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Quarter-Light -- ©Brenda Carter  "Oddly enough," she says after swallowing a mouthful of apple, "I like Sandy a little better now. At least I know she's got a good reason for not making more of an effort to warm up to me and ease things for you. After all, it would be understandable if you felt uncomfortable with her pillar-of-the-church-type husband, but you've never held back from Joe."
"He's so light on judgement. What's not to like about Joe?" "So you're saying he's more loveable than I am?" she teases. I give her my driest "right," hand back the apple, and let Stevie sing a little more heart my way before going on. "I can deal, you know. I feel that. I just don't know how. What am I supposed to do?" "Pretty much what you're doing, I guess. Grief first, then one step at a time through the rest of it," she says and leans into me as the car takes a curve. *** The beach hike is followed by the kind of cold, colorless day that blights every East Bay summer. I turn to comfort food and comfort cooking, the logic of the stove, the sensory clues I know so well how to follow. I settle on cassoulet, one of those French stews that cook all day until the meat and the wine are married through the mingling of their bodies in all that heat.
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