CHAPTER 3.1 THE SECOND COSTUMER

"Here, we don't erase what happened. We just cook it. So, it stop hurting every time you remember."

It was morning.

But there was no sunlight.

Last night’s rain still clung to the roof, dripping steadily, over and over, as if someone inside the house were counting the seconds.

Mara was awake before the lights had fully come on.

She still wasn’t used to the bed.

For three nights, she had been sleeping in the armchair, and somehow, her body had learned that it was the only place where she was safe.

Nico was already in the kitchen.

He always was.

Apron. White shirt. Old burn scars across his hands as he chopped onions that didn’t seem to make him cry.

“Good morning,” Nico said without looking back. “We have a customer later. Ten o’clock.”

Mara walked toward the stove.

The smell of coffee filled the kitchen.

Not the kind of coffee you simply drank.

This was the kind you only had to smell to feel, for a moment, that maybe you didn’t have to cry.

“What’s hurting her?” Mara asked.

Nico washed the knife.

Slowly.

Each movement was almost like a prayer.

“A teacher,” he said. “Grade Five. One of her students fell down the stairs in her classroom.”

He stopped.

“He died.”

For a moment, the sound of the rain seemed to disappear.

Mara looked at the jars.

Every one of them had a label.

Every one had a year.

She searched for the one without a name.

The one meant for her.

It still wasn’t there.

“I don’t know how to cook something like that,” Mara said quietly.

“I’ll teach you.”

She looked at him.

“But I won’t be the one cooking today.”

Nico stopped what he was doing.

“You.”

Mara swallowed.

“Why?”

At last, Nico looked at her.

His eyes were tired.

But not angry.

“Because if I’m always the one doing the cooking, the house will never learn to trust you.”

Mara lowered her head slightly.

“And if the house doesn’t trust you…”

Nico paused.

“…you’ll be the one it cooks.”

Mara nodded.

She didn’t know if she was agreeing to the cooking…

or to the fear.

---

9:47 A.M.

There were three soft knocks on the door.

When Mara opened it, a woman stood outside.

She looked to be in her forties.

She was still wearing her school uniform even though it was Saturday.

A blazer.

Her hair neatly arranged.

The kind of teacher who, even in the rain, would still make an effort to look put together before facing the world.

But her eyes…

They were soaked.

Not from the rain.

“Good morning,” Mara greeted her.

Nico had asked her to answer the door.

The woman smiled.

But the smile never reached her eyes.

“I was told you could cook something for me,” she said.

Her voice was exhausted.

As if she hadn’t slept in days.

“Please, come in.”

The woman stepped inside quietly and sat in the armchair.

She didn’t look at the jars.

Maybe she was afraid to.

“I’m Ma’am Liza,” she introduced herself. “Grade Five, Sampaguita Section.”

Nico poured her a cup of coffee.

Black.

No sugar.

He placed it in front of her.

“What would you like to forget, Ma’am?” Nico asked.

His voice was calm.

As if he were simply taking an order at a small neighborhood eatery.

Ma’am Liza tightened her grip around the cup.

“Andrei.”

She swallowed.

“He was eleven.”

The entire room fell silent.

“He fell down the stairs on Monday. He was in my class.”

She took a deep breath.

“He was right in front of me.”

Her lips trembled.

“He stood up to get his pencil. Then… he slipped.”

She closed her eyes.

“It must have been thirty seconds.”

She shook her head.

“Only three steps.”

Her voice broke.

“Three steps…”

“If I had reached for him.”

Her grip tightened around the cup.

“If I had told him to sit down.”

The first tear slipped down her cheek.

“If…”

“Ma’am.”

Mara didn’t know why she spoke.

But she did.

“We don’t erase what happened here.”

Ma’am Liza looked at her.

“We only cook it.”

Mara lowered her voice.

“So it won’t hurt as much every time you remember.”

Ma’am Liza stared at her for a long moment.

For the first time, it seemed as though she truly saw Mara.

“Is that possible?”

