The day began beautifully. Barbara's internal clock seemed in sync with mine. We went for a walk right away and the cool autumn air was even better than coffee. The sun began coming up, coloring the stretchy clouds. "It's hard to beat this view, Barb." It occurred to me I'd gone from talking to mystical shadows to talking with a dog. Good thing I was able to laugh at myself.

I had texts from Gwen that she'd sent after I went to bed the previous night. There were many exclamation points. Her final text was in all caps, "I CAN'T WAIT TO MEET BARBARA! LET'S FACETIME SOOOOOOOOON!!!" I sent her thumbs up. Barbara and I played for a bit. We worked on her tricks. It turned out she was the smartest, most clever, little puppy the world had ever seen. And I told her so one hundred times. It wasn't even noon when I decided I was sick of all the Netflix shows I'd been binging. I scrolled through looking for something new, but nothing appealed to me. I finally clicked the TV off and tapped my fingers on Barbara's head for a while, wondering what to do next.

Pa's voice bounced around my empty apartment, "Focus on others, honey. Focus on others." Okaaaaay. But how? I looked around the living room at Barbara's absurd amount of toys and silently thanked Little Cut again. I snapped my fingers. "Got it. Barb? We are going to make Little Cut a thank you meal."

A quick text to Marnie and I learned Little Cut loves French Onion soup. "Well, he's in luck," I announced to Barbara, "because my French Onion soup is second to none. I ran to the market down the road and back as fast as I could. It was probably a fifteen-minute errand, round-trip, but you'd think I was gone all day, as excited as Barbara was when I got home. No wonder people loved dogs. She was quite the esteem booster. I lay out all my ingredients and breathed in. My apartment smelled heavenly: onion, garlic, all the seasoning. It transported me to a time I cooked with the human Barbara. My eyes burned with tears, and not from the onions.

I pulled myself together and took inventory. Okay. I could do this. Thankfully I hadn't thrown out all my aprons. Though both had their own emotional heaviness. I pulled out one my mom gave me when I began culinary school and the other I'd taken from her very kitchen. She'd worn it through my childhood. I stroked it, but pulled the other one out and tied it on.

I yanked the apron strings tight and felt a determination as I did so. I could do this. Cooking is what I do. I organized my ingredients and began chopping onions. My muscle memory kicked in and I didn't even have to think about the knife or the onion. I moved on to the next one. My favorite big pot was on my highest shelf where I kept all the things I couldn't bear to get rid of, but also didn't want to lay eyes on every day. I pulled a chair over and hopped up on the counter to bring it down. It was dusty from unuse. I washed it off. "Much better," I told Barbara. Her tail thumped on the ground. "You hold down the fort for a sec, I just have to go to the bathroom." She thumped again and I took that as agreement.

It was so good to be useful in the kitchen again. I could not deny how much I missed buzzing around the kitchen, tasting and smelling and creating. Most of all the creating. But cooking has always come at a price for me. And this time was no different.

Later, I would kick myself, hate myself for the fussing I did in the bathroom. The leisurely way I scrubbed my hands, investigated my forehead for wrinkles. Then I made my bed. I hadn't made my bed in years, but wasn't I ambitious that day? Never again, I swore later. Never again will I make my bed. But I did. I smoothed out the sheets, fluffed the pillows, lay my comforter perfectly on top. By the time I got back to the kitchen, the damage had already been done.

At first I didn't realize how bad things were. I registered that Barbara was on the chair I'd left by the counter from getting my pot down. I registered that there was a mess of ingredients on the floor, splayed around like a tiny tornado had whipped through with a vengeance for onions. Barbara was still munching away and looked guiltily at me when I admonished her. "Barbara! The onions?!" Half of the onions were gone and a skin hung from the dog's lip. She licked if off before her back began to arch. Constricting like a boa constrictor in reverse. I lifted her off the chair in time for her to promptly puke on the floor.

I stroked her little head, "Well. What did you expect, pup?" Her eyes were glassy and when she followed me to get paper towel she wobbled like she'd spent the Saturday night on Bourbon Street. She couldn't quite make it to me before plopping down on the floor. Dread spread from my heart to my head and it finally occurred to me to grab my phone. A Google search confirmed, onions could be deadly poisonous for dogs. Barbara threw up again, but this time didn't waste any effort in standing up. "No." I tried to think clearly, tried to make a square to calm myself. The vet. I had to get her to the vet. I couldn't for the life of me remember where Little Cut wrote down his vet for me (it was stuck on the refrigerator). There was no time to look for it. I called him instead.

"Hey Nora," I could hear him smile. How could he smile at a time like this?

"Where's your vet? I have to get Barbara to the vet!" I was choking on the thick lumpy words. "Please, Ryan. I screwed up. She's so sick." I was bawling now and didn't care.

"Okay, I'm coming to get you guys. I'll call her on the way. Meet me downstairs." He hung up and I can't describe myself as relieved, not with Barbara laying there lethargic and glassy-eyed, but I was thankful I didn't have to do this alone. I wrapped her up in a towel and bolted downstairs. I paced on the sidewalk until a car slammed on its brakes in front of me. Little Cut threw it in park so fast I was nervous his transmission would drop. He helped us into the car.

