The Kitchen at No 6
From Orla’s side notes: “Maudie O’Byrne boils her water to silence the walls."
Every morning, Maudie O’Byrne sets two plates-one for herself, one for whatever memory might come calling. She doesn’t say grace. She never did. But she always looks at the empty chair before lifting her fork, as if waiting for it to speak.
The eggs crack louder in her kitchen than they should. The tap, once dripping, has now begun to whine. She doesn't mind. She listens to these domestic complaints the way others might listen to late-night radio-half-attentive, half-reassured.
She hasn’t opened the back door since the day the storm took the ash tree. It had stood for eighty years, right there by the hedge, bark split in places like an old coin rubbed thin. It had shaded generations. After it fell, she closed the door and turned the key, slid a small table in front of it. It groans in her sleep now, she says. So she sleeps facing the wall.
That morning, the sky was soft with mist, the kind that made the grass cling to your boots and made her old windows glaze over from the outside in. She was stirring her tea-clockwise, slow, four times exactly-when she heard the knock.
Not at the front, mind. No one used the front unless they didn’t know better. It came from the side window. Just a fingertip tap. Polite, persistent.
Maudie paused mid-stir.
“Go away," she whispered-not out of malice, but the simple sort of grief that’s grown roots.
But the tapping continued, and finally she opened the side hatch, the old delivery window where the milk bottles once stood like soldiers.
And there he was.
Jer Maloney.
Storm-scar man himself.
“Was walking the lower path," he said. “The wet got into my boots. I saw your roof... remembered the kettle here always boiled quicker than anywhere else."
She studied him for a moment-grey around the temples now, hands tucked under his armpits like a boy caught out in the cold. Still had the gap in his front tooth. Still had the smell of wet wool and woodsmoke.
She moved aside without speaking. The invitation was in the silence, and he knew enough not to fumble it.
Inside, nothing had changed. The wallpaper still showed that faded rose trellis, one edge peeling where the ash root had lifted the tiles. He noticed it but didn’t comment.
They sat. She poured. Two cups, two plates.
“You still take two sugars?"
He nodded.
The eggs crackled in the pan. They didn’t talk about the tree. Not directly. But he glanced once at the back door, and she followed his eyes, and the silence that fell then was full of branches.
“I was here the day after," he said finally. “You weren’t answering. I brought rope and gloves."
“I know," she said. “I watched from upstairs. You left your gloves behind."
“Did I?"
“They’re in the drawer."
He looked down at his hands. “I meant to come back."
She placed the eggs on his plate. “You just did."
Outside, the rain eased. Inside, the kettle clicked off with a final, satisfied sigh. They ate slowly, as if chewing through the years. When they were finished, Maudie rose and took the plates to the sink. She rinsed them with quiet precision, then dried them with the old cloth embroidered Home is the Place We Keep Things.
She turned back and said nothing. Neither did he.
But when she lifted her cup once more to stir what remained, she stirred it just three times.