The way to someone's heart was always through their stomach.
That was the philosophy Randall Coombs had been following since he was a very young man. He was not a professional cook, nor even an amateur- actually, he worked in the upper echelon of a large claims department- but, in his free time, he researched recipes and crafted items of food that made everyone who tasted them glad to be alive. It was with a spinach-artichoke dip at an office party that he had met Annette; it was over spaghetti bolognese that he had proposed to her; it was over an expertly frosted wedding cake that he had married her; and it was after eleven years of bland, limp salads that he had, at long last, divorced her. He had saved himself and his 9-year-old daughter Susan from the machinations of a bitchy, self-obsessed mother who cared little about anything outside of her figure. The courts, seeing this, had granted him full custody, and he was planning to make the most of it. Annette had denied Susan a lot of things; Randall planned to give those back in spades. Starting, of course, with some quality food.
___________
Susan Coombs was not expecting the smell emanating from the kitchen. Her dad was cooking something- what, he wouldn't say- and she at first had remained uninterested, preferring to lounge her lithe body on the couch and watch cartoons. For the past week since moving in, just like usual, she had eaten nothing but bland, dressingless salad; her father hadn't wanted to shock her, and she, being a generally agreeable girl, hadn't complained. As such, the smell came as a complete and utter surprise.
To her father, mixing sauce and crushing garlic, it smelled like a perfectly ordinary bowl of pasta. To Susan, who, due to her controlling mother, had never had anything like it, it smelled like Heaven itself.
Entranced, she got off the couch and wandered to the kitchen, rapt with wonder. With every step, it only smelled better. The rich tomato sauce, the parmesan cheese, the garlic...all of it blended together into a marvelous tapestry of pure scent. Still entranced, Susan sat down numbly at the counter, gazing wistfully into the kitchen. Her father must have noticed her entrance, because he turned around then, holding aloft a large bowl filled with penne pasta.
"Here you go, Susan" he said, laying the bowl in front of her. "I haven't had a chance to flex my cooking muscles in a while, so I hope you like it!"
Susan didn't answer. She merely grabbed the fork, eyes locked on the food, and slowly, ever so slowly, speared a noodle, lifted it up to her mouth, and ate it.
Randall smiled.
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