At noon, the lamb goes on the spit. People had started to arrive around ten, and Leah had hoped that having to turn the spit would mean that she would be out of the way of most of the party. Instead the spit turns automatically, and she is forced to wander the crowd.

“What sort of place are you at now, working?” someone – uncle Sylvain, Leah thinks – asks her.

“I’m a bar-back. I run and fetch stuff, mostly, and clean the bathrooms.”

“Do you get tips?”

Leah shakes her head, and Sylvain seems disappointed. “That’s where the real money is.”

“I mean I do sometimes,” Leah says, a little defensively. “One time a customer was so impressed with how clean the bathrooms were he gave me five dollars, just because.”

Sylvain laughs, and someone else steps in to ask her a question, about hours.

“I work nights, yeah, that’s the only time the bar is open.”

“Is it a good part of town?”

“I keep hearing people use that expression, but what does it mean?”

“Well, are there a lot of crimes?”

“I haven’t seen anyone get stabbed, if that’s what you’re asking. It seems okay to me.”

“Well, that’s something,” the person says with a laugh, moving on to talk with Sylvain. Leah ducks away and goes to hide on the front balcony with the dog, who is watching the barbecue with a long line of drool hanging from his jowls.

“Me too, buddy,” Leah says, scratching his ears.

“Leah!” She turns at the call, and sees an older woman, maybe a few years older than her mother in this world, and very similar looking. “What is it you’re making for us? Something you learned at your chef’s classes?”

“No, just something a friend taught me.”

“What’s it called?”

“Havroutset.”

“Oh! Is that German?”

“Uh…” Remember what happened last time you answered this sort of question! Never accept the first answer they give you unless you recognise the reference. “You know, I never asked where it was from. I think she said it was…Algic?”

“Oh, seafood!” the woman says, with an uncertain glance at the two legs turning on the spit. “Well, I look forward to tasting it!”

This world’s Leah’s mother steps out from the kitchen with a plate of “appetisers,” which Leah hadn’t understood the point of until she saw the woman walk through the crowd, offering pieces to everyone. “Finger food, tapas,” she’d said, when Leah had first asked. “You know, nibbles.” Leah now understands a bit better.

“Est-ce que la campagne ça te manque?” another person says, with intonation that might be a question and might be a statement.

“Hmm?” Leah asks, and the man repeats the sentence, waiting at the end for an answer. “I’m sorry, I’ve really gotten out of the habit of speaking French, I’m a little rusty…”

The man seems surprised by this answer, and a little offended. “His Joĩsburg not bilingual?”

“I just don’t have the opportunity to practice there, I guess…” Leah says with a shrug and an apologetic smile.

The man’s sour face remains, and he looks pointedly at the mother and starts humming a tune. The mother frowns at him. “Oh, don’t you ‘mommy daddy’ me, she’s just rusty,” she says with a little heat.

Leah ignores the conversation and returns her attention to the lamb. The man moves away to talk to someone else.

“Holding up okay honey?” the mother asks, and Leah nods, using the small brush to apply a little more wine over the joints. Every drop that falls off hits the coals underneath with a loud, steamy sizzle. The smell is not far off what she remembers from childhood springtime. “Let me know if you want me to look after it for a bit, if you’d rather go talk with people.”

“Actually, mum, I’m a little overwhelmed by all the people.” The mother tilts her head and frowns in confusion. “I was expecting just a little family get-together, not a big…” Leah gestures to the crowd of twenty people, milling about in the yard.

“Well, you dropped off the map for a month, and we asked a few of your other relatives if they’d heard from you over that time, and to try and get in contact with you if they could. Everyone was a little worried. We even sent Jeremy over one day to knock at your door and see if you were home, but you didn’t answer – well, I guess you were away at your gym thing at the time, but still.”

“How is the gym thing going?” the father asks, stepping up to the balcony and looking over the lamb. “Your mum said it was a fight class sort of thing?”

“Not really fighting. It’s wrestling.”

“Ooh! Nice,” the father says, nodding as he applies another coat of wine to the meat. “Not really a high-impact sport, from what I hear. I assume you’re taking Greco-Roman, not the WWF style?”

Leah feels excited to be able to talk about something with confidence. “No, the teacher said the Greco-Roman style is only on your knees, but we’re on our feet too. I think she calls it freestyle, or Olympic, or something like that.”

“You’re a little old to be thinking of the Olympics, Leah. Not that it wouldn’t be great if you did – ”

“She means the style, not the skill level, my dear,” the mother says, and the dad nods.

“Right, yes, I see,” he says, smirking at his own expense.

“How’s the lamb coming along?” Another stranger comes up and asks, a youngish man. “Where’d you get the recipe? I hear it’s really something.”

