Page 37 of Holding Ground

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Emelia take stock of everything in the fridge. The look on her face reminds me of when she was on stage at the town hall meeting, assessing what she has to work with. She seems like a woman who catalogs the world before engaging with it.

In the end, she pulls out the lettuce, a cucumber, some tomatoes, and a red onion, setting them on the counter further down from me.

“What salad dressings do you want on the table?” She walks back to the fridge.

“I’ll take whatever, but Baylor will only eat ranch.”

“Because it’s the best, Daddy,” Baylor says.

Emelia grabs the dressing out of the fridge and looks at Baylor over her shoulder. “It’s a classic.”

Baylor glows as if earning Emelia’s stamp of approval is all she ever wanted in her life.

Eventually, Baylor gets bored with watching us prepare dinner and opts to go to her room to play until it’s ready, which leaves me alone with Emelia—not great.

The two of us move around the kitchen, each doing our part to get dinner ready. What I’m not prepared for is how natural it all feels. She finds the cutting board without asking, and she washes and cuts up the lettuce, clearly having done this before. And of course she has—just never in my kitchen, next to me. But that’s the problem. It feels as though she’s done it a thousand times with me.

She finds the plates and cutlery and sets the table without asking, as if we already have our defined roles in this household.

At one point, I’m stirring the sauce while she’s cutting the tomatoes beside me, and our elbows brush. We both still for a second, the tension thick between us, but neither of us acknowledges it. We keep working alongside each other like a well-oiled machine that’s only just been brought into service.

It feels nice to share this with someone again. But it also feels…scary.

I talk to break the comfortable silence. “Talked to a few people today and sent some pictures of the damage to the bunkie. It might be a month before everything is fixed and you can move back in there.”

She nods, sliding cucumbers off the cutting board into the salad bowl. “Shoot, okay. I’ll see if there’s anywhere with availability outside of town then. I know the Stillwater Inn is booked up.”

“Emelia, I’m not telling you that so you’ll move out. You’re welcome to stay here the whole time…if you want to.” I meet her gaze so she knows she’s welcome.

She mixes the salad. “Are you sure you don’t mind? You seem like a guy who likes his routine, and I feel as if my presence will upend that.”

I give her a bland look. “Even still, you’re welcome to stay.” Alarm bells ring out in my head—maybe this isn’t such a good idea—but I ignore them. Offering to let her stay is the right thing to do. And there’s no chance of me getting involved with Emelia, not with what she’s here to do to Echo Lake. I can be civil for a few weeks.

“All right. Thanks, Elliott. I’ll work really hard not to be messy, promise.”

I pointedly look at the mess she’s left behind just from getting the salad ready. All the cut-off bits and pieces are strewn around the cutting board on the counter. Pools of water have collected between the sink and where she chopped the lettuce. A dish towel has been thrown in the corner.

She sees what I’m looking at, and the two of us burst into laughter.

“I’ll do better. Promise.”

Shortly after, dinner is ready, so I get Baylor from her room, and the three of us sit at the table to eat.

Thankfully, Baylor fills the silence. She ping-pongs between subjects—why the sky is orange at sunset, asking whether fish have feelings, telling Emelia all about her favorite counselors at camp this summer, and wondering what lightning is and why it picked our tree to hit. She asks Emelia if she has a dog back home, then tells her that she thinks Emelia should get one. The wheels in my daughter’s head are turning, and when she smiles at me while Emelia engages in the dog conversation, my chest grows heavy. Baylor wants this—a family dinner with a dad and a mother.

Emelia listens, really listens to everything Baylor says. She asks follow-up questions, is silly with her, and encourages Baylor’s imagination to run wild.

The dinner table is loud in a way that it never is, not unless my brothers stop by to share a meal. And I don’t hate it. I’m not even sure why I’m overcome with a feeling of melancholy. There’s nothing special about tonight. It’s a normal weekday dinner. We’re not celebrating anything.

Still, it’s unsettling. I’ve spent five years making a stable life for Baylor. Making this house, our life, enough. And it was enough. I need it to be enough, because the two of us, our lives, our home, are what I can control. It’s how I can protect my daughter from ever feeling what I had to as a child, and then again as an adult after she was born.

It’s true, I’ve grown accustomed to our routine, but this makes me wonder if I’ve been missing something. And that is not a path I want to walk down anytime soon.

“Emelia, do you think my daddy should shave his face?” Baylor looks at her with a seriousness that belies her years.

Emelia purses her lips to hold back a laugh. She finishes chewing, then says, “I take it you don’t like your dad’s facial hair?”

Baylor’s face scrunches up, and she shakes her head. “It scratches my face when he kisses me good night. Especially his ’stache.”