Ten Minutes Can Wait

The pan hissed when Barbara dropped the onions in. She hadn’t meant to cook this late, but the day had slipped away from her in pieces, hours lifted out of her hands while she was still using them. An email that turned into three. A call that ran long because neither person knew how to end it. Standing in line at the pharmacy, staring at the backs of people’s coats while the clock on her phone crept forward. By the time she noticed the light outside the kitchen window had gone flat and gray, her stomach ached with the hollow kind of impatience that only real food could fix.

She’d considered cereal. Toast. Anything that didn’t require standing upright this long. But the idea of something hot, something that needed tending, had pulled her into the kitchen before she could talk herself out of it. She flicked on the overhead light and blinked at the sudden brightness. The room looked the way it always did at night. Clean enough. A little tired. Like it had done this before and wasn’t impressed. A stack of mail leaned against the fruit bowl, unopened. A coffee mug sat in the sink with a ring at the bottom, evidence of a morning that already felt far away.

She stood there for a moment with the knife still in her hand, listening to the sizzle, letting the sound anchor her, loud enough to drown out whatever else thought it deserved airtime. It filled the kitchen and pushed everything else to the edges. The to-do list in her head quieted. The dull worry that had been riding her shoulders all afternoon eased just enough to breathe around. Then she set the knife down and stirred with a wooden spoon, scraping the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. She liked that part, the small resistance giving way under pressure, the clean sound when the pan gave up what it was holding.

Garlic followed, smashed with the side of her palm and chopped without much care. A pinch of salt came next, measured by feel, not thought. She’d done this enough times to trust her hands more than any recipe. Cooking like this wasn’t about precision. It was about momentum. One thing after another, no second-guessing, no stopping long enough for doubt to catch up. If she paused too long, she knew her mind would wander back to everything she hadn’t finished yet.

The smell dragged her back to her mother’s kitchen, not the whole room, just the sound of one fork scraping a plate. Her mother always did it, chasing the last bit of egg or potato, metal on ceramic, slow and unapologetic. No one ever rushed her. Someone would ask, without looking up, “You done with that?” the question meaning the opposite of hurry. Silence stretched around the table and held, waiting. Not impatient. Just aware.

She wondered when that changed. When quiet stopped being something you could lean into and started feeling like a gap you were supposed to bridge. When pauses went from merciful to suspicious, as if stillness itself were a kind of failure.

She wiped her hands on a dish towel and poured herself a finger of whiskey. Not a celebration drink, not even a reward. Just something to take the edge off the buzzing that had followed her home. She took a small sip, let it burn, then exhaled through her nose. The glass went by the sink where she wouldn’t forget it was there, where it stayed safely out of the way but within reach. She told herself she’d stop at one — not a lie exactly, just a sentence with flexible edges.

The onions softened, turning translucent at the edges, and she nudged them around the pan, making space. The eggs went in last, cracked one-handed out of habit. One shell broke a little jagged, and she fished a fragment out with the tip of the spoon, annoyed but not surprised. It felt like a fair summary of the day. Nothing disastrous, just slightly off, requiring a bit of cleanup.

The heat got turned down, low enough to be patient. She leaned against the counter while she waited, feeling the cool laminate through her shirt. The oven clicked as it cooled, a quiet, steady sound that filled the room without demanding attention. She watched steam curl up and disappear, then reappear, like the pan was breathing.

She watched the eggs set, the whites going dull, the yolks losing their shine in a way that always felt personal. This part was delicate — not because it was hard, but because it was unforgiving. Too soon and it collapsed. Too late and it lost the softness she was counting on without admitting it. Her phone buzzed in the other room. The sound skittered across her nerves, sharp and insistent, like someone saying her name twice when she’d already decided not to answer. She could already see it — screen lit up on the coffee table, insisting on a name or, worse, a number that refused to explain itself.

She ignored it. Whoever it was could wait ten minutes. Or twenty. The world wouldn’t tip over because she didn’t answer right away. It was a small rebellion, but it felt necessary.

She stirred once more, slower now, and shut the burner off before everything was quite done. Carryover heat would finish the job. It usually did. She liked trusting that, too. Doing her part and letting the rest happen on its own.

When she finally slid the food onto a chipped plate, she didn’t bother sitting at the table. The chair felt too far away, like more effort than she had. She ate standing up, fork in one hand, glass in the other, chewing slowly. The first bite was hotter than she expected, and she hissed quietly, then laughed at herself for it. The laugh sounded strange in the empty kitchen, but not unwelcome. It reminded her that her voice still worked, that it didn’t only exist on calls and voicemails.

It wasn’t a perfect meal. One egg was slightly overdone, and she’d used too much pepper. The onions were a little darker than she’d planned, almost jammy in spots. Still, with each bite, her shoulders dropped a little. The tight line between her eyebrows softened. The day loosened its grip, inch by inch, as if it were finally getting bored of holding on.

She took another sip of whiskey, then another bite, and leaned back against the counter again. The plate warmed her palm. Outside, a car passed, tires whispering over pavement. Somewhere nearby, a door closed, then another. Ordinary sounds, unremarkable, but steady. Proof that things were moving along without her having to push them.

She thought briefly about the messages she’d answer later, the tasks she’d circle back to in the morning. They hovered at the edge of her mind, but they didn’t press in. They could stay there for now.

For the first time all day, nothing was asking anything of her except to finish what was on the plate. No decisions, no explanations, no fixing. Just heat, salt, and the simple act of eating. She stayed there until the fork scraped porcelain and the glass was empty, letting the quiet stretch a little longer than necessary.

When she finally rinsed the plate and set it in the rack, she didn’t rush. The water ran warm over her hands. She turned off the light before leaving the kitchen, standing in the dim for a second, listening to the house settle.

And for now, that felt like enough.