Page 146 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

“Repeatedly.”

“And the fourth?”

“She said it would do.”

I look down at it. “That’s high praise from an eighty-six-year-old woman in Maine.”

“I understood that.”

I take a bite, and it is the seventh casserole. Not something like it. Not close to it. The actual casserole. Salt and butter and crushed crackers and the slightly overcooked edge. The casserole I ate on the worst night of my life because somebody I didn’t know had put it in front of me and said, in the only way they knew how, You’re here. I’m here. You matter enough for me to feed.

I swallow. “It’s right.”

Julian’s shoulders relax. Barely, but I see it.

“Good,” he says.

I eat all of it, and he watches, and we talk about other things because that’s another thing he’s learned. Not every important moment has to be stared at until it confesses. He tells me Arthur still believes the oak is planted too deep. I tell him Arthur told me exactly the same thing yesterday. Julian says this is because Arthur is engaged in a campaign of misinformation. I tell him Arthur has a lifetime of gardening experience. Julian says he’s prepared to wait thirty years to be proven right.

Neither of us stops at the number. I notice. So does he. We keep talking.

Then Julian gets up. “There is one more thing.”

“Dessert?”

“No.”

He disappears into the kitchen. There is a pause. A long pause. Then the dining room door opens approximately eight inches and a hand appears.

Julian’s hand.

It is holding a napkin-lined basket at the full extent of his arm, at roughly the angle I would use to carry a live raccoon. The hand puts the basket on the sideboard and withdraws. The door closes.

I stare. Then I smell it.

“Oh my God.”

“No,” says Julian from the hall.

I get up. “Julian.”

“No.”

I lift the napkin.

Garlic bread. Gran’s garlic bread. The whole loaf, split and stuffed and put back together and baked in foil the way she did it. Butter soaked through the crumb. Garlic. More garlic. Rosemary. The smell of it fills the room, and I start laughing.

“Julian!”

“I am in the hall.”

“You made garlic bread?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t even be in the room with garlic bread.”

“I’ve noticed.”