Abby Winters Kitchen -

The timer dinged. Clara pulled out a pie that was golden and imperfect, its lattice crust slightly lopsided but proud. She set it on the island to cool.

For the next hour, they moved around each other in the warm, fragrant kitchen like dancers learning a new step. Clara slid her pie onto the middle rack. Abby stirred her sauce and tried not to stare at the way Clara hummed while she washed her hands, or the way she leaned against the oak island like it had always belonged to her, too.

Abby blinked. Then, despite herself, she laughed. It came out rusty, unpracticed—like a drawer that hadn’t been opened in months. abby winters kitchen

Abby wiped her hands on her apron—a ridiculous thing printed with cartoon avocados—and walked to the kitchen doorway. There stood a woman in a navy peacoat, snow melting in her dark curls, holding a foil-covered pie dish like a shield.

She stood over a simmering pot of tomato sauce—her grandmother’s recipe, the one written in fading ink on an index card stained with olive oil. The windows were fogged with steam. Outside, the first real snow of December was beginning to fall, thick and quiet. The timer dinged

Abby wasn’t cooking for anyone in particular. That was the lie she told herself as she diced onions with military precision. She was cooking because the alternative was sitting alone in the living room, scrolling through photos of friends’ engagement announcements, feeling the sharp little pinprick of a life she hadn’t quite figured out how to want—until she realized she did want it. Just not with him.

Not her regret, exactly. The regret of the house itself—a creaky Victorian that had seen four generations of family dinners, burnt casseroles, and tearful arguments over unpaid bills. But mostly, the regret belonged to the man who had built the kitchen island with his own hands, then left her for a woman who couldn’t boil water. For the next hour, they moved around each

“Come in,” Abby said, stepping aside. “My kitchen’s a mess, but the oven works.”