“I don’t care.”
“He still loved the food. He wants to talk to you.” Chester jerks a pair of tongs out of my hand, throwing them against the counter. “Hey. Will you stop and listen for a second?”
“He ate the snapper. That was Poppy’s concept. Tell him to talk to her.”
“Maybe if you’d mention where she fucking went—”
“She’s leaving tonight, with us,” says Douglas.
I stop in my tracks. Douglas stands by the pass, a pinched look on his face. Rage pulses through me, white-hot.
“Get out of my kitchen.”
“Son, listen—”
“I fucking told you not to call me son again.”
My crew ceases their near-fluid movements. Chester tenses, as if poised to tackle me if I do something exceptionally stupid. Douglas, for his part, doesn’t flinch.
“I didn’t realize how you felt about her,” he admits.
“You’ve never believed in her. You’ve never seen her for who she is.”
He has the decency to look guilty. “You don’t know how much she’s struggled.”
“I spent months telling her that she ought to feel lucky to have parents who cared. A family. Not everyone gets that, you know.” I laugh bitterly. “And some of us are too fucking stubborn to accept it when it’s offered. I defended you, and it blew up in my face.”
“It’s not what I intended.”
“Well, it’s what happened.” The fight leaves me in a rush. All I want to do is cook until every thought leaves my head. “I have a service to finish. You have a daughter to apologize to.” I turn to the stove.
“You could come with me,” Douglas says, his voice more tentative than I’ve ever heard it. “The plane doesn’t take off until early morning.”
I shut my eyes briefly. For a second, I imagine saying yes. It would be worth it to see her one more time. To kiss her, and tug her braid, and let her know how much I want a future with her, too.
But I can’t give her what she wants, and I don’t think I’d be able to stand her leaving me twice.
“She made her choice.” The houseboat is going to be so empty when I go back. I have to grip the edge of the counter to keep my hands from shaking. “Tell her I hope she took the damn cat.”
When service finally winds down, then ends, I let everyone go but me.
They protest, especially Chester and Kiara, but eventually, I’m alone. I put on music, loud enough to drown out even the whisper of a thought, and dive into cleaning.
I start with the mountain of dishes piled up in the sinks. Then Iput the dining room in order, steadfastly ignoring those tiny details that Poppy was so proud of—the bag hooks underneath the tables, the pretty water glasses she managed to snag from a restaurant auction, the rattan votives. I sweep, then mop, and then rearrange the entire bar. Whenever I catch sight of myself in a mirror, I grimace. I look like a ghost, a shell. The moment I finish, I’ll keel over. Hopefully when I do, I won’t dream.
I clean the bathrooms. Rearrange the storage area. Take stock of the walk-in, the units sold, the amount of each dish that we cooked. I scrub the appliances until they gleam and haul out all the trash.
And when I’m done, I sit in the office—the office that was Sal’s and still feels like Sal’s; I didn’t change anything about it, not even his shitty filing system—with a bottle of the first alcoholic drink I see.
The edge of something pokes out from behind the desk.
I draw it out slowly. It’s a picture frame. Big, solid, the kind you hang on a wall, not put on a shelf. I flip it over.
It’s a picture of me, Sal, and Kiara in the kitchen. One side of my mouth twitches upward out of reflex as I take in the details. I don’t remember the specific day it was taken, but it must have been sometime during my senior year. Kiara’s smile leaves my chest aching. Sal looks so vibrant and alive—a fresh avalanche of grief covers me. I pour another drink, for him this time, and hold it out before I swallow.
Kiara must have dug through old photographs for this. Sal, despite having a cell phone like everyone else, still preferred to print out photos and keep them in labeled stacks. I wonder who took this picture. Not Herman. Maybe one of the other line cooks, or our old front of house manager. She always put together a restaurant Christmas card.
I turn it over again.
