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“Someone’s hungry,” she says.
Okay, what the fuck? Maybe I entered some fucking alternate universe? I’d consider the possibility if not for the trace of pain in her eyes. They’re red-rimmed, as if she’s been crying.
Fuck.
“Daddy!” Cole jumps up from his spot on the carpet and runs to me, grabbing my knee. “Tati made dinner. And cake!”
Mary who’s still kneeling on the carpet grins and waves at me, and makes her doll wave at me, too.
I blink.
And then my traitorous stomach growls again—probably because it caught another smell under the cake, like chicken and sauce.
“Chicken and mushroom casserole,” Octavia says. “Cake for dessert. That okay?”
I nod dumbly, not sure what I’m supposed to say or do at this point. Okay? Hell yeah, it’s okay, and yet it sends dread through me.
We sit at the kitchen table, and this time I have Mary beside me, a napkin tucked under her chin, her hair in pigtails.
I’m still shaking my head, trying to clear the cobwebs. “Where did we get chicken and mushroom and…” I gesture at the pot Octavia just placed on the table. “All of this?”
“I had Gigi shop for us at the grocery store on the Main.” At my questioning look, she says, “Gigi is my sister.”
Right. Did I know her sister’s name? Or that she had a sister at all? All these days, weeks she’s been working for me, have I ever asked her a single question about herself?
“I’m gonna go shop tomorrow,” I say as she serves us food. “Thought I saw a Walmart just out of town.”
“Two towns down,” Octavia says.
But who’s counting? “I’ll head out early. And let me know how much you paid for all this.”
She nods. “You guys need to eat,” she says, stroking Cole’s hair. “Them. And you. Proper meals, not only sandwiches and take-out pizzas.”
The kids ratted me out, huh? This is just another reminder of how much I suck as a parent, but I forget to get pissed when I take the first bite and discover just how hungry I am.
Fuck, this is good. And I’m starving for the first time in ages. I stuff my mouth and inhale my food, losing track of time.
I surface from my eating trance, still chewing and swallowing, to a silence so thick you can cut it with a knife.
“What?” I mumble, frowning at my kids and nanny.
All eyes are on me. What, do I have sauce on my face? I pass my forearm over my mouth and beard, just in case.
“Daddy,” Mary says in a reprimanding tone, her dark, serious eyes so much like mine. “You didn’t use your knife. And you eat like a pig.”
“Pig!” Cole yells, his mouth full of food.
“Eat your food,” Octavia says to him, but she looks like she’s trying not to laugh.
For some reason, my mouth twitches, too. “This is what pigging out is like,” I say solemnly. “Watch and learn.”
Mary giggles, and it turns into laughter. “Daddy is funny,” she says.
Cole laughs, too, spitting food everywhere. “Funny.”
I freeze with a forkload halfway to my mouth. “I am?”
Octavia says nothing, forking a tiny amount of food into her mouth. Her eyes sparkle, though, and I’m left staring at her, my food suddenly forgotten.