“Yes,” Nico answered.

Then he looked at Mara.

“Show her.”

---

Mara led Ma’am Liza into the kitchen.

The woman’s hands were trembling.

Mara walked toward the jars.

She opened one.

There was no label.

But the moment she removed the lid…

the smell came.

Chalk.

Freshly cleaned floors.

And the unmistakable scent of a child’s fear.

“Andrei’s memory,” Mara said.

She didn’t know how she knew.

She simply did.

“A customer left this here a long time ago.”

She paused.

“An old man.”

She looked at Ma’am Liza.

“He said, ‘Keep it. A teacher might need it someday.’”

Ma’am Liza shook her head.

“I don’t deserve it.”

“No one deserves this, Ma’am.”

Mara stopped.

She thought of her own father.

The anger.

The pain.

“But sometimes,” she added softly, “we need it anyway.”

She lit the stove.

Then she took the pan.

It wasn’t made of iron.

It wasn’t aluminum either.

It looked like clay.

Old.

As though it had been waiting a very long time to be used.

“First step,” Mara said.

She repeated what Nico had taught her.

“Add the memory.”

Slowly, she poured the contents of the jar into the pan.

Smoke immediately rose from it.

But it wasn’t ordinary smoke.

It looked almost like dust carrying a voice.

A small child’s voice.

“Ma’am… my pencil.”

Ma’am Liza closed her eyes.

Her shoulders trembled.

“Second step.”

Mara reached for another jar.

The label read:

MY MOTHER’S LAUGHTER — 1998

“This will be the seasoning.”

She opened it.

“Not to erase the bitterness.”

Slowly, she poured it in.

“Just enough to soften it.”

As the mixture began to simmer, Mara spoke.

Not about the recipe.

About herself.

“Ma’am… I ran away too.”

Ma’am Liza listened quietly.

“There were things I couldn’t carry by myself.”

Mara took a deep breath.

“But here…”

She looked at the simmering pan.

“…we share the weight.”

Tears rolled down Ma’am Liza’s cheeks.

She didn’t sob.

She simply cried in silence.

Like rain.

“Third step.”

Mara picked up a blank book.

She opened it to the first page.

“Write.”

She handed the book to Ma’am Liza.

“Everything.”

“The three steps.”

“The pencil.”

“What happened.”

“And every single ‘if only.’”

She looked at the woman.

“Write until your hand gets tired.”

Ma’am Liza took the pen.

Her hand trembled.

Then she began to write.

As she did, the smoke slowly faded from the pan.

And Andrei’s voice grew quieter.

Until, finally, it disappeared.

All that remained was the smell of coffee.

And chalk.

The sadness was still there.

But it no longer hurt.

Twenty minutes later, Ma’am Liza closed the book.

She had written only one page.

But it was full.

She stood.

Her shoulders seemed lighter.

She wasn’t happy.

But she no longer looked as though she were slowly drowning beneath the weight of what she carried.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

There was no payment.

No receipt.

She simply walked out of the house.

And for the first time…

the rain stopped before the customer left.

---

When Mara returned to the kitchen, Nico was already there.

He was staring at the pan.

It was clean.

“Well done,” he said.

Mara shook her head.

“My hands are still shaking.”

“That’s normal.”

She looked at him.

“Why?”

“Because what you took from her is something you can never give back.”

Mara stared at her own hands.

“You’ll carry it now.”

She said nothing.

Then she noticed a black line across her hand.

It looked like the mark of a burn.

“The house is hungry again,” Nico said.

He pointed toward the wall.

There was a small crack there.

Almost impossible to notice.

“We need three more customers this week.”

He stopped.

“Or…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.

Mara already knew what he meant.

Or me.

---

That night, Mara sat in the armchair, writing in her own book.

She was on page two.

She looked at the first word she had written.

Escape.

Beneath it, she slowly wrote another word.

Served.

She stared at the two words for a long time.

Then she pressed her palm against the page.

Outside…the rain stopped.

But inside the house…

it breathed.