Butter Honey Pig Bread

by Francesca Ekwuyasi

I don’t think Wolfie realized the gift he gave me with that journal. Or with his kindness. He made me cups and cups of woody St. John’s wort tea, because he’d read somewhere that it was a natural antidepressant. Once, I was rummaging through his kitchen cabinet in search of some honey. I found it by his computer on the small dining table in the corner of the cramped kitchen. I sat down to check my email, and it was still logged in to his account. Everyone knows you mustn’t snoop, everyone knows, yet I did. And there sat an email from the head chef of Grégoire, a restaurant in Paris that Wolfie and Luca had prattled on about since I’d worked at Milas. Wolfie had visited the year before, and then sent a long and eager message asking about opportunities for an apprenticeship. Many months later, the chef was offering him one, to start in eight weeks. Wolfie had received the email over a month ago. Simultaneously, joy—incredible amounts of it for him—and a deep dread for myself filled my body. The corners of my chest, the overgrown cuticles of my toes, every inch of me vibrated with that fight. The next morning, before sunrise, I initiated sex. We’d barely touched since the miscarriage. Wolfie was gentler than usual, leaning his forehead against mine to kiss me over and over. He told me that he loved me and asked, with a catch in his voice, if I loved him too.