Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rowan
For better or worse, I was beginning to feel at home in Chance’s house. At home for now, maybe? Who knew where I’d land in the future or what my life would look like? I tried not to worry about it. One thing at a time, my grandmother would’ve told me.
That one thing at this moment was lasagna, baking in the oven, smelling like heaven and memories.
Chance was out with his dad group for the evening.
Sam was in the basement. I’d worked up the guts and the energy to attempt Gram’s lasagna recipe—cut in half—for the first time by myself.
I’d helped her plenty of times growing up.
I had memories of standing on a kitchen chair so I could reach the counter, layering the cooked noodles over the other ingredients.
The last time Gram had cooked homemade lasagna for me was my twenty-third birthday.
As we’d taken our first few bites, she’d realized she’d forgotten to add the garlic, and we’d laughed and laughed.
Looking back now, with twenty-twenty hindsight, I was sure that’d been an early sign of her dementia, though we’d had no idea what had been ahead of us then.
Not knowing was probably a blessing.
I realized I had a sad smile on my face as I stood against the kitchen cabinet thinking about her. I chose to cling to the laughter part of the memory. The love. Not the early stages of disease or the beginning of the end.
Footsteps on the stairs jolted me to the present. The basement door swung open, and Sam peered at me from the top step.
“What is that incredible smell?” she asked, then entered the kitchen.
I smiled, surprised at her appearance and warmed by her compliment. “I’m attempting my grandmother’s lasagna recipe.”
“If it tastes like it smells, it’s a really good recipe.”
The one thing I was sure of was that I remembered the garlic. “You’re helping me eat it, right?”
Her expression was a mix of shyness and eagerness as she asked, “You have enough to share?”
I went to the oven and opened it a crack to show her a small baking dish of Italian splendor. “I have enough. I hope it doesn’t suck.” I shut the oven to let it bake another couple of minutes.
“My dad will be sad he missed this. Lasagna is his favorite.”
I found it telling she thought of her dad so readily. Chance might think his daughter hated him, but that said otherwise.
“If it tastes okay, maybe I’ll make a full batch one of these days,” I said. “This was a test run. I didn’t want to spend hours making it for you guys and have it not turn out.”
The timer went off. I ended it and grabbed the oven mitts.
Sam took two plates from the cabinet as I pulled the bubbling pan out of the oven and set it on the stove.
The lasagna pan was hot, so we scooped up servings at the stove.
I wondered if Sam would retreat to the basement with her food, but she didn’t.
She sat at the table with me, and we dug in to our dinner—which incidentally tasted just like Gram’s, the garlic version.
If I closed my eyes, I could imagine my grandmother at the table with us.
“This is delicious. It’s your grandma’s recipe?” Sam asked.
“Yeah. We made it together when I was a kid, but I haven’t tried it solo.”
Sam watched me, then tilted her head and said, “Is she…?”
“She died in December.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said. She brushed stray strands of her hair behind her ear, then forked another bite. “That’s so recent.”
“Yeah.” I forced a bittersweet smile. “In some ways it seems like last week, but also, it feels like an eternity since I’ve hugged her.”
“It’s been years since I could hug my mom.”
“I bet you still miss her,” I said carefully. I acted as if this was normal for us, trying to seem low-key and nonchalant even as I was encouraged and hopeful at the chance to connect.
“Yeah. Sometimes.”
“I still miss my mom, and she died when I was seven.”
“That’s a long time. I was six, so almost the same age.”
“We’ll always miss our moms, huh?” I said, watching her for cues whether this was too tough of a subject. Chance had mentioned both he and Sam had gone to grief counseling years ago, but that didn’t mean talking about her mom would ever be easy.
“Mine was…different.” Sam bit her lip and averted her gaze. “She was an addict.”
“Your dad told me a little about her. That’s a lot to sort through.”
“I think of it like an illness,” she said, taking me aback with her wisdom.
“Yes. Addiction is a type of illness.”
“A really ugly one.”
I nodded, wondering how much of Erin’s downward slide Sam had been witness to. “But she was your mom, and you loved her,” I said. “It’s hard to grow up without a mom.”
“You did too, huh?”
I nodded. “And a dad.”
“What?” she exclaimed. “Your dad died too?”
“They were in a helicopter crash.”
“Oh, my God. That’s terrible.”
“Yeah. But my grandparents took me in and raised me. I was lucky to have them.”
“I’m lucky to have my dad,” she said as if she hadn’t considered the possibility of losing both parents before. “Even if we aren’t very close anymore.”
“I’ve sensed that,” I fudged. “Is there a reason?”
She stuck a bite of lasagna in her mouth and looked pensive as she chewed. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “It’s just…awkward. Like, he doesn’t get what it’s like to be a girl, you know?” She picked up her water glass and took a drink.
“Like periods and boys?”
“Yessss.” Sam set her glass down with emphasis. “I mean, he had the talk with me a few years ago. It was mortifying.”
I let out a grin. “Probably for him too?”
“He seemed embarrassed. Short and to the point.”
“I’ve never had to give the talk, but I’m sure it’s a tough one.”
She shoveled another bite in with a frown, giving me the impression she was holding back something she wanted to say.
I continued eating and waited to see if she’d say more.
After two bites and another drink, she did. “It made me really miss my mom in a way. Or a mom, because I didn’t really get a chance to know my mom very well as a person. Just…it’d be easier with a mom, I think.”
“Right. Someone who lives with girl stuff every day.”
“Yes,” she said more confidently. “Like, my dad doesn’t know about cramps or what to do if a tampon leaks.”
