"Imperfect," Jack said. "Sacredly imperfect. I should have warned you before you took that first bite. I panicked. Protecting Mae's myth felt more important than protecting your taste buds."
"No," Claire said. She reached across the table and touched the back of his hand, briefly, like testing ice that might hold. "You shouldn't have warned me. I should have kept my face quieter. I walked into a chapel and criticized the hymn."
"You walked into a diner and told the truth," Jack said. His fingers turned and caught hers for a second before letting go—polite, electric, unfinished, the way good beginnings often were. "Mae respects truth more than hymns. She just also respects gravy."
They sat with that for a while. The heater hummed its one-note lullaby. Somewhere above them, Mae's floorboards creaked once more and went still.
"I cooked tonight because of them," Jack said eventually, voice lower. "Mom and Dad. Walter. Mae. Because an empty diner on Thanksgiving felt like surrender, and I wasn't ready to surrender to silence. Hoping someone pretty got stranded was the joke I told so I wouldn't have to say the rest out loud. Hoping someone human walked in was the truth. Someone who might need feeding as much as I needed to feed."