Page 43 of Below the Shadow of the City

“But I’m still reaping the benefits. They’re good seats, sold out, too. We can go to Times Square, hit up Margaritaville, and see the show slightly buzzed.”

“The American Dream.”

I drizzle olive oil over the focaccia as we continue talking. She updates me on what I missed at work, not professionally, purely gossip. I bring up the groceries and flowers Maddox dropped off, which she immediately swoons over.

We hang up while the bread is in the oven and I spend the remaining time cleaning up and resisting the urge to open the oven and check up on it. As much as I love baking, it’s always a test of my patience. There’s a lot of trust you have to have in the process and yourself. There’s a lot that can go wrong, even if you follow a recipe to a T. Your oven temperature might be off, the weather or altitude may affect things, or sometimes, things just don’t work out. You have to trust that things will probably work out in the end, even if you can’t control the outcome, and if they don’t work out, you have to graciously accept defeat.

The timer dings and I rush to the oven. It smells divine, the entire house is filled with the scent. The rosemary I found in the cabinet may not be fresh like it was at the restaurant, but it still perfumes the air with herbaceous goodness. Admittedly, the focaccia looks a little flat. Trust the process, I think.

My patience is tested again as I wait for it to cool enough to cut into it. When I finally do, it's nothing like the cloud of gluten I had with Maddox. It’s chewy and tough. Not inedible. Definitely not good, though. I look through the recipe again to figure out where I went wrong. Too much kneading, I’d gotten distracted talking to Margo and went too heavy handed on the dough. I sigh dejectedly.

And then, Sunday arrives. I had gathered my things at my parents house and drove the car back to the hospital one final time.

“Mom,” I say when I enter the room again. She’s still off. I don’t have the tools to fix that myself, I can only hope that time will ease her angst.

My dad grins at me and responds on her behalf, “heya kiddo!” I give him a small wave.

“The train’s at 4:57, I’ll have to call an Uber around 4:30 to get back in time.”

“I can drive you, hon,” she says slowly, carefully. I wouldn’t make her, peeling her away from dad even with me to sit with him in her place has been agonizing. So agonizing that I’d only done it twice since Friday.

“No, Uber is fine, I promise,” I smile. I’m nowhere near as weary as I’d been on Thursday night. We’d fallen into a routine as a trio, despite these circumstances.

“Your friend can’t get you?” My dad chimes in. I glance at him and the look he’s giving tells me that he knows there’s more to the story there. I shake my head.

“It’s a long drive from Brooklyn for him, and it’s only a 10 minute Uber,” I gnaw at my bottom lip, I can’t make Maddox do more than he already has. “I’ll be perfectly fine. Promise.”

CHAPTER 18

WEDNESDAY, EARLY OCTOBER

The first thing Maddox asks me when we meet in the laundry room again is about my dad. His brows furrow in concern, but when I tell him that my dad is okay and got released on Monday, the dark cloud that hovered over him in the car all but vanishes.

The second thing he asks is, “you brought me cookies, again?”

In an instant, he’s back to his charming, sunny self. I want to apologize for dredging up all the feelings of emptiness and loss. I don’t know how to say that in a way casual fuckbuddies should. Now that I've been home and settled for a few days, and I have the relief of knowing my dad is fine, my thanks for him are incredibly overdue. And expressing gratitude through cookies is simple.

“To serve as a thank you, I guess? I didn’t know what else to do,” I shuffle my feet against the floor. “I felt like I couldn’t show up empty handed. There must be the ghost of some weird Midwestern grandma that possesses me and says I need to share my feelings through baked goods.”

I can’t show my feelings through any other normal avenue. I can’t tell him how those small acts he did for me meant more than anything any ex has ever done. It’s all still so new and unfamiliar, he shouldn’t be overextending himself to help me out. Even though he has no clue exactly how impactful he’d been during the days I was away.

He pries open the container and extracts one of the cookies with a grin before setting the box atop a dryer, “you can let that ghost hang around if this is going to keep happening.”

“I could probably make good on that,” I sigh.

“Is that a hint of commitment I hear from the elusive Sigrid Larson?” He bites his lip with a devious grin, “or are we still afraid?”

Commitment. Is that what I’m promising by offering future baked goods? Is that what I want? The word sends a flurry of movement in my chest. Is this panic or excitement? The two feelings are too close to differentiate.

“No, no, I’m not afraid of you Maddox⁠—”

“I didn’t say afraid of me.”

“Right, well, it isn’t because there’s the whole interspecies gap between us or whatever you want to call it—” I wave my arms around in an attempt to dispel how flummoxed I am.

“Interspecies gap,” he chortles under his breath.

“Oh my god, Maddox, I’m trying to be sensitive and sincere, this is incredibly rare,” I nervously laugh, fingers still trembling from the uncharacteristic outpouring of emotion I’d done.