“From a friend,” Leah says, wondering if she’s already been introduced to this person; everyone sort of looks the same, so it’s hard to tell. She thinks he’s familiar.

“Speak of the devil – Jeremy, I was just telling Leah about the time we sent you over to – ”

“Ah, yeah,” Jeremy says, with an odd look on his face. “It’s a nice building, I didn’t realise you were so close by me.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I’m up on Gault. You know it?” Leah shakes her head. “Well anyway, it’s good to see you again, and maybe we’ll get to talk more now that we know we’re so close by, and you’re not incognito.” He says this last with a cheeky grin, and Leah returns the grin awkwardly. “Where is it you’re working now? Is it in the area?”

“She’s a bar-back,” the mother says.

“Oh cool! What part of town?”

“It’s on Delacour.”

“Oh? I know that stretch pretty well, what’s it called?”

Leah feels her skin go cold. “Nothing.”

“Huh?”

“Huh?” Leah clears her throat. “Uhh, it’s just a small place, you wouldn’t know it,” she says, brushing it off, heart racing.

Jeremy’s face suddenly also goes pale. “Wait, is it the one with…the blue lights in the ceiling, and the…the glass shelves, with LED lights? Kinda club-ish?” His eyes don’t quite meet Leah’s.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Right. Cool. Yeah, I don’t go there often, but I know of it.”

Leah takes another look at his face and recognises him as one of the regular early-week customers, coming in usually once a week, sometimes more. “Right, right, neat,” she says, nodding.

Jeremy makes a quick goodbye and hurries off to talk to someone else.

“Well how neat is that! Your cousin knows your bar,” the mother says, coming out with another tray of appetisers. Leah takes one without looking, to avoid having to give an answer. The thing tastes of seafood and overly greasy pastry, and has a very unpleasant crunch to it. She looks to see what she’s eaten, only to find it to be some sort of sea-bug wrapped in fried dough.

“Shrimp in puff pastry,” the mother says, with a grin. “I remembered you liked the seafood part of your course, so I looked some up and tried my hand.”

Leah smiles and swallows, making a mental note to never eat a shrimp again.

“Where’s the tail?” the mother asks. “Don’t drop it on the ground, Sammy’ll try to eat it.”

Leah swallows saliva to try and rinse down the strange scratchy feeling in her throat.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

*

The lamb is served up – in the Volsti style, Leah notes with bitter amusement, remembering Meredith and Iris’s insistence that potatoes and bread were essential to a full meal. The little rolls that the Armande family serves up are at least lighter and fluffier than the heavy rye loafs preferred in Volst.

Everyone passes by to give her their compliments, and to take a second helping of the thinly sliced meat. Leah takes her one portion and finds a private space near a row of cedars, cut into a wall-shape. It doesn’t taste quite right – the wine is all wrong, and the cherries are too sweet, and the lamb is too tender – but she agrees that the food is overall nice, and the barbecue is a clever way of trapping the heat.

It’s also nice, she reflects, to not have to fight off bears just waking up from hibernation, lured by the smell. She takes a careful look around her just to make sure that one isn’t hiding nearby, but there aren’t enough trees around to support a predator of that size.

“Doing okay?”

She looks up. The father sits down beside her, dropping heavily to the grass, a paper plate in one hand and two beer bottles in the other.

“Yeah…” she points with her head back to the house. “Lotta people.”

“Yeah…your mother invited most of them.” He holds out one of the bottles for her, and she takes it. “She wanted to turn this into a big party, because you’re not often in town.”

“Oh.” Leah takes another bite of the bread. “This needs vegetables, doesn’t it? It’s not really a full meal, like this.”

“Potatoes are a vegetable,” the father says, taking a bite. “But you know what would tie it all together? Put a pan under the lamb while it’s cooking, to catch the drippings, and then make a gravy with them.” He takes another bite.

Leah stares off into the distance, struck. “He used to do that. I’d forgotten…it’s been so long.”

“Who?”

“My f…friend. The one who gave me the recipe.”

“I thought you said it was a she, before?”

Leah sweats. “He…she was…”

“Oh, one of those gender-non-binary things? I gotcha.”

Leah does not follow, but is relieved that the conversation is past. She takes a sip of the beer and winces a bit; too strong for her tastes, almost the strength of a wine, but with the heavy bitterness of a malt.

“Whatever they are, they’re a keeper, if they give you recipes like this.” The father lifts his plate, as though trying to gesture at it with it.

“Yeah…I’m meeting good people. Lots of new friends, over the past month or so.”

“All at the new place?”

“Yeah, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“A girl at a cafe, she’s super friendly. Also the wrestling class.”

“Oho, making me decide between which I want to hear about more?” The father laughs and takes another bite, pausing to chew. “Alright, I’ll put aside your personal life, out of respect for your privacy, you’re very welcome for my restraint. So tell me more about this wrestling class!”

