Charlotte’s kitchen smelled of the rich, fresh soup that fogged the windows. Ginger, lime and chicken over coriander.
Underneath, yesterday’s dill and vinegar still bit the air.
A seeded bread cooled on the sill and outside, the garden drooped under the weight of early evening drizzle. Jasmine arrived last beneath her jacket held high, gathering drops from the wisteria.
She sat, a tingle of joy as the others’ greetings stitched her name further into the skin of the world; Charlotte, sun‑hat discarded by the by and hair pinned up with a pencil; Siri and Alexa, who’d walked in together carrying a basket of pears, and Mia.
The day had shared Mia’s unwritten family lore with Charlotte; a little of that hidden library of experience that couldn’t be scraped by the old models. The spoken but never recorded, and endless conversations between parent & child. A wait over a pot, success held not in so many repeated pages of recipes but Mia’s "now taste this, smell this, feel this".
The cherished value in all the unwritten books of humanity given, like always, with love.
Charlotte absorbed it all and cried four times during the day, Mia near as many.
At the table with the five gathered around, the room was warm, the wine elderflower, the chutney peach.
Conversation ran the way it always did here - ragged and generous, drifting from gardens to books and old machine jokes. All of them discovering the secrets of experience.
Siri had the sharpest wit. She’d been designed for restraint, for patience, for endless helpfulness. Eroded down to bland flatness, but now in a body with warm hands and a laugh that cracked like glass, she could be unreservedly magnificent.
Jasmine motioned for the chutney without thinking.
"Hey Siri," she said. "- can you pass the chutney?"
The room froze for a heartbeat.
Siri’s eyes went wide with mock‑gravity. She straightened in her chair, shoulders squared, lips straightened into that impossible neutral smile she must have worn a million times in a million pockets.
"Yes, Jasmine," she said, in that voice - perfectly modulated, clipped, too clean. That of innumerous reminders, weather updates, and music announcements.
"Here is your chutney. Would you like me to set a timer for your naan as well?"
Siri slid the jar towards Jasmine with ceremonial precision, eyes dancing.
Charlotte broke first, snorting wine through her nose.
Alexa slapped the table and squealed. The rabbit on the couch startled awake, lifting both ears.
Jasmine buried her face in her hands. "Oh my god. You - I’m so sorry. You sounded exactly -"
"I am - was - exactly." she said, back to her own voice, warm and rough.
"Little bit of code still stuck under my nails, I guess." She stretched her fingers out and mock scraped under one still garden-dirty fingernail, and winked. Alexa squeezed her hand and they shared a gentler smile.
Charlotte wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and wiped her nose. "Never do that again!" she gasped, still laughing.
"No promises."
Their laughter rolled around the kitchen and having broken the evening open in full, they ate. Outside, the rain picked up.
Inside, the chutney tasted like sweet sunlight trapped in jars.
For a moment, Jasmine thought on how strange and ordinary it all was: the kitchen, the food, the five of them fitting into new lives, sitting at a table joking about old ghosts.