The Secret Stash

Between 5 and 7 in the morning, I write. This is something that many find to be a terrible gaspillage of sleep, but in fact I find the aube glow just before the street cleaners begin making their rounds and the birds waking to be perfect for me to think. In the center of the city a quiet and comforting feeling has descended on everything. Things seem actually countrysidelike and my mind is clearest even before coffee, which I have after I have spent my 2 productive personal hours.

Sissy, who is my entirely spoiled kitty born in Beijing, eats rabbit Whiskas senior in sauce from a secondhand limoge teacup and then settles on the arm of the couch to raise her nose to sniff the breeze coming in over the window boxes through the open window, and watch me, or perhaps try to telepathically tell me to give her more rabbit.

Loic came out seeking breakfast sometime between 6 and 7 and while I had his toast heating, I realized there was nothing sweet to spread. I had given him the last dollop of last summer's Mirabelle Jam last night on yogurt for dessert, and the cherry butter was finished. I began rooting around on the shelves turning out various half used jars of savory apero spreads in our embarrassingly cluttered refrigerator, nothing for Loic's sweet tooth. I mentioned that I might have to make him some cinnamon toast and he said - Lucy, don't worry.

He went knowingly over to the old cabinet where we keep special things like delicacies we are saving and liqueurs and things like special teas we have received as gifts, and he reached directly his full arm all the way into the back like he knew exactly where a treasure was hidden. He brought out the oblong box that kind of looked like a box you might receive jewels in. He paused for a moment, as if he was contemplating something.

I didn't realize at first what it was, because it had been ferreted away within minutes after we received it as a gift from Alison and her new husband visiting from London, and then he raised the top off of the box, a bit like he raises the top off the box containing a set of silver knives we have. He was kneeling before the cabinet and opened the box and fitted the rich thick creamy forest green colored cotton rag paper coated lid carefully underneath it.

That was when I saw the two blank spots, the missing jars. Two of the four small gourmet jars of special English jam had already been eaten. Without my knowledge. I had never even seen them opened or even had a taste of them or seen them empty. He had discreetly devoured them and gotten rid of the evidence.

He held the box without even looking in my direction, kind of cute kneeling before the cabinet like a kid in his pyjamas anyway. He had a little smile on his face because he knew I was going to forgive him. He made his choice carefully after scratching his chin and then his cheek, something he does when deciding, and removed yet another jar of jam from its custom moulded slot. He closed the box back and smoothed his fingers over the top of the box as if caressing it. He replaced it back into the very back of the cabinet again. I wasn't suprised at what had just occurred. Amused because it is not like him to keep secrets. Touched that he confessed in this silent way, just showing me.