"Thanks, Steve."
"I'm serious. When did you last eat an actual meal that didn't come out of a jar labeled Nescafé?"
"Instant coffee is a meal. It's a warm beverage with cultural significance, and I will die on this hill."
He flicks sauce at me. A drop lands on my wrist and I lick it off.
"It's good. It's always so damn good."
"That's because it's my recipe." He catches my eye. "You want the family legacy, learn to cook something that requires more than a kettle."
Dave is out on the deck in the camp chair, feet up on the railing, beer balanced on the armrest. Through the sliding door I can see the back of his head tipped against the chair, the sky going purple behind the tree line. He built this deck. He builds most things around here—the shelves in the hallway, the half-finished pergola, the kitchen island he fitted over a long weekend while Neil sat on a stool and told him the measurements were off.
Aunt Kathy comes in from the garage carrying a bag of charcoal and a pair of tongs she's had since before I was born. The rubber grip is melted on one side from the time Dave left them on the grill. She's fifty-three, short and solid, Greek on her father's side like mine, and when she laughs the whole street can hear it.
"Hope, baby." She drops the charcoal by the sliding door and pulls me into a hug that smells like her perfume. "Come help me with these ribs."
I follow her out to the grill—a big Weber on the concrete pad beside the deck stairs. The concrete has a crack Dave keeps saying he'll fix and Neil keeps saying adds character. Aunt Kathy arranges the charcoal while I hold the tray of ribs Steve's been marinating since yesterday. The cold air hits my arms and I can feel the last warmth of the day pulling out of the ground.
"Your brother tells me you've been skipping meals again," she says, not looking up.
"Steve needs a hobby that isn't policing what I eat."
"He worries. We all worry." She lights the charcoal and straightens, wiping her hands on her jeans. Takes the tray from me and starts laying ribs on the grate.
"I said something at a meeting today." I watch her lay the ribs one by one. "Something I probably should have kept for a report."
"What kind of something?"
"The kind where I told the facility director that his treatment plan doesn't hold up and I'd like his position in writing."
She stops with a rib halfway to the grate and turns to look at me. Her eyebrows go up. "Hope Margaret Turner."
"I know."
"No, I'm not scolding you. I'm impressed." She places the rib and reaches for the next one. "Did you mean it?"
"Of course."
"Then that's all there is to it. Your dad would have done the same thing." She adjusts the grate. The smoke starts climbing, filling the air with charcoal and garlic and the sweet edge of Steve's sauce from inside.
From the kitchen, Steve yells that the sauce needs to rest and if anyone touches it before it's ready he's going home. Neil yells back from the living room that the sauce is fine and Steve is the one who needs to rest. Dave just lifts his beer from the camp chair and takes a sip and watches the sky go dark.
Aunt Kathy shakes her head at both of them through the sliding door.
We stand at the grill while the ribs cook. The deck light clicks on behind us and the neighborhood settles into that early-dark quiet that November brings—porch lights coming on up and down the cul-de-sac, the sound of someone's dog barking two houses over. Aunt Kathy turns the ribs while I hold the plate. We don't talk for a few minutes, and it's fine.
Quiet is easy with her. The way it's easy with Gage. Some people just don't need you to fill the space.
"Aunt Kath."
"Mm."
"How did you know? With Dave and Neil." I keep my eyes on the ribs. "How did you know it would work?"
She turns a rib and takes her time with it. "I didn't. Nobody gets a sign, Hope. I just stopped pretending I had to choose." She taps the tongs against the grate and looks at me. "That's all it ever was. I loved Dave and then I loved Neil. I kept waiting for someone to tell me that I couldn't, but in the end no one did." She shrugs. "I don't think I would have listened anyway."
I don't say anything.
