The Small Knife

Chapter 1: Big Kitchen

For three years, Mara kept the little paring knife in the back of the kitchen drawer.

It lay beneath the wooden spoons and measuring cups, wrapped in a faded dish towel printed with blue lemons. The handle was black plastic, scratched near the rivets. A pale stain ran along one side of the blade where someone had once left it wet beside the sink.

There was nothing valuable about it. It had come from a supermarket set that cost less than a dinner for two.

Still, Mara could not bring herself to throw it away.

Whenever she opened the drawer, she saw only a corner of the towel. That was enough. She would reach around it for the corkscrew or the vegetable peeler, careful not to disturb what she had hidden.

Some objects do not hold memories gently. Some wait in silence.

On a wet Saturday in October, Mara finally took the knife out.

Rain tapped against the kitchen window. The radiator clicked and sighed beneath it, filling the room with the warm smell of dust. On the counter sat a paper bag of apples from the market, their red skins shining beneath the yellow ceiling light.

Her niece, Sophie, was coming over to bake a pie.

At sixteen, Sophie had begun wearing her dark hair cut short around her ears. She painted one thumbnail silver and left the others bare. She spoke quickly when she was nervous and laughed with her whole face. Mara loved these small things about her, perhaps because she had spent too much of her own life making herself smaller.