"Drinks! Can I get anybody anything?"
Connie made her way back into the sitting room, the air about her was calmer than it had been before. She moved with an easy grace and she slipped a hand over Rita's shoulder as she paused just behind her, scanning the room for a response.
"I think we're ok, thank you."
Rita's mother answered hesitantly, as if she were unsure of her own answer.
Rita's hand slipped over Connie's, her palm was surprisingly warm and she squeezed ever so gently – a touch of courage which nobody else would have noticed.
"Food then! You must all be hungry after your trip. I had planned to make lunch..."
The corner of her mouth flickered slightly and she smoothed her hands across the curve of her hips, and before anyone could utter anything more than a general murmur she turned her attention back to the kitchen.
She exhaled. The kitchen seemed to have the air she needed to steady herself, and the floor seemed wonderfully solid. It was comforting to know she could fall no farther. She moved slowly at first, deliberately taking her time, watching the clock as an hour slowly passed her by. She opened cupboards and drawers, sliced, diced and taste tested with a quick touch to her lips so as not to burn them.
She made a tidy counter full of bread and vegetables to dip into olive oil. Grilled aubergine studded with roasted garlic, scattered with sea salt and olive oil; crostini with tomato and basil salsa, also grilled; and risotto, rich with some mushroom that had nothing to do with the grey rubbery discs that Rita seemed to enjoy on pizza's. A mushroom that spoke Italian. As did the wine, a red whose name and Provence nobody but she would appreciate.
Once arranged she took a step back, and again she found herself running her hands over her hips – a habit that reminded her of her own mother, something which she had never done before and now she had done it twice in the space of an hour or so. She felt her forehead pull tight into a frown. She felt herself melting into the shadows like the negative of a person she had never seen before.
A hollow sound echoed throughout the house, and it took her a moment to regain her thoughts enough to realise that it was the doorbell.
Charlie...
She whispered his name beneath her breath and hurried into the hall. She saw Rita start up from her chair as she passed by the sitting room door, and she heard the creak of the chair as she sat down again upon seeing Connie rush to answer.
She opened the door on an exhale, her breath gushing out into the cold. Snow swirled up from where it had settled on the door step, and Charlie stood in the middle of the fluttering flakes like a man trapped inside a snow globe.
"Ok?"
He asked. His cheeks were flushed from the cold, his hair faintly yellow against the white of the snow and his hands were clasped in front of him encased in soft black woollen gloves.
"Ok."
She nodded as she spoke.
"Better."
She added, quieter this time.
"Well that's good to hear! From what you said on the phone I couldn't imagine it getting any worse!"
She smiled and held the door open for him and he stepped inside, stamping his boots on the door mat to shake the snow and ice from the rubber tread.
"It certainly smells nice."
He inhaled and unzipped his coat and shrugged it stiffly from his shoulders. He looked frail in that moment, older and more frail because of the cold, and she found she had to avert her eyes as she took his coat to hang on the coat peg by the door.
"I've just made lunch. You're just in time."
She cringed at how the words sounded, as though she had just regurgitated a line that so many 50's housewives had said before her.
"Come through."
She sighed, and she gestured limply with a hand toward the sitting room.