Thirty-One Letters

Fifteen

Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom—Rumi

"I'm going to need you to explain this to me."

"Explain what?"

"How a girl who is the daughter of a caterer is such a terrible cook."

Ty pushed the cart forward, pausing every few moments to examine a can or package.  Hadley trailed beside him watching with suspicion as he gathered ingredients.  She wasn't sure what he was planning on making but she knew that it would be better than whatever mess she could concoct.

"I don't know," she said to him.  "I was always training.  Tanner was the one who helped mom cook.  I mean, I can cook basic things and I'm a decent enough baker but I figured this required a better skillset than what I'm capable of."

"And what were you going to do if I said I was a shitty cook too?" he raised a brow at her as he stopped in front of a section of herbs. 

Hadley shrugged.  "Order in takeout or something and play it off as my own, I suppose."

Ty snorted and shook his head at her as he grabbed a bag off the shelf and plopped it into the cart.  "You're something else, Brown."  He pushed the cart forward again.  "Where are your parents going to be while we're cooking?"

"Dad's at the shop until six tonight and my mom is working some 'meet-and-greet' thing at the library so she'll be out until the evening as well."

"So what you're saying is that we got lucky with timing?  Maybe your brother was a psychic.  You gotta admit, his timing has been pretty impeccable for most of these challenges."

Yeah, Hadley thought, it has.

And Ty was right, it did seem oddly coincidental the way that some of her brother's challenges for her had lined up with life.  She didn't think that her brother had been a psychic but there was no denying that he knew her well.  Maybe he had even known her so well that he'd been able to predict how long it would take for her to find the letters.  How long until she was willing to go surfing again and how long she would feel distant from her parents.

That's what challenge number thirteen was supposed to remedy.  Tanner had instructed her to do something nice for her parents.  They're putting on a brave face for your sake, he'd written to her.  But they're going to need something to help them reconnect.  I don't care what you do, just do something nice for them.

She'd thought about it for a day, thinking over what to do.  A gift card for a night out seemed too impersonal and not at all what she thought Tanner would have had in mind.  But a date night inside their own home, where they could be undisturbed by the pressures of societal etiquette, meant that they might actually have the chance to talk and reconnect.

The main problem was that Hadley was a terrible cook.  Sure, she could do easy things like eggs and pasta and reheating but real cooking had never been a skill in her wheelhouse.  Tanner used to joke that he would buy her Cooking For Dummies when she went off to college and had to fend for herself.

That was why she'd called Ty.  She hadn't known if he could cook but he seemed to be a master of a great many odd things and had told her that, yes, he was an all right cook.  He'd met her at the grocery store an hour later where he'd picked up a basket and promptly begin shopping. 

He still had not told her what it was that they were making.

"So...What are we cooking exactly?"

"I'm making trout with orange-saffron sauce, roasted vegetables and fresh bread.  You are on dessert.  If you're as bad as you've described then there's no way I'm letting you near my dish."