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Stella Rivas is always close in this house. It’s like Merrick lives next to her tomb.
And Sullivan lives inside of it.
I swallow the thickness in my throat. “How’d you get into that?”
Merrick doesn’t answer, but then I see he’s being polite, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin before he speaks.
“I was a race car driver first. But not quite good enough to make it to the top. I took a few precision-driving roles on film sets to make ends meet. One day the stunt guy they hired to jump off a roof didn’t show up. So I said, I’ll give it a go.”
“You’re brave.” All the blood drains from my head just picturing that scenario.
“More like reckless and stupid.” Merrick takes a monstrous bite of his steak. “I had no clue what I was doing. But gravity handled most of the work.”
I notice he said hewasa stunt double, past tense.
I glance at Sullivan, who looks nervous. He’s probably worried I’ll ask Merrick what’s he’s doing now.
I’m afraid I already witnessed it—he’s slow-motion destructing, one day at a time. While Sullivan tries to hold his dad together with his bare hands.
“I don’t know if I could jump off a roof,” I say. “Like, not even for a million dollars. Not even if the check was sitting right there.”
Merrick makes a choking sound that I eventually recognize as laughter.
“A million dollars! They paid me forty-eight bucks.”
We all laugh then, at the pathetic-ness of that number and the knowledge that, actually, if it were really needed…every one of us would make that jump.
I would if I had to. I’d jump every time.
Sullivan’s eyes meet mine. He gives me a smile that shows that he has finally relaxed and let go of his worry for the day.
I smile back at him. I can’t fix his dad. But maybe I can fatten him up—Merrick fills another plate.
Sullivan’s empty skewers are stacked up like kindling next to the bones of two rib eyes.
I get deep satisfaction from feeding the two men.
It’s primal, that need to be needed.
This is real, the food I cook, the comfort it brings, the beauty of the night that’s impossible to ignore when our bellies are full and everything is settling.
Smoke drifts up from the candles. Pale, papery moths flirt with the flames.
It’s been a long time since I sat down at a table with a family. This family is small and broken, but families are like books…the ones that are used and battered are the ones that were loved.
My family was just me and my mom. I’d give anything,anything,for one more dinner with her. I’d take all the splinters jabbing in my ass, all the smoke from the grill. Even if she looked sick, like Sullivan’s dad. Even if shewassick, like right at the end.
Maybe it’s a mercy when people go when they’re hurting. But it’s no mercy to the people who lose them.
I thought I was ready. Not even close. I could never have guessed how much I’d miss her. Or what it truly feels like to be alone…not one person on the planet who loves you. Who even knows your middle name.
“Come on, eat up…” Merrick nudges me with the platter bearing the last ribeye. “Let’s put some meat on those bones.”
“You should talk,” Sullivan snorts.
“I’m an old man. Doesn’t matter if I wither away.”
Merrick isn’t old by any stretch of the imagination, but there is something weary and ground down in the way he moves, like every part of him hurts.
