Page 20 of Home Ice

Max: tragic news. taco sunday will proceed without you

Max: you’re excused on account of employment. it’s the only excuse my mother accepts and honestly she accepted it too fast, I’d be hurt if I were you

Max: they know about you btw. they have QUESTIONS. mostly mom. I’m deflecting nothing, I want that understood. you will face them alone

Max: next time. that’s a promise not a threat

Max: okay it’s both

I typed back that I was sorry to miss it and hit send. It was a dinner at a house I’d never seen, with people I’d never met, and missing it felt like missing something real. I searched for and opened Max’s website.

It was good. It had a series of before-and-afters of bright rooms coming together out of chaos. A video ran in the corner with Max’s face narrating a planning session for a kitchen makeover.

I scrolled through six projects and finally realized what I was looking for. It wasn’t there. I went back up and scrolled again, slower, to be sure.

Niko’s workshop wasn’t there. I didn’t know whether that was on purpose.

I was scrolling through for a third time when my phone buzzed. It wasn’t Max.

Niko: That corner you asked about is a drawer now. Stop by when you’re back.

I read it twice. It was an invitation.

Chapter six

Niko

Icarried a chair into my mother’s house by the side door, where the storm door swung out and caught me across the back of the arm.

“Ma. Hold it.”

“It’s open.”

“Open isn’t held.”

She caught it with her hip and held it. I came through sideways with the chair’s back rail riding my collarbone. The kitchen smelled like a spice rack, cumin blending with nutmeg and cinnamon. It told me Ma had pulled her favorite pastitsio out of the freezer even though she’d lost the vote to tacos.

“Is that the chair?”

“It’s the chair.”

“You’ve had it for two years, Niko.”

“And I finished it two years ago.” I set it down in the front room and pressed a thumb against the back rail where the tenon fit into the mortise. It was solid and had been since the afternoon I’d glued it. “You could have come and gotten it any time.”

“He says this like I’m the one who owns a truck.” She helped me out of my coat the way she’d been doing since I was six. “Gus, Niko fixed the chair.”

“I heard,” my father said. “I’m right here.”

I followed Ma into the kitchen. There was a line of taco fillings set out along the counter: meat, warm shells, shredded cheese, and a bowl of shredded cabbage because Ma thought it was healthier. At the far end was a steaming dish of pastitsio.

Max was filming the counter.

He had his phone low, tracking down the line of bowls, doing his slow sideways camera walk, narrating along the way.

”—and what you’re seeing here is a house divided. Somebody in this house said Mexican, and somebody else said fine, and then went to the freezer instead—“

Ma entered the shot with a dish towel and slapped him across the shoulder.