"I want it," Claire said. "What's the real secret, Mae? Besides his spoonful. Jack told me that part. He told it gently."
Mae was quiet for a long time. The gravy simmered with tiny honest bubbles. Snow light brightened at the windows, gray and exhausted. "The secret is I never improved it as much as I claimed," Mae said at last. "I kept the flaw because grief needs a flavor you can find again on a bad day. Every year I think I'll make it right—salt it proper, thicken it like the magazines say, erase Walter's mistakes. Every year I leave the wrongness in. Jack thinks I'm honoring his grandfather. I am. I'm also reminding myself that marriage is two people burning the same dinner and laughing anyway, and that love outlives the cook if you let it stain the spoon. My secret is I'm still in love with a man who made bad gravy and good mornings and crooked stairs. And my other secret—" she glanced toward the dining room where Peter slept with his suitcase like a companion—"is that I hope my grandson finds a woman who knows the difference between a schedule and a life. You seem to. Don't let a man with a wet hat talk you out of that knowledge."
Claire wiped her cheek again. "I think I might already have found more than I expected when I walked in here. Including a grandmother who overheard my worst face and fed me pie anyway."
Mae nodded once, brisk, to hide the softness. "Then don't waste my pie. Go choose."