“Welcome home, my love.”

Proserpina

“Mumma, can I help with those?’ demanded a persistent voice at my elbow, and I sighed.

It was Tara.

I had baked a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies for my boys who were home from their elite boarding school. But the entire batch I had baked the day before had been devoured.

Now I sighed and turned to smile at Lou and Dom along with Tara, who had entered the kitchen. Tara came to me and began to help me.

“Is it for Claude’s girl?’ asked Dom, who had no sense of decorum at times.

I sighed. The boys were now almost as tall as me, as was Tara.

“Help yourself, “I said drily, for I had seen the gleam in Dom’s eyes as he looked at the macaroons I had baked, the flavoured, delicate cookies sandwiched together with a creamy filling between them. After cooling them slightly on the baking sheet, we removed the cookies from their shells and paired them up according to their size. Tara and I had painstakingly sandwiched them together with ganache, buttercream, and jam filling to mak