Page 30 of Home Ice

“Bought two.” He handed the bottles across the counter and tapped the second label. “That one’s to prove him wrong. Open it last.”

Rook hung up their coats. “Is there a game on?”

“There was one on,” Heath said from the couch, “and it’s already over, so don’t get excited.”

Cross and his wife brought a salad. Pratt asked Kieran quietly whether the oven had done the thing again. Kieran said it fixed itself. Pratt said ovens don’t fix themselves.

The short ribs came out at seven, and there were two dishes. Kieran carried the big one to the table with both hands and set it in the middle, then went back and got the second, much smaller one, and set that one down at my end with a great deal of ceremony.

“This,” he announced to the table, “is the mild batch.”

“Here we go,” Heath said.

“It’s for Heath.”

“It is not for me.”

“It is for Heath,” Kieran said, “who grew up in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, where they season food with nothing stronger than salt and pepper. It’s here for him. Anyone else who is near his platter, that’s between them and their conscience.”

“I’ve eaten your food without complaint since we moved in here.”

“And every time I make a smaller batch of the mild, and every year the smaller batch disappears. Then you look me in the eye and tell me it was Trier.”

“It was Trier once.”

“It was Trier once,” Trier agreed.

I ate from the mild one. Kieran walked past behind my chair at one point and moved the small dish about three inches closer to my elbow with two fingers, and kept going.

Heath and Kieran’s wedding in July came up twice. The first time was somebody asking whether the venue would be big enough, and Kieran said it would. He said it was at his brother’s out in the ‘burbs, and they were hiring a company to set up tents in three acres out back.

The second time it came up was during dessert, when Heath’s phone buzzed. He looked at it and said, “My uncle wants to play at the wedding.”

“Which uncle?” Kieran asked.

“Guitar uncle.”

“No.”

“That’s what I said. I said I’d ask you so I could tell him I asked you.”

“You can tell him I said absolutely not and then blame me.”

“That was the plan,” Heath said, and asked whether anybody wanted the rest of the rice.

Varga couldn’t let it pass. He placed both hands flat on the table.

“Six months,” he said.

“Lucas,” Rook said.

“Six months, and the plan is a yard with tents and no guitar.”

“There’ll be a lot of food,” Heath said.

“Everyone always says there’ll be food.” Varga looked around the table. “Ours will not be like this. You’re all witnesses. There is a place on the river. I have walked it. I walked it in December in the snow, alone, for an hour, and I have photographs.”

“He has photographs,” Rook said.