*

A woman in her mid-twenties approaches Leah and the dog, later in the evening. Dessert courses are being served – desserts, plural. How decadent do these people need to be? There’s no way anyone could afford this much sugar and chocolate, unless they were rich or the crops were grown by indentured families. Leah pushes away the thoughts and smiles to the woman who approaches her. For once, the person has a unique face structure, different from anyone else there.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it earlier,” she says, giving Leah a warm hug. “Apparently I missed the world’s tastiest lamb?”

“Well, I’m glad you made the ending at least,” Leah says with a smile, trying to imagine who this person might be. “My mum invited you, I guess?”

The woman nods. “She asked me to get in touch with you two weeks ago, but you weren’t ever on facebook or discord or…anywhere.” Leah nods as though she understands, and puts on an apologetic smile. “What happened, really?”

Leah shrugs. “I uh…needed some time away. I was in a rut, and I needed to break out. If I’d known…” Choose your words carefully, you idiot. “If I’d planned it out more carefully, maybe there would have been time to say goodbye to people, before I dropped off the face of the world, but it was a sort of spontaneous decision; either I did it right then, or shit was about to get worse.”

The woman does not seem reassured. “Is everything okay?”

“Perfect,” Leah hurries to say. “It was just a feeling, you know. I needed to get away for a bit, get rid of the expectations on me.”

“And did it work?”

Leah sighs, cutting into the spongy cake on her plate with a fork. “Not how I’d expected, but it’s turning out really great.”

The woman snickers. “You know, most people would just go to a shrink, if they felt trapped and overwhelmed. Maybe a zen retreat. Pretending to have died and dropping all contacts? Not cool.”

“And as I said, if I’d known that’s what I was going to do, I would have warned people. As it was, it just sort of…started happening, and then didn’t stop.” Leah takes a bite of cake. “Sorry if it’s a dumb question, but…shrink?”

“Yeah, a psychologist or something. I’m not saying you have a mental illness, although it really sorta sounds like depression, but it’s good to talk to one now and then anyway – if you’ve got the money.”

Her conversation with the gym teacher comes back to her, and Leah starts looking around for her parents. “Actually, I did have to ask them about that.”

“Who? What?”

“Can we pick this up in a bit?” Leah asks, and the woman, baffled, nods. Leah darts off towards the kitchen, and finds the mother removing a tray of small, unleavened scones, studded with dark nibs, from the oven.

“That’s a super-power, you know,” she says, putting down the tray on a wooden cutting board. “You always knew exactly when the cookies were ready, I never had to call you in.”

“I had a question and I was hoping you could answer it,” Leah says, looking at the ‘cookies’ in doubt. More sweets? My stomach can’t handle this… “And I apologise if it’s dumb – ”

“Leah honey, don’t ever say that,” the mother gives her a mock-frown. “You may be an adult but I’m still your mum, and it will always be my job and my joy to help you where I can.”

Leah forgets her question for a moment, a confused, giddy sort of feeling in her gut. “Right. Good. Well, I wanted to know if I have a family doctor. I mean, if I wanted to talk to a doctor, is there someone or somewhere I should go to?”

The mother frowns in thought. “You should still be with doctor Davis, at the Vic. Unless you’ve found someone closer.”

“So if I have to make an appointment, I need to go to…the Vic?”

“You would call or email, usually.” The mother gives her an odd look.

“As I said, bit of a dumb question, but just wanted to know.”

The mother waves this away. “No, it’s an important question. What do you need an appointment for?”

Leah shrugs. “Headaches.”

The mother scoffs. “You don’t need to go to a doctor for headaches. Go to the pharmacy and get some Tylenol. Besides, a doctor isn’t likely to take you seriously if your only symptom is a headache – that’s just how it is. Better to look at your own life and try to find the cause.” She turns to look at Leah, suddenly strict. “Are you hydrated? Eating vegetables? I know you’re exercising…” she pauses as she looks over Leah. “Geez, look at your arms!”

Leah smiles in satisfaction and flexes – almost imperceptibly, her biceps make a bump on her arm. “An hour a day at home, and then the gym classes three times a week.”

The mother’s expression is not impressed. “That’s not healthy.”

“Huh?” Leah’s face falls, and she lowers her arm.

The mother’s stern look cracks a bit into a grin at Leah’s expression. “I knew you were into fitness, so the classes didn’t really surprise me, but Leah, you need to give your body some time. Are you trying to get ready for the Olympics in a few months?”

Leah lowers her eyes and shrugs. “Didn’t like feeling feeble.”

“You’re not feeble,” the mother says, pulling her into a hug. “But you’ve got a physically demanding job, you’re walking everywhere, and you’re learning a physically demanding sport. Too much exercise on top of that is going to ruin your body. Even if you’re eating well, you’re not eating enough to meet your energy requirements.” She pulls out of the hug and looks down at Leah critically. “I’m taking you grocery shopping tomorrow and you are going to pick out food. You’re probably malnourished and starving.”

