Leah
If I’m going to forget an ingredient, it’s always during a holiday where I’m supposed to provide a dish.
Give me a brand-new recipe with twenty-two ingredients on a random Tuesday in April, and I’ll nail it without breaking a sweat.
Ask me to make the same pumpkin pie I’ve helped bake every Thanksgiving since I was old enough to hold a measuring spoon, and suddenly the nutmeg has vanished from the face of the earth.
After cycling through the five stages of cooking grief, including bargaining with Google for a nutmeg substitute, I’m now standing in the middle of a war zone—also known as my H-E-B.
It doesn’t help that my period started this morning. The cramps have settled in for the day, and my favorite leggings stopped being comfortable about twenty minutes ago.
Every checkout lane is open, and likes still snake halfway to the dairy section. I weave through a grid-lock of shopping carts, piled high with frozen turkeys, canned pumpkin, and Texas-grown sweet potatoes, trying to find an express lane.
“Leah!”
I spin around to find Julian Santiago waving me over from the checkout line.
“Hey! It’s good to—“
“There you are, sweetheart.” He winks, gesturing dramatically to the nutmeg in my hand. “I was beginning to think you’d never find it.”
It takes me exactly one second to realize what he’s doing as I slip into line ahead of him. “Thank you,” I whisper. “What are your plans for …?”
My words fall away as I do a double-take at Julian’s shopping cart. It’s overflowing with lice shampoo, combs, sprays, and enough laundry detergent to decontaminate the whole city of Houston.
“Oh no.” I take a cautious step back. “Who has it?”
He lets out a long, defeated sigh. “Vera and Birdie.” He rubs both hands over his face.
“Piojos. Por todas partes.” His shoulders sag.
“Chelsea has been washing everything we own since six this morning.
Mamá canceled Thanksgiving because she refuses to spend the holiday nitpicking her granddaughters.
“ He winces. “She’s literally lighting candles for us.”
I instinctively take another step backward.
His narrows his gaze. “Really?”
“I’m sorry,” I laugh. “But I’m going to need you to respect my personal space.”
“I’m not a leper, Leah.”
“Hey, I believe that term is offensive now.”
“Oh, but publicly treating me like Patient Zero isn’t?” We fall into giggles as he continues. “We were trying to figure out what to do for dinner tomorrow to make it still feel special, but Chelsea’s being a little ... nitpicky.”
“Julian …” I groan into a snicker.
He shrugs. “Hey, if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry.”
The cashier scans my lone container of nutmeg, before I stash it in my purse.
After taking my receipt, I step off to the side while Julian unloads his mountain of anti-lice supplies onto the conveyor belt.
“Well, how about this: my family makes enough food to feed the Cowboys before kickoff. Let me bring y’all each a plate. ”
“Leah … no. That’s really sweet, but I can’t let you do that.”
“Pssh, yes, you can.” I wave him off. “Seriously. I’ll bring y’all some leftovers … and they’ll be lice-free.”
He chuckles, scratching his jawline. “Ay, I don’t even know what to say.“ He reaches to hug me, but I pivot away, making us both burst into laughter. “Gracias, mija.”
“Of course.” I wave him away. “Now go de-louse your children.”
He salutes with a lice comb as I head out to the parking lot.
By the time I make it home, Angus has already demolished the plush turkey leg I bought him for Thanksgiving. The stuffing spills across the living room rug as he looks up at me, letting the mangled toy fall from his mouth. He flashes the widest grin, that large tongue lolling out.
“You couldn’t even wait until tomorrow, huh?”
Knowing him, the turkey leg deserved it.
Angus promptly trots over, pressing against my legs until I sink onto the floor beside him in our spot. We stay there for a few minutes, scratching ears and soaking up the cuddles he insists he’s been deprived of during my hour-long absence.
“Ready to help me make some pie?” I ask, rubbing his chest. “It’s pumpkin, your favorite.”
He dutifully follows me into the kitchen, jumping onto his chair to supervise my baking. After turning on a country radio station, I tie on an apron before dusting the counter with flour.
“Now, Angus, this is our little secret” I whisper as I pull out the premade pie dough from a box. “Grandma would not approve, so we are not going to say a word. Capiche?”
I gently roll out the dough, smoothing the creases from the packaging before transferring it into a pie dish.
It promptly tears in the middle.
“Okay, so this is also a secret”
He gives me a curious look, tilting his head.
“Oh, don’t give me that,” I tease. “You don’t even have opposable thumbs to do this.”
