Page 164 of Devil’s Disciples

It was time to change the subject. I opened the carton of eggs and stared at the white oblong spheres. “How do you want me to cook them today? All I’ve done is scramble them. Is there a better way?”

“Better?” he asked.

I’d eaten more scrambled eggs in the last eleven days than I’d eaten in a lifetime. I glanced over my shoulder and hoped he hated them as much as I did. “Is there a way you prefer to have them cooked? If you got to pick?”

He lowered his coffee cup. “How do you like them?”

I preferred over medium, but doubted he’d agree. I’d scrambled them since we began eating breakfast together, hoping he found them suitable. But I was sick of them.

“Hard-boiled,” I lied. “How about you?”

“Boiled is okay. If I was in a restaurant, I’d go for over medium.”

“With toast to soak up the yolks?”

“Fuck yes,” he said.

“Let me see what I can do,” I said.

I cooked the bacon, fried the eggs in the grease, and toasted four slices of bread. It wasn’t the healthiest of breakfasts, but it was what my father cooked for me nearly every morning, and it was what I’d grown up enjoying.

I set a plate in front of Cash and watched for a reaction.

He looked at the eggs and smiled. “Looks just like Rudford’s.”

“Rudfords’s?”

“Place right off the Eight-oh-five in North Park. Been there since nineteen forty-something. Best breakfast this side of my mom’s place.”

I tore the corner off a piece of the toast. “I’m sure I’m not up to par with Rudford’s or your mother’s, but hopefully this will be a good third place.”

He carefully lifted one of the eggs, placed it on top of a slice toast, and cut the half the display into bite-sized pieces. After devouring the chunks, he lifted the remaining portion and ate it in two bites.

He wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “Cook ‘em in the bacon grease?”

“I did. Is that okay?”

He chuckled. “My ma keeps bacon grease in a coffee can on the back of the stove.”

“My father used to keep it,” I said, recalling the porcelain dish he kept it in. “But my mother would toss it out with the trash.”

“If I tossed my ma’s grease, she’d whack my knuckles with a spatula.”

“She sounds like a hard case.”

He chuckled. “She is.”

I nodded toward his plate. “So, you like them?”

He tore the corner off the remaining piece of toast. “Love ‘em.”

I watched out of the corner of my eye as he poked the piece of toast into the yolk and stirred it around. After eating the yolk-covered piece, he repeated the process.

I smiled to myself.

Because I was alone, there wasn’t much on most days to reminded me of my parents. Eating breakfast was one thing that did. It was a tradition that my father maintained throughout my childhood and continued whenever I’d pay them a visit.

Since Cash and I began eating breakfast together, thoughts of my parents had returned. Instead of feeling sorrow for their loss, I’d been grateful for the memories that had surfaced.