AT THE KITCHEN SINK, CLAIRE IS SEPARATING AND RINSING icy chicken parts. She will start the chicken frying in the skillet as soon as she has the potatoes boiling. Perhaps she is a little angry. She isn’t sure. She is going to fix a meal though, if anyone comes home to eat it or not.
It is something to do, and she has another reason. It is a notion which has entered her mind—Sunday afternoon dinner may be all that is needed, traveling on its aroma, to call things back to normal. It had worked before somewhere in her life. When feelings were confused and tempers loose from their stalls, mashed potatoes and chicken gravy seemed more effective than anything else at coating over the rawness.
To believe or to not believe? This is the issue with which she is struggling as she begins opening and closing refrigerator and cupboard doors in her preparation of a Sunday meal. Is something awful happening? Is something terribly wrong? Why did those detectives ask so much about Matt? What was that all about? What in the world is happening?
She can’t believe anything. She won’t, she decides. She will not let herself accept that something is wrong. She starts the burner under the potatoes, turns the chicken where it is draining. Faith. In itself, she thinks, faith may help them. Help Eric. It has to be real, though. She has to believe. If she can believe, her belief may be the force which will do the job, will save Eric, whom she knows by now, at this odd Sunday hour, to be the center of her everyday life, the mere reason she lives. She knows this as she unwraps a stick of Blue Bonnet margarine. Her faith alone, and the chicken, may be the force which will bring him running up the stairs any minute, running into the kitchen hardly out of his jacket, which will wake her from this dream as the screen door, which he never closes quietly, at last, finally slams, because no one else ever takes those steps so quickly.
The margarine is melting. Believe it! she is saying to herself. Do your best. Do better than that. Believe.
Dinner’s under way, she’ll say. But it’ll be a few minutes yet. Watch TV for a while. Do you have homework to do?
She adds some oil, guides the melting margarine around with a fork. Where is Matt? Why did he take off like that? No, she thinks. Don’t let yourself get carried away. Matt’s a good boy. He’s a fine boy. He’ll be here any minute. They’ll both be here. We’ll eat dinner. In the servings of fried chicken, of potatoes and gravy, this nightmare will slide away, disappear into clouds of memory as a lesson against taking their love for granted.
She’ll never work nights or evenings again, she thinks. She tells herself this as she adds tablespoons of flour to a mixing bowl, as she reaches for salt and pepper.
Matt, come home and help me, she says to herself then.
She turns the chicken. It is browning on one side. There is a call in its aroma, she realizes. There is something there; it is almost comforting.
On a sudden urge, she opens the kitchen window three or four inches. Let it go out, she thinks, even as the air pouring in is chilly. She raises the window another several inches, imagines the smell of frying chicken traveling throughout the neighborhood, between houses, behind garages.
She sets the table. Something stops her, though. An instant of hesitation. Two places or three? Three, of course, she tells herself. She directs the other thought to the back of her mind. She will never do otherwise, she is telling herself, as she places the three plates and three silverware settings on the table, as she moves around and the chilly outdoors air is passing over her legs, as she tries to ignore her moment of hesitation, her moment of not believing.