Leah chuckles a bit. “I won’t argue, and…I’ll cut down on the exercising a bit.”

“You’ve got a perfectly healthy and normal body. Don’t try to make yourself something you’re not.”

Something I’m not anymore. Something I doubt I could ever be again, but hey, that’s the point. Leah nods.

The mother smiles and drops a hot cookie on her plate. “Eat,” she says sternly, and Leah does. Apparently satisfied with Leah’s blissful expression as she tastes the cookie, the mother loads the rest onto a rack to cool off. “Don’t burn yourself.”

With effort, Leah listens to this advice, leaving the rest of the cookie for later.

*

Leah climbs back up the stairs at the end of the night, tired but relieved. She had managed to avoid having too many of the odd-smelling, too-strong beers, and had dodged any potentially dangerous questions.

“Breakfast around nine okay with you?” the mother calls up the stairs after her.

When’s nine? A while after sunrise, anyway. I’m sure they’ll wake me up for it if I sleep in. “That’s good,” Leah calls back down.

“Goodnight sweetie.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight Leah.”

“Goodnight.”

Leah opens the door and drops into the narrow bed. It squeaks loudly, then settles, bowing a little in the middle. The sheets smell like lavender and fake flowers, a smell she associates with one of the buildings near the apartment, the one with all the noisy white machines.

Launderette. Buanderie.

She sit up, confused. The bed squeaks.

How did I know that? That was French, wasn’t it? How did I know that was what it’s called? I must have seen it on the sign…must have guessed the pronunciation.

Seventh on the left.

What was that? That wasn’t just something I saw on a sign.

She settles back into bed only very nervously, and plays over the day’s events in her head.

I’m going to have to be careful about Jeremy. If he talks to me at work, the girls are going to want to know if he’s my birth family, and that phrasing will tip him off that something is wrong. Nah, he won’t talk to me. He was so embarrassed to realise that I worked at the strip club he visits so often…he’d never talk to me first. And if the girls notice that one of their regulars is suddenly shy around the bar-back…I’ll suggest that he has a crush on me! That’s plausible, right? And no way it could backfire…if they confront him about it, he’ll deny it, which will just make them believe it more. Even if he tells them he’s my cousin and he’s uncomfortable seeing me there, they’ll just mock his double standards until he leaves…except that then the girls might mention ‘birth family’ again…

I’ll just ignore him, and hope he ignores me back. The cultural norms here seem to suggest that he’d want to avoid any sort of confrontation just as much or more than I would.

Leah flips over in bed, and it creaks again. She stops moving with a sigh.

Problems for another day.

*

Leah wakes up to bright sunshine through her window, and the distant smell of sizzling cured meats. Curious, she gets up and goes downstairs, following her nose.

“What’s for breakfast?” she asks, peering into the frying pan.

“Bacon and French toast. Ready in a few minutes, but there’s fruit on the table if you want something right away.” The mother gestures to the dining room, and Leah goes out and takes a seat at the table, looking through the bowl of unrecognisable fruits.

“Pears are ripe,” the father says, not looking up from the newspaper in front of him, where he is working on one of the number puzzles. He reaches over blindly and rolls one to her.

Leah catches it. “Thanks dad,” she says, taking a bite, then freezing dead.

“Not ripe?” he asks, looking up above his glasses. “Too ripe?”

Leah shakes her head. “It’s fine,” she murmurs, taking a bite and chewing the unfamiliar fruit. “It’s perfect.”

“Glad to hear it.” He returns to his paper. “Want to set the table?”

Leah nods numbly, getting up to go to the kitchen and opening the cupboard to the left of the sink, grabbing three plates. She looks at the plates in her hand, wondering how she knew they’d be in that particular cupboard.

“He’s making you set the table?” her mother asks, shaking her head. “Well then you can get first pick of the goods. What do you prefer, crispy or soft?” She holds up two strips of bacon in a pair of metal tongs, cooked to different degrees.

Leah can’t think clearly. “Crispy, I guess.”

Her mother sets three strips on her plate, and two of the strange golden slices of bread. “Ask your father what he wants.”

Leah walks into the dining room and sets her plate down. “Crispy or soft?”

“Crispy, and make sure the toast isn’t too cooked,” her father says, finishing up the last box of the number puzzle and pushing the paper aside. “Perfect timing.”

Leah carries the plate back in, fills it up, and sets it down on the table in front of him. Her mother follows in with her own plate, and takes an apple from the bowl.

“Go ahead, dig in, it’ll only get cold.”

Leah stares at the strange food, takes a few steadying breaths, and eats breakfast with her family.