I finish crimping the edges and reach for the cinnamon when my phone buzzes against the counter. Before it finishes vibrating from the first message, it chirps again. Then again. Expecting another reminder from my mother about tomorrow, I wipe my hands on a dish towel and glance at the screen.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
LEAH
EMERGENCY
I’m sorry, I didn’t know who else to call.
NEED HELP
PLEASE
I freeze as dread swells behind my ribs.
Reading the text messages again, a new chill crawls down my spine. Goosebumps flare across my skin as my heartbeat leaps into my throat.
I hit reply.
ME:
Who is this?
***
An hour later, I pull into the driveway of a beautiful two-story brick home tucked beneath an enormous pecan tree. The porch light casts a warm glow across the front steps as I grab a new H-E-B bag from the passenger seat and head for the front door.
My hand barely reaches the doorbell before the anguished wailing of a certain five-year-old boy greets me.
A flustered Nick answers the front door, wearing a blue, disposable surgical cap and gloves.
In his boxers.
Oh. My. Gosh.
So this is what sin looks like.
My gaze betrays me before I can stop it.
Thick, muscular thighs disappear beneath the hem of his boxers, one of them wrapped in an intricate tattoo of oversized flowers climbing toward his hip.
A dusting of dark hair trails beneath his navel, disappearing beneath the waistband while another brushes across a broad chest that somehow makes him look even more … like a man.
Good gracious …
Grady’s cries pull me from my stupor, and my heart immediately caves. He peers around Nick’s leg, his blond hair butchered into uneven chunks with a few bare patches exposing his scalp. The skin around his neck is raw from scratching, his little chest hitching with every sob.
“Oh, buddy …” My heart twists as I crouch down to his eye level.
“I’m sorry, Leah. I know this is … well, I don’t even know what this is.
” He gestures helplessly toward the kitchen, where a bowl of dough sits abandoned beside a bag of flour and sugar.
“We were supposed to leave for Fort Worth first thing tomorrow, so I thought I’d get a head start on breakfast. Grady wanted to watch a ballet while I baked.
” He shakes his head, words tumbling over one another.
“He’d been scratching all afternoon, but kids scratch, right?
The weather has been cooler, so I figured maybe his skin was dryer …
and then my timer went off …” He exhales shakily.
“The house got quiet, and when I went looking for him, he was in the bathroom with a pair of scissors, trying to cut the bugs out of his hair.”
I set the H-E-B bag on the floor and fold my hands in my lap. “Is that what happened, buddy?”
He nods slowly as giant tears spill down his cheeks. He scratches at his scalp as his little shoulders tremble with every sniffle. “Do I ... do I really have bugs in my hair?”
“You do,” I say gently. “But they’re teeny tiny. Smaller than a grain of rice.”
Nick shudders in my periphery.
I give him a stern look with a raised eyebrow before turning back to Grady. “But I’ve got good news.” I reach into the bag and pull out a metal lice comb and a bottle of treatment. “You know what these are?”
He shakes his head, looking intently.
“These are bug-catchers.” I wiggle the comb. “We’re going to catch every single bug and tell them to scram.”
He sniffs. “Scram?”
“Yeah.” I jerk my thumb over my shoulder. “Like, ‘Hit the road! This isn’t your house anymore!‘”
He mimics the gesture, his little thumb pointing behind him. “Scram. Like that?”
“Uh-huh.” I smile. “Just like that.”
I glance up at Nick’s blue surgical cap. “And you know what? I think your dad already dressed for the job.”
We get Grady settled onto a stool in his bathroom with a juice box and Giselle playing on Nick’s tablet.
I drape a towel around his shoulders, fastening it like a superhero cape before showing Nick—who has managed to become more delicious-looking by pulling on a pair of gray sweats and a white tee—how to section the hair.
Slowly, I pull the fine-toothed metal comb from scalp to ends, wiping the tiny bugs and their eggs into a collection cup after each pass.
He stares at the tiny comb in horror.
I snort. “You’re a doctor.”
“Of anesthesia,” he adds, already grimacing. “Not … whatever kind of doctor specializes in tiny bloodsucking parasites.”
“Lice aren’t vampires.”
They might as well be.”
Grady giggles around his juice box.
“See?” I whisper. “Look at that: you’ve already cured one patient.”
Nick shoots me a look before dragging the comb through another section of blond hair, audibly gagging when he catches his first louse.
“Oh, look at that juicy one,” I tease.
Nick shivers, quickly wiping his comb across the collection cup.
Leaving Nick in charge of the little patient, with his permission and direction, I strip beds, gather blankets, and start back-to-back loads of laundry with Grady’s clothes and stuffed animals.
By the time the washer finishes filling, I’m tossing stuffed animals into a garbage bag and turning up the water heater.