bring things to a boil. Back to the pantry for molasses.
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Dot briefly softened the molasses over low flame, added it to the water along with the sugar and three eggs, then stirred.
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Her shoulders ached from the night before but she made herself stir; it was important to mix it well.
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As she stirred, she looked out over the green expanse to the long black scudge of turned earth smeared along the length of the back hedge.
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Yesterday there had been tulips there, and roses, and showboat mums sagging under magnificent hats, but Stanley had rented a backhoe.
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A new start, Stanley said when she had come home to find it all gone.
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A new start, Dot. He was shirtless and excited; the operator had let him take a turn working the digging bucket.
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Put in whatever we want, Dotty, put in a swimming pool. The kids can swim when they visit.
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The children don’t ever call, and won’t say why they don’t.
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Dot returned to the pantry and added more sugar and stirred it well, until she had a substance that was viscous and ropy and sticky.
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She carefully cleansed the whisk and hung it back up with its obstinate fellows, then took brush and bowl with her into the back yard.
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Neighbors blocked out by tall hedges of Italian cypress, which Stanley had planted as saplings.
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He’d had Dot’s first flowerbed dug out to make way for them, explaining how important privacy was to them.
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