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(It seemed impossible, but he kept demonstrating he could.)
And the way those pork chops were looking only served up more evidence to prove it.
“But…I don’t mean to be funny,” Deb went on. “Where are we going to eat?”
I could understand her concerns, considering she didn’t want to be sawing into a pork chop with a plate balanced on her knees and maybe spill some pork juice on the silky material of her dress.
“I thought you and Dad could eat at the bar, and Cap and I will, erm…improvise,” I said.
“Why don’t we eat at one of the tables by the pool?” Dad suggested. “That courtyard is fantastic.”
Cap looked over his shoulder again, this time at me.
“The complex is kinda busy, Dad,” I said.
“Darlin’, I hope you know, this isn’t going to be our only visit,” Dad informed me, and my heart swelled, because I’d hoped so, but his confirmation was awesome. “These people are part of your life. We had a rocky introduction, but we need to move on from that.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Sure I’m sure,” he said.
“Okay!” I cried happily, because our courtyardwasfantastic, and because I loved this indication that Dad was all in to stop hiding behind history, old and new, deal with shit and come out into the open.
I leaned in to kiss his cheek, ignoring the startled, happy look on his face when I pulled away.
I hopped off my chair and dashed to grab my eat-in-the-courtyard bucket from the shelf over the washer and dryer in the hall.
Stopping only to open a drawer and snatch my cloth napkins, which I dumped into the bucket, then opening another to nab the cutlery, I dashed out of the apartment, calling, “Be right back.”
I ran down. Spritzed a table with all-purpose cleaner, wiped it down, shifted the chairs and laid out my placemats that I had rolled up and stored in the bucket. I set out the napkins and cutlery and raced back.
No one had moved from where they were.
I headed to the hall to put away the bucket.
“I could have helped you with that,” Deb noted when I squeezed into the kitchen to get out my fancy plastic wineglasses and start the switch from what we were using.
“That’s okay. You’re on a mini-vacay. Sit down with Dad and relax.” I said, getting sidetracked putting my marble wine holder in the freezer. From how those chops were looking, we didn’t have a lot of time for it to chill, but every little helped.
“You’ve built a sweet life for yourself, Rachel,” Deb noted, and I stopped pouring my wine into a plastic glass and looked at her.
“It got sweeter recently,” I replied.
Pink hit her cheeks.
Dad ducked his head.
“Baby, help me with the finishing touches. We’ll load up our plates here and head down,” Cap said.
I did that.Wedid that. And it was Cap who did the extra trip up to go get another bottle of wine from the fridge and the holder from the freezer.
We were diving in when Patsy, standing at the railing on the upper walkway outside her unit, shouted down at us, “Hey, Raye! Hey, Raye’s family!”
Cap, Dad and Deb looked up at her.
She didn’t wait for their greetings.
She asked me, “Did you see the new compost bins?”
