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Oh right. Because I work for him.
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10
Cormac
Night falls, and after making sure they’ve done their homework, it’s time for their bedtime routine, now with Lily. “You have to make sure Franny brushes her teeth. She won’t do it if you don’t stay on top of her. I’m also trying to get them to wash their faces, but I’ll be happy if it’s just brushing their teeth. Aiden is better about it than she is.”
“Got it.”
We’re standing outside their bathroom, and I’m listening for the splattering toothbrush sounds, but I hear none. When the door opens, I start in on Franny, “Did you—
“Did you brush your teeth?”
Franny’s lips purse. “Sort of.”
“Do you know what happens if you don’t?”
“Dad says they rot. But I think that would be kinda neat.”
Lily laughs. “I seem to recall you enjoying the carrots in the pad Thai I made tonight. Did you?”
“Yeah, those were way better than Mom’s carrots. Hers are too mushy.”
“Well,” Lily says, squatting to her level. “If you want to only each mushy carrots, then you don’t need to brush your teeth. You don’t need strong teeth for those.”
“But they’re gross,” she says with a frown.
“The thing aboutmycarrots is, you need hard, healthy teeth to eat them. So it seems to me that you should brush your teeth, if you want me to make carrots like that again.”
She huffs. “Will you make them every day?”
“How about every week?”
We get a sullen, “Okay,” before she trundles back into the bathroom. Seconds later, the splattering toothbrushing commences.
“That was brilliant. How’d you know about Abigail’s carrots?”
Lily smirks. “She ordered them that way when we went to the yacht club for dinner.”
“Ah.”
“I find that most of the time when someone doesn’t like a food, it’s because they’ve never had it cooked the right way, and I suspect that’s Franny’s issue with vegetables.”
“My ex-wife does a lot of things right, but food is not one of them. A big fan of boiling everything.”
“English parents?”
I chuckle. “Irish.”
Lily nods. “Not to knock on boiling, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything.”
“I don’t think boiling food for hours is the right way, but itisthe Abigail way.”
“Oof.”
The kids come out of the bathroom, scrubbed, brushed, and ready for story time.
