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Isaac and Hazel had settled on coloring, and had pages of white paper spread across the table in no time. Little half-drawn images of birds and bugs and rainbows for Hazel.
But Isaac seemed to be focusing hard on one piece, his arm draped over the top of his paper to try to hide what he was working on.
I was curious, but more occupied by trying to keep crayons out of Clara’s mouth as she kept lurching across the table to grab them.
“Luckily, they’re nontoxic,” Lana said, making me look over to find her watching me. “A little crayon never hurt anyone. Same with Play-Doh. God, I can’t tell you how much of that Hazel tried, and probably succeeded, in eating when she was little.”
“Did I?” Isaac asked.
“No, baby. You liked to stick things up your nose. Which was always so much fun,” she added, shaking her head. “The doctor has these special little tweezers that had to go all the way up there to get stuff out.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Oh, everything. Cheerios. A bead. Oh, once a fry. An actual French fry,” she said, shaking her head. “The scary thing was… we hadn’t been eating French fries. I still have no idea where he got his hands on one.”
“Gotta keep your ma on her toes, right?” I asked Isaac, getting a distracted smile from him as he continued to work on his picture.
“Did you keep your mom on hers?” Lana asked.
“I was a climber, apparently,” I said. “Thank God my old man had everything anchored to the wall, because I used to pull out drawers and use them as stairs.”
“Which we will never, ever do,” Lana said to the kids. Isaac shook his head, too old for that lecture. And Hazel seemed to be in her own world.
“Apparently, once gave her a heart attack when she found me on top of the garage.”
“How’d you get up there?”
“There was a window in the room over the garage. I wasn’t supposed to be in there at all, but someone must have forgotten to lock it. I was trying to get my frisbee,” I explained.
“Okay. Well, I’m kind of glad I have crayon-eaters and nose-stuffer-uppers and not climbers,” Lana decided.
“Hey, time will tell,” I said, jiggling Clara on my leg.
“You take that back. Right now,” Lana demanded with a smile.
Things kind of went the same way. Light, easy conversation. Something Lana got more and more into as it went on. Like she’d been out of practice, then suddenly all over it once she got the rhythm again.
She worked from home. She didn’t seem to have any connections. She probably almost never got the chance to talk to another adult.
The conversation continued even as she pulled out the ziti, and started to plate it.
As she was bringing it to the table, I put Clara in her highchair, ready to enjoy some really revolting-looking orange baby food.
It was right then that Isaac seemed to finish his art, flipping it upside down so no one could see it before Lana put his plate down on top of it.
Weird.
What the heck had the kid drawn?
“Here, push Clara over here, so I can feed her,” Lana said as she sat down at her spot.
“I got it,” I said, pulling the plastic bib off the back of her chair, and slipping it around her chubby neck.
“No, no. I’ll feed her.”
“How about you enjoy your food, and I’ll feed her?” I asked in a way that wasn’t a question at all as I grabbed the glass of baby food and the tiny spoon that went with it.
“But…”
“You’re right here watching me if I screw up,” I reminded her.
Unable to argue with that reasoning, Lana swallowed any further objections and started to eat. Likely the first hot meal she’d gotten to enjoy uninterrupted in ages.
“This was a good choice, baby,” she said to Hazel who had red sauce fucking all over her shirt. “Maybe you can pick dinner tomorrow, bud,” she said to Isaac who really had to sit with the weight of that responsibility.
“What’s your favorite food?” he asked, looking over at me.
“Hm. Good question. I like a lot of things. But in the summer, there’s nothing better than burgers and dogs on the grill,” I decided. “My father always used to fire up the grill on weekends in the summer, so my ma got a break from cooking. Maybe I can grill us up some tomorrow, if you like them.”
To that, I got an enthusiastic head nod from him.
“You don’t have—“ Lana started.
“And maybe Mom can boil some corn on the cob and stop objecting all the time,” I cut her off, getting a big grin from her and the kids.
“And maybe some broccoli,” she added, ever the mom, to a chorus of grumbles.
“Hey, count your blessings. It could be asparagus,” I reasoned, getting a sage nod from Isaac. “And broccoli has iron. And iron makes you get stronger,” I added. “If you’re going to be a major-league baseball player, you gotta be strong.”