I made a cringing face and tried to imagine if my grandfather had been in charge of the talk. Thank God for Gram.
“And boys… The one time he got me to admit I had a crush on someone, he told me I’m too young and I should forget boys until I’m thirty.”
I held in a laugh. I knew that was Chance being a protective, loving father, but I could see how that might not land right from Sam’s perspective.
I pressed my lips together and pondered what to say. “Dads don’t want their daughters to get hurt. Ever. But that was a total dad comment. I can see why it would make it hard to talk to him about boys.”
“Not hard. Impossible. I messed up and told him Cody Billings tried to get me to drink beer, and my dad got this look in his eyes like he wanted to murder Cody. Which honestly I would support because Cody is a creep and a jerk.”
“There are a lot of those in high school,” I said.
“Tons of them,” she agreed.
I set my fork down and took a drink, figuring out so much about this father-daughter relationship in just a few short minutes.
Maybe I could help Chance understand how he came across without betraying Sam’s confidence.
I didn’t want to be in the middle, but I wanted them to have a better relationship.
As I put my glass down, I said, “The one thing I know for certain is that your dad loves you a lot. He might bumble like boys do, but you’re the most important person in his life.”
“Now he’ll have two kids,” Sam said evenly. “I was pissed at him when I found out about you being pregnant.”
“That must’ve been really hard to hear. I will say this. Your dad’s biggest concern the whole time I’ve known him is you. He loves you to the moon and back.”
“I know.” She scraped melted cheese off her plate with her fork.
“It’s still okay to be mad,” I said. “Your emotions are your emotions.”
“I don’t think I’m mad anymore.”
“Yeah?” I asked, encouraged but afraid to say the wrong thing.
“Kinsley and I have talked a lot. A lot.”
“Girlfriends are the best,” I said.
“Her little sister is barely two, and she’s adorable. Kinsley loves being a big sister and—” She whipped her head toward me. “Wait. Will I be able to be in your baby’s life?”
“I was hoping you’d want to be,” I said. “You’ll be family.”
She seemed to consider that as she continued to focus on cheese scraping.
“I don’t have any family left,” I continued. “I’d love my baby to have a big sister like you.”
“We’d make a weird family.”
“Unconventional,” I corrected. “Different, but who cares? Family’s everything, whether it’s blood family or found family.”
“Found family.” She nodded pensively. “I like that. It’s really only my dad and me. My mom’s parents died before I was born, and my dad’s parents… We don’t talk to them very often.”
I so didn’t understand that whole dynamic, but if Chance’s parents were too blind to see what a wonderful person their son was, that was their loss. And how could they not want to know their granddaughter better?
“That’s too bad,” I said.
She shrugged. “I figure if they don’t want to be in our lives, we’re better off without them.”
“It’s their loss.”
“It’s sad that your grandma won’t meet your baby. She sounds like the type who’d be excited about a great-grandkid.”
“She would’ve loved this baby so much.” I put my hand on my belly, my eyes tearing at the thought.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
I shook my head and dabbed at the corners of my eyes with my napkin.
“You didn’t. I think about her every day.
I can still hear her voice in my head, from the years before dementia got to her, when she was clear and her voice was strong.
Sometimes I can almost feel the love she’d have for my baby, as if it’s a tangible thing.
” I shook my head. “I’m sure that doesn’t make sense. ”
“It’s like she’s watching over you,” Sam said with incredible insight for her age. But then she had firsthand experience with a loved one’s death.
“Sometimes I could swear she is,” I said. “I went into that yarn place downtown a couple weeks ago—”
“Fat Cat.”
“Right. I went in to avoid that llama that apparently sneaks out to go to the bakery?”
“Esmerelda.”
I laughed. “Everybody knows this llama. Anyway, I didn’t set out to go to Fat Cat, but once I was in there, surrounded by all that yarn, I felt Gram’s presence.
She loved to knit. I found some beautiful yarn, and long story short, Loretta, the owner, offered to help me knit a baby blanket.
I’m going tomorrow for my first lesson. Or re-lesson?
My Gram taught me, but let’s just say I’m not a natural. ”
“Do you think… Would you mind if I went with you? I want to learn to knit.”
I tried not to show how happy her question made me. Because teenagers and enthusiasm… There were limits, and this was new. Sam and I were new. “You absolutely can come. I’d love to have a knitting buddy.”
“Maybe I can learn to make adorable little sweaters for the baby.”
“That would be amazing,” I said, with visions of the cutest handmade baby clothes filling my head. “Likely way over my sad capabilities, but you… I have every bit of confidence Loretta could teach you how.”
“Annika, Kinsley’s sister, was wearing this adorable striped sweater the other day: pink, yellow, and cream. I want to make something like that.”
“We’d have the best-dressed baby in town.”
As we split the last portion of lasagna, we kept talking, turning to lighter topics, everything from her classes to her newish friendship with Kinsley to why I became a teacher. We bonded over Taylor Swift songs, home science experiments, and cute socks.
So much about my future was uncertain, looming, scary.
My life was one big question mark after another.
Where would I end up living? Would I eventually get back into teaching?
How would Chance and I manage co-parenting?
Would we ever share more than kisses and a kid?
How soon would I have to break down and buy pants with a bigger waist?
And most importantly, how would I handle having a little human dependent on me?
All of it circled through my brain at different moments throughout the day. All of it could stress me out in a heartbeat.
But these forty-five minutes with Sam, just the two of us getting to know each other better? It gave me hope and made it easier to believe maybe everything would end up all right.