“I don’t really know how to cook,” he said.
“Nobody does, at first,” I said. “Come on in.”
He helps Eunice stir the big pots now. Her eyes can’t quite see well enough anymore to tell when the noodles are done. So Cole stirs, and Eunice tells him when, by the smell.
He told me once, quietly, while he was drying roasters at the sink, why he comes.
“It’s the only place in this whole town,” he said, “that still smells like somebody cares whether I eat.”
Wanda sends him home every Tuesday with a foil-covered plate. She says he’s too thin. She says it every single week. He always says, “Yes ma’am,” and takes the plate.
I don’t know if Cole will stay in this county forever. He’s young. He might go back to Ohio someday, or somewhere else. Somewhere with fewer hard memories.
