A Quiet Dinner, Hidden Secrets Revealed

The casserole smells faintly singed.

“Smells a little burned, Jules.”

Mira doesn’t flinch, but she hears it. The clatter of a spoon in the sink, the creak of the floorboard as her fiancé leans into the kitchen, the sound of him confirming what he thinks he already knows.

“It’s not burned,” she says, more defensively than she means to. She straightens her back over the cutting board.

She doesn’t need him to check, but he does anyway. She feels the puff of heat from the oven opening behind her—the scent of olive oil, thyme, and browned cheese sneaking up her neck.

“It looks a little crispy, Jules.”

“Please close the door.”

He calls to the living room: “She says it’s not burned, Ma!”

From the couch comes the wheeze of canned laughter and the reply of his mother’s voice—something noncommittal, blurred by sitcom volume. Mira doesn’t bother deciphering it. Instead, she goes back to slicing sweet potatoes into half-moons. The knife’s rhythm steadies her.

The humidity clings to her skin like a second layer. It rained earlier, and now the kitchen is thick with it—too warm for spring. Jules still insists it’s too early to put in the AC. “Give it another couple weeks,” he says. “April always throws one last chill.” And she knows he says that because his father always did. His father, who used to rattle off home-spun truths like parables while sitting barefoot on the back porch.

The screen door still hangs crooked. She tried to fix it once, before she realized she was the only one bothered by its lopsided groan. The misalignment eats at her in a way that feels petty but persistent. She learned to live with it, like so many other things.

She slices carefully, leaving a bit of the skin on. That’s how Jules’ mother prefers them—“with character,” she once said, not quite warmly. Mira pretends it’s a compliment.

These are her own potatoes, planted in a sun-drenched patch of their backyard—her first successful crop. A quiet victory. Back in their third-floor apartment, she tried to grow rosemary in mismatched pots, but only sprouted stubborn clumps of mildew and regret. She had cried once when a basil seedling collapsed, overwhelmed by a summer storm.

Jules had smiled and said, “It’s okay, we’ll just buy more.” But that had been their last twenty bucks for the week, and she had spent it on hope. His reassurance rang hollow even then, though she didn’t know why.

She stirs the honey-glazed carrots next. Jules’ mother taught her how to chop them precisely, flicking the knife with a rhythm Mira still hasn’t mastered. “You’ll never get them quite right,” the woman had said that day with a sideways grin—one that looked too much like a dare. Mira tried not to take it personally, but some truths burrow under the skin like splinters.

She pours herself a glass of water. The sky outside has gone dim, the light slipping into storm-gray. A slight breeze slips in through the screen. She hopes it will cool the kitchen soon. The wind chimes on the back porch whisper their hollow, melodic hush—her favorite sound in the world. A gift from her own mother, who died long before she ever met Jules.

Her mother had taught her about herbs and healing, about stories woven through scent and soil. Sometimes, Mira retreats to the bathroom just to cry for her. Not out loud. Not with sobs. Just quiet, bitter tears, poured like water into a cup only she can hold.

She’s never told Jules about that grief. It’s hers. One of the few things she’s kept separate.

There isn’t much that’s just hers anymore. At the start, they were two people, orbiting gently around each other. She taught yoga on Tuesday mornings. He ran trivia nights at Harrelson’s Bar. They met for ramen or Thai food with friends, sometimes arriving in separate Ubers. He played video games until two; she went to bed with a novel by eleven.

Then came rings, papers, keys. Now they’re Them. Their Home. Their Accounts. Their Groceries. Their Shared Calendar. Sunday dinners with his mother became non-negotiable. Mira doesn't remember agreeing to them.

She loves Jules. She does. But sometimes she misses her own handwriting on the fridge.

She finishes setting the table. The casserole is done now—crisped on the edges, golden in the center. Perfectly imperfect. She slides it out and places it beside the salad. The smell alone should earn her peace tonight, she thinks. But likely, it won’t.

She unties her apron—navy blue with cartoon pineapples, a gift from Jules the day they signed the house deed. A joke that’s now worn in the corners and stained from years of soups and sauces. She steps outside to the stoop, letting the screen door whine shut behind her.

The backyard is small but hers. The garden is lush already, tulip leaves curled upward, tomato vines thick with promise. She crouches and brushes a weed away from the edge of the chard bed. The wind moves her hair. She leans into the air like someone might lean into a kiss.

Jules has talked for two years about building a treehouse in the old red oak. “When we have kids,” he’d say, “that’ll be the spot.” He says it less often now. Each time, his voice gets a little more uncertain, like a fading photograph of a dream he isn’t sure he still wants.

She does want it. Now more than ever.

She places her hand gently on her belly—flat still, but not for long. She hasn’t told him yet. She wanted to wait until the right moment. But that moment keeps shifting, like a mirage.

Tonight, she thinks. After dinner. After his mother’s left. When it’s just the two of them and the dishes are soaking in the sink and the cat is curled by the fireplace.

She’ll tell him tonight.

She stands, breathing in the rain-soaked soil and whispering leaves. She hums softly, not a real song, just a thread of melody. Maybe the little bean growing inside her can hear it. Maybe it will remember that sound, years from now, swinging from a treehouse in the oak out back.