I tried explaining what happened, but I was crying too hard. Finally he softly said, "Nora? I can't hear a word you're saying." He reached over me to the glove compartment and handed me old Dunkin Donuts napkins, which I used to blow my nose. Barbara's limp body tightened again, but I don't think she had anything else in her body to throw up. Little Cut stroked her ears while I focused on her breathing. Please keep breathing. Please.

"This always happens when I cook," I muttered. I felt Little Cut give me a strange look, but he didn't say anything. He was probably wondering what was the matter with me. Why I couldn't even take care of a dog for three days. Why he'd invested in me financially or emotionally. Maybe he hadn't. I nuzzled Barbara. She reeked, but she was breathing. I love you, I whispered.

After the longest drive of my life we got to the vet. We ran into the office as fast as possible. "I'm sorry," I told Barbara for jostling her so much. Ryan banged on the front desk until someone showed up. "Our dog needs help, it's an emergency." The receptionist took one look at Barbara and took us to a room.

I bawled through my story to the vet as she inspected every inch of Barbara. Her calm demeanor simultaneously annoyed and reassured me. "Ah, onions. You aren't the first person to bring their puppy in after an onion feast. Puppies will eat anything!" Ryan stroked my arm. It really was a shame he wouldn't get his thank you meal. He deserved it more and more all the time. "She's definitely a sick little pup. Do you know how many she ate?" the doctor asked.

"Um, four? Maybe?"

"Okay. I'm going to get some fluids in her and monitor her overnight. Just make sure she didn't get anything else that might obstruct her intestines." I covered my mouth. "She's going to live," she assured me, "and this won't even put her off onions, I bet! She'd eat another one if she got the chance," she declared. I took that to mean I better never have another onion in my home for the rest of my days. And I wouldn't. I would research every single thing dogs couldn't have and I would never let them cross the threshold of my apartment.

Ryan and I kissed Barbara's head, I cried even harder, and we left. In his car I covered my face with napkins from his glove compartment and cried. He leaned back and closed his eyes. "That was scary," he said.

"I hate myself," I bawled. "I hate myself so much! Onions! Why would I leave them on my counter? Why?

"I didn't know either. I had no idea dogs couldn't have them. Do you know Mario had to have surgery a couple months ago?"

"Mario did? Why?"

"A sock. He ate a sock and it got stuck."

"Oh no!"

"Yup. I haven't left a sock on the floor since."

I gave him a sympathetic smile. "I'm glad he's okay."

"Barbara will be okay too."

"This always happens," I muttered, more to myself than to him.

"What does?"

"Every single time I cook, something horrible happens." My mind was still clogged with grief and worry, which is maybe why I spilled my guts in the vet's parking lot to my boss, of all people. I was barely hinged to begin with, but the devastating memories bull-rushed me and that delicately balanced rusty hinge came completely undone.

To say I babbled would be an understatement. There was no way anybody could follow what I was saying without knowing my family history. Not to mention, I was talking primarily through a Dunkin' Donuts napkin. Every now and then I could tell Ryan picked up on a word like "prison" or "dead" because his brow would furrow like it did when I interrupted him in his office. It was his high concentration expression. And my delivery zigged and zagged and definitely required a lot of concentration. "And of COURSE it would be my cooking that would kill Barbara. Of COURSE it would be!" I yelled at his dashboard. "I started applying to culinary schools in high school and what happens? My dad is arrested! I didn't make a connection though. I went to culinary school and right before graduation? My mom dies. Of salmonella," I enunciated that bitterly for him to be sure he picked up on the sick irony of it. "And now? I nearly kill Barbara because I just HAD to make French onion soup!" I put my face back in my fully saturated and wilting napkin and continued wailing.

Ryan watched me for a very long time and I didn't care at all. Then I heard the clickity-clack of him texting. A chirp indicating he was receiving a text. Then, "Okay, there is a lot to unpack here. Marnie's roommate has people over so she's going to meet us at my place."

"Wait, what? No, you can just take me home. I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"You just gave me what I think is your whole life story for the last twenty minutes and now you don't want to talk?"

"No. Forget I said anything, actually."

"Um, no deal." He started his car and that's how I was officially kidnapped and taken to my boss' house to be held hostage by him and his ultra-perky little sister and forced to rehash the most painful parts of my past. I blame it on Ryan's apartment. When we walked in, me- miserable, him- confused, I think, I thought it may as well have been a therapist's office for the warmth and coziness it gave off. I wondered if he often tricked people into coming over to hear their life stories. The apartment was built for spilling one's guts.

I sensed he had the same feeling I did when he came over the other day: nervousness there would be incriminating personal items around. If there were, I didn't see them because I was distracted by the warmth and coziness. He lived on the ninth floor of a twelve story building in the middle of downtown, yet the apartment looked like a cabin in the woods. "Classy rustic," I would label it later when I was thinking more clearly. There was beautiful wood furniture and warm brown couches, a bowl made from antlers, and little acorn knobs on the end tables. Furry pillows were strewn about the couches and gaslights draped above us, like a hundred little ideas illuminating at once. It even smelled like a bonfire.

