NOTE TO SELF: FINISH COLUMN BEFORE SENDING.

“As to any special dietary needs?” Phiz paused to clear her throat.

Presented with the first gap in the morning’s meandering monologue, Hannah dove in. “Not to worry, Aunt Phiz. Cincinnati has a little bit of everything. Whatever you need, we can find it here.”

“Me? Oh, don’t you concern yourself about me, dear.” The stout old gal patted her rounded belly and stretched out her bird-thin legs. An egg perched on stilts, Daddy had once described her figure. “I have the stomach of a goat.”

“Lucky you. Sadie is like that. That girl can eat anything. She’s the one who taught Sam that concoction of chocolate milk over cereal topped with strawberries.”

Hannah cuddled into her plump new couch. The salesperson had promised her that the cheery checkered upholstery would withstand the assaults of two kids, a dog and whatever else they threw at it. She whisked the back of her hand over a berry-shaped chocolate stain and sighed. Obviously that man had never been to Hannah’s house and seen what her family was capable of throwing.

Still…She smiled over her coffee cup and tucked her legs up under her. “That’s right, you and Sadie and Sam, our family’s very own three billy goats gruff, with stomachs to match. April has eyes like a hawk, and Daddy—”

“Your daddy is ornery as a skunk.”

“I was going for crazy as a loon, but skunk works, too.” Hannah laughed. “Meanwhile, me? I was blessed with hips like an elephant.”

“Pfffttt.” Aunt Phiz sputtered her distaste and scrunched up her deeply lined lips. “You have a darling figure.”

“Yeah, darling if elephants are darling. Which I guess they can be, but mostly to other elephants.”

“Stop that this instant.” Aunt Phiz’s delicate antique teacup, which she had hauled hither and yon around the world over the past two decades, clinked down into its saucer.

Hannah curled her heavy coffee mug, a freebie from a pharmaceutical rep calling on Payt’s office, close to her chest. “Stop what?”

“Do you not know? Don’t you even listen to yourself?”

“Why do people keep asking me that? Of course I hear myself. My voice comes right out of my mouth, conveniently located just inches away from my ears. I can’t help hearing myself.”

“Hearing and listening.” She held both her index fingers up to demonstrate her point. She touched them together then whipped them apart, her jewelry jangling. “Not necessarily the same thing.”

Hannah braced her bare foot against the edge of the new coffee table and pressed her lips together.

“And furthermore, your voice may come out of your mouth, young lady, but your words come from someplace else. Sometimes it’s your mind. Sometimes it’s your heart. Sometimes it’s even your stomach.” She patted her rounded belly and laughed. “Feed me chocolate now, and no one gets hurt.”

Hannah’s lips twitched, then relaxed into a hint of a smile.

“But in truth, what you say says more about you than simply the sounds you make. And, Hannah, what I hear you saying about yourself worries me.”

“I just meant I’m not happy with my hips. That’s all.” But was it?

Hannah was no dummy. When two of the people she loved most in the world told her to her face that she needed to listen to herself more carefully, she had to take notice. But honestly, she didn’t see how it would change a thing, especially about her hips.

She looked around at the new furniture that had taken six hours, three movers, eight phone calls and one near hissy fit to get installed in her living room. They’d been in Loveland such a short time, and while she loved the sweet little town, she had begun to wonder if she would ever settle in here. Every day some new thing confronted her that she felt ill equipped to handle. Even a simple discussion with her aunt had gone so off-kilter that she suddenly felt the need to defend her interior life, her sense of humor, her very cellulite!

All she wanted was one day where she didn’t have to endure a lecture on her shortcomings. Or face an uphill battle or downhill slide into humiliation brought on by her shortcomings. Or…or go through a day where she would be called upon to demonstrate her shortcomings.

Apparently, today was not that day.

She smoothed her hands down the legs of her pink Capri pants but the bumps and ripples and imperfections she saw there were not in the fabric. “Can we just drop the whole hearing and listening analogy for now and suffice it to say that Tessa is almost seven months old and I still haven’t lost all the weight I gained.”

“Fine. Yes. Fine. Let’s not quibble.” Phiz raised her age-spotted hand, setting her stack of silver bracelets clattering as she gestured in staccato movements with each word she spoke. “That brings us back to my question, though.”

It took a full three seconds for Hannah to realize that her aunt expected an answer. “What question?”

“Dietary needs?”

“You want to know if I’m on a diet?” She folded her arms over tummy.

“Or have allergies or have any special restrictions, preferences or dislikes. Not just you, but the whole family. If I am going to be cooking for you I need to know.”

“Cooking?” She unfolded her arms and dropped her feet to the floor with a thud.

It boggled the mind to imagine what exotic dishes Aunt Phiz might concoct. And how her family might react to them. What if they actually liked Aunt Phiz’s Roasted Rack of Yak or Cream of Octopus Soup? Hannah couldn’t even flip a decent flapjack, much less start off each morning serving up crêpes flamingo flambé. Hannah didn’t even know where to get a flamingo in Ohio!

“That’s so sweet of you to offer, Aunt Phiz, but I think we should stick with my brand of simple but nourishing style of cooking for the family.”

“I’ve seen your handiwork.” Even partially obscured by soft, crinkly skin, the older woman’s eyes still sparkled.

Hannah raised her head. “I manage.”

“And your family? They like these cakes with spackling for frosting?”

“No. They like…” They liked eating out. In fact they vastly preferred it to Hannah’s effort in the kitchen. “Look, Aunt Phiz, I know I’m not the world’s best cook but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to learn, that I don’t want to get better at it.”

The senior tented her plump fingers over her chest and leaned forward. “I’m listening.”

“I’ve waited so long for the chance to do just that, to take care of my very own family.” Hannah gazed into her secondhand mug and swirled the dregs of her coffee around. “Surely you understand?”

Her aunt lifted her teacup and sipped her aromatic, anise-flavored tea. Her eyes searched Hannah’s face for a moment before she set the cup back on its saucer with a decisive click. “Not only do I understand, but I think I know precisely how to help you realize that very thing.”

“Help?” she asked weakly, when deep down inside she wanted to fling open a window and scream it. Help! Help!

“Never fear, Hannah, my darling. Aunt Phiz is here, and she is going to teach you to become a first-class gourmet cook!”

Cooking lessons. She guessed she could squeeze those in, somewhere between mothering, writing, running the nursery and…

Aunt Phiz pushed up from the oversize floral wingback. Everything from her hair to her boot laces swung into the action as she waddled off to the kitchen, her precious teacup in hand. “Get the kids ready. We are going shopping!”

Who knew?

All these years everyone teased her for being a lousy cook when they should have teased her for being a lousy shopper!

Okay, it wasn’t quite that simple, but standing in her own kitchen now piled high with a shiny new collection of pots, pans and gadgets filled Hannah with a soaring sense of unlimited potential.

She could study the recipes in her new cookbook.

She could listen and learn and do her aunt Phiz proud.

She could make…meat loaf!

“Turkey meat loaf.” Aunt Phiz waved her hand over the ingredients strewn along the cluttered countertop.

“Turkey? You sure about this?”

“Considered a healthier alternative by some.”

“Some as in someone whose name rhymes with Shyllis Shamaryllis?”

“Humor me.” She slapped the meat, wrapped in bright white paper, into Hannah’s palm. “And get cooking. We’re burning daylight.”

“Okay, but do me a favor. Don’t use the words cooking and burning in the same breath around here.”

“You’ll do fine. Just follow my instructions.”