Chapter 23

Summary

• Yara spends Thanksgiving cuddled up at home with her daughters, feeling anxious and constantly battling intrusive thoughts.
• When the girls sense her distraction, they invite her to play, pulling her away from her ruminations.
• On her first day back after the break, Silas enters Yara's office, asking for her help to create a photo tutorial for his cooking class.
• Yara agrees to assist Silas and ends up following him to the campus kitchen to shoot his tutorial.
• In the kitchen, she sets up the tripod and camera to record the video and take still photos for his class.
• As Silas begins the tutorial on making French macarons, Yara takes photographs and manages the video recording.
• During a break, Yara and Silas discuss their personal histories, including their connections to their grandmothers and their cooking experiences.
• Silas shares his own childhood experiences of being teased and reveals that he struggled with his identity as a gay man, even marrying a woman and having a daughter before coming to terms with his sexuality.
• Yara relates to Silas's feelings of being an outsider and feels comforted that he eventually found his true self.
• They discuss the importance of their cultural foods and memories of their grandparents in maintaining connections to their heritage.
• Silas expresses the importance of being true to oneself for his daughter's sake, and Yara empathizes with his past struggles.
• The chapter ends with Yara tasting one of the macarons Silas has made and feeling a connection to the joy and authenticity he demonstrates in his cooking and his life.
• Yara is puzzled by her own ease of conversation with Silas, considering her struggles to open up even with her therapist, William.
• She confides in Silas about her difficulties fitting into her family's expectations and wonders if she has truly forged her own path.