Page 71 of Once Upon a Fall

After Dean made us spaghetti and meatballs, after we laughed about the Ednas and the ridiculousness of that whole thing, and after he didn’t believe me when I told him my dad would show up soon.

I wish I could capture Dean’s look of surprise when there’s a knock on the kitchen door and my dad peeks his head in.

I give Dean an I-told-you-so lift of my eyebrows.

“Hey, Dad,” I say, getting up from my seat at the island to give him a hug. “What brings you here?”

“I was just in the neighborhood,” he says.

I hold back an eye roll. “You live five minutes away. The entire town is your neighborhood.”

His eyes move past me to Dean, who’s just picked up my nearly empty plate.

“Which Edna called you?” I ask him, giving him a purposeful smile so he knows I’m not mad.

I mean, I am. But not at him.

Mad is too harsh a word. I’m annoyed.

He chuckles. “Bloomberg.”

“I knew it.” I look to Dean. “I told you.”

Dean just shakes his head.

My dad gives me raised eyebrows.

“Sorry,” I say. “Dean Alden, this is my dad, Daryl Harper.” I turn to my father. “Dad, this is Dean.”

Dean sets the plate down on the island and comes over to the other side to shake my dad’s hand.

“You’re Vivian and Robert’s grandson?”

“I am,” Dean tells him.

“Here to sell the property?”

“That’s the plan,” he says.

Did Edna tell him his age and his relationship status as well? Why am I even asking this? Of course she did.

“Your grandma brought three pies to our house after my wife passed.”

“Did she?” I ask him. I don’t remember that. That was ten years ago, though. Still, I remember so many small details about that time. But I don’t remember pie.

“Sounds like her,” Dean says.

“I was sorry to hear about her passing,” says my dad.

“Thank you.”

My dad looks around the kitchen. I watch as he clocks the open box of pasta, the saucepan on the stove. The plate Dean had set on the island.

He looks at me, his eyebrows high on his forehead. “Did you make dinner?”

“Why the surprise?” I ask him.

“Because I’ve eaten your cooking.”