"Do you eat smores for every meal?" I asked.

"Ha. You're funny." I wasn't trying to be funny. "I love the woods. Just because we live in the city doesn't mean we can't bring a little of the woods to us, right?"

"No, I guess not." I was suddenly very aware of the blandness of my own apartment. It had zero personality. Well, more since Barbara moved in. Barbara.

I collapsed into the most comfortable chair I'd ever sat in and didn't bother to get up when Marnie got there. She ran to me and threw herself into the chair, right on top of. Then she curled around me and stroked my hair, "You must have been so scared!"

"I'm so sorry, Marnie!" More tears. It seemed like I would exhaust my tear ducts at some point, but it hadn't happened yet. "You trusted me with her and look what I did!"

"You?! You didn't do anything. She is a naughty little puppy who shouldn't have gotten up on your counter!"

"But the chair was there! And I shouldn't have had onions! And I should have trained her better!"

"In less than two days? Impossible. Listen, dogs get into things all. The. Time. Allthetime! This is not even a little bit your fault." Even though I didn't believe her, it was nice to hear. I didn't even realize how worried I'd been that she would be mad at me.

"Look out, girls! I've released the beast!" Ryan shouted, too little, too late. Mario sprinted at us and sprung on to the chair with us. He stepped all over every inch of us and miserable as I was, no human on the planet could not laugh at his ugly little self. He slurped my face while Ryan shouted at him to get down. "See how well he listens?" he said, finally scooping the dog off me.

I moaned and threw my head back. "I just hate knowing she's there all alone getting an iv because of me. Because I thought I could cook something. Nothing good ever ever comes of my cooking. I'm never cooking again."

"No! Not true. You promised me you'd help me with my Croque Madame!" Marnie hopped off the chair and knelt before me, hands folded. "Please please please!"

"Marnie! My cooking is deadly. Literally. Deadly."

"No offense? But that is the stupidest logic I've ever heard."

"Marnie!" Her brother threw his hands up. "Not helpful!" Though he looked like he completely agreed, he'd never say so.

My phone rang and vibrated on the log table in front of me. I lunged for it. "Hello?" Ryan and Marnie leaned toward me to hear, to no avail because when I hung up Marnie yelled, "was that the vet? What did she say?"

My cleansing breath came out jagged from relief. "She said Barbara's doing great. She's feeling way better and her enzyme levels are back where they need to be. Whatever that means. And she made a friend in the stall next to her." That last piece of information sent me over the edge and I was crying again. Marnie sat on the arm of the sofa and comforted me. Ryan set a glass of water on a coaster in front of me. I could not imagine owning furniture I cared enough about to protect with a coaster.

"I think you should take tomorrow off," he told me.

I desperately wanted to take tomorrow off. "No, no. I can come in. It's fine."

"Yeah, I don't think so. Barbara will need to be picked up and something tells me you'll want to stay home with her tomorrow." The thought of leaving her alone ever again was ridiculous.

Mario was chewing a bone with gusto at our feet. "Okay, you win. I'll take a personal day tomorrow. Ugh. Carol is going to have some opinions about this."

"Carol? She took two weeks off when her cat had kittens. I think she'll understand."

"Carol did? Huh. I didn't even know she had a cat."

Outside, it was dark already. A sure sign that winter was right around the corner. "Now," Marnie said. "About this cooking curse you think you have."

"I'm never cooking again. You can't make me. I'll give you the Croque Madame recipe. You'll be fine."

"I will NOT be fine."

"She won't be fine. This girl burns rice krispie treats," Ryan informed me. Marnie didn't look offended. She was nodding, wide-eyed.

"My grade and entire livelihood depends on this, Nora. No pressure."

"I don't think you guys understand the risk. Someone you love could get badly hurt. You could get... I don't know fired! Or dumped or... evicted or... ohmygosh, something could happen to Mario! These are the kinds of things that happen when I start to cook."

"Nora. You are smart and funny and pretty. You have so much going for you. But you are insane if you really believe your cooking causes all that stuff." Ryan looked very firm. Marnie was nodding in agreement. I tucked his compliments away to feast on later. When I tried to argue, he put a hand up, "Seriously. Do you think bad things don't happen to other chefs? Your logic is so flawed I don't even know where to start."

"It's a coping mechanism!" Marnie chimed in like she was opening a gift and announcing its contents ("It's a sweater!") I learned all about this in my Psych. class. You're trying to protect yourself, but you're actually self-sabotaging." I'd been told that before. By Abby. And Eric. And a therapist or two.

"But it's scary," I muttered.

Rather than asking what's scary, they both agreed. "Super scary," Ryan confirmed.

"I'll help you! Baby steps!" Marnie added.

"Let me guess, we'll start with a simple French dish?"

She laughed and snapped her fingers. "You know it! We can make it here so you don't even have to worry about Barbara getting into anything. Ry doesn't mind, do you?"

"Not if I get a meal out of the deal."

"You Cutters are a very insistent bunch, you know that?"

Marnie made her brother high-five her. "We'll take that as a compliment!"