Chapter 40
Reed
“There’s little bubbles, Uncle Reed.” Abigail’s voice was urgent from her spot propped up by the stove, “cooking” our dinner. I looked over her shoulder at the SpaghettiOs starting to boil.
I showed her which dial to turn to bring the heat down, and she inched it to low very carefully.
I bit back a smirk at how seriously she was taking her job as chef.
As I handed her the ladle, I mimicked stirring in the air.
She delicately placed the ladle in the pot and stirred slowly. Chin up. With purpose.
She wore a little apron with a dinosaur on it that read “This Chef is Hangry.” As I supervised her dabble in cooking, I sliced hot dogs—in quarters, of course.
Poor Chef Boyardee didn’t live up to Chef Abigail’s expectations with SpaghettiOs and meatballs, so we were adding our own touch to the original delicacy.
“How much more stirs, Uncle Reed?” She was bored already.
“Ten more stirs, Abbers, then we can add the hot dogs.”
She counted each stir, all the way to ten, and then made the chef’s kiss gesture. I reached in front of her and turned the stove off, then scooted next to her with the cutting board and began sliding the hot dogs into the pot. “All right, Madam Chef, ten more stirs, and that should do it.”
She let out a loud sigh. Clearly, heating things on the stove was exhausting work for a five-year-old aspiring chef. Stirring again, she counted, but each number sounded like an eye roll. She made it to four before a knock rapped on the door.
She hopped off the stool and scrambled to take her apron off as she ran for the entryway. I followed her, making sure she obeyed the safety rules we’d discussed about opening the door.
She spoke to the handle as if it was the telephone receiver. “Who is it?”
“Anita.” Cienna’s dulcet words sang from behind the wood.
Abi put her hands up to her mouth, holding back her giggle, then stood tall, making her voice serious. “Anita who?”
Cici shouted back, glee in her voice, “Anita hug. Hurry, open the door!”
Abi swung it open and launched into Cici’s arms. My heart squeezed at the sight of them hugging tightly in the doorway. Abi finally let go and pulled her inside by her hand. “I’m making dinner tonight, Cici!”
I stayed behind as she was dragged into the kitchen to see our fine cuisine. I wanted to give them some time together, but mostly, I wanted to eavesdrop. I’d found that there was little I enjoyed more than listening to them converse when it was just the two of them.
My muscles relaxed as I sank into the couch, and the day’s tension melted off me. I had my girls, and I was starting to think that was all I needed.
As soon as my mother left, I’d responded to a slew of texts from Cici. She was understandably worried, so I put her mind at ease.
Reed: Everything is fine. Fill you in later. Dinner?
Cici: Glad you’re okay. Yes, please, to dinner.
Reed: SpaghettiOs are on the menu, compliments of Chef Boyardee.
Cici: Sounds yummy.
Reed: You’re yummy.
Two simple words, but they seared through my body at the memory of how true they were.
Cici walked into the room and plopped next to me. “I’ve been shooed from the kitchen by the little Gordon Ramsay.” Amusement twinkled in her eyes. “She says she’s going to set the table and it’s a surprise, so we can’t look.”
On cue, banging sounded from the kitchen. “Abigail,” I called out.
“I’m fine!” A slew of grunts sounded from the other room, and I knew she was trying to reach something. Next was the screech of her stool legs against the floor. Then quiet.
“Abi,” I warned in my best parental voice, “you can set the table, but you cannot handle the food right now. It’s too hot.”
Her feet pattered from the kitchen, and she met us where we sat on the couch.
Her apron was slung back on sloppily, and she had tugged one of her ponytails loose.
She looked the part of a crazy chef as she pointed at me with her ladle.
It flung tiny drops of tomato sauce at me as she scolded, “Uncle Reed, I was a safety champion at school.” She turned to Cici. “Tell him!”
Cici’s eyes widened, but she cracked a smile at my bossy niece. “Yes, Reed, she even got a certificate.”
“See!” Another fling from the ladle and the sassiest pop of her hip I’d ever seen. “I know not to touch hot things.” With an eye roll, she turned back to her loud work in the kitchen.
When we were finally called back in, we were met with a table with three settings. The place mats were a woven pink fabric with familiar floral bowls and dishes set on top. To the sides of the dishes were plastic princess forks and a delicate teacup.
“This is lovely, Abigail. These teacups are beautiful.” Cici picked one up and examined it.
“I found them in Mommy’s room,” she said as she plopped into a chair. She grabbed her paper napkin and made a deal of fluffing and tucking it in the collar of her shirt. Cici giggled, but all I could do was stare. Those teacups. Those dishes.
They were my mother’s. And I was almost positive they were my mother’s mother’s also. I’d never understood the deal with china and fancy dishes and cups and stuff, but I remembered my sister’s eyes lighting up each time my mother set them out for tea or special events.
I crashed many tea parties between my mom and sister.
I mean, if the stupid teddy bears were invited, I should have been.
Those dishes always held the best goodies—Mom’s brownies, my favorite buttery crackers, fancy cheeses.
One time, Caroline even made me wear a crown in order to sit down.
But those treats were 100 percent worth it.
A thickness coated my throat, and before I could clear it, the sensation stretched up to my mouth, tickling my lips into a smile.
A part of my mind wanted to lean into the what-ifs.
What if things had been different. What if my mother met someone different.
Someone more like my father. What if my father never passed.
It was so easy to picture my mother, Caroline, and Abigail sitting here, making memories.
My eyes caught with Cici’s as she listened to Abigail go on and on about something as animated as always.
Her lips tilted in the gentlest of smiles, and her eyes turned warm, like drizzling maple syrup.
The what-ifs danced away, and I took in what was right in front of me.
My beautiful niece, fierce, kind, and so adoring of the woman sitting next to her.
Cienna, this beautiful woman who tiptoed into my life—our lives—and melded immediately.
This path, filled with grief and fear, also paved the way for something, someone, amazing.
I took my seat at the table and mimicked Abigail’s grandiose napkin maneuver. Then I placed a hand on Cici’s knee under the table and gave it a squeeze. She dipped her head and blushed but didn’t look my way.
“Uncle Reed,” Abi huffed.
Not sure why I was being scolded, I crossed my eyes and made a face at her.
“You’re supposed to put the dinner on the table ’cause I can’t touch the hot things.”
I shook my head, berating myself dramatically. Cici mashed her lips together, holding back a smile. She secretly loved it when my niece ordered me around.
As politely demanded, I retrieved the SpaghettiOs in a large serving bowl with a ladle.
Abigail served each of us and dug around the bowl for extra hot dogs for herself.
She took a slurping bite and made an “mmm” sound.
Then her eyes widened, and she sat up straight.
Pointing her finger up in the perfect epiphany pose, she said, “We need drinks.”
The table shook as she hopped from her seat and dashed back into the kitchen. She returned with three juice pouches. She stood between Cici and me and abruptly stabbed the straw into the pouch. Cici’s eyes went wide, and I pulled away from Abigail.
“Holy crap, keep her away from pencils and William,” I whispered behind Abigail to Cici.
She giggled quietly, holding her hand up to stifle the sound. “Yep, our girl is savage. Fool me once…”
The sound of splashing drew my attention back to the table, but not before my heart swelled big enough that I needed a breath to keep it all in. Our girl. She said our girl, and that felt like so many things said in two simple words.
Through gulps of SpaghettiOs and “pinky up” sips of juice in our dainty teacups, Abigail gave us an emphatic rundown of her sleepover.
Cici squeezed and patted my leg under the table, comforting me while I listened to all the wonderful things she said about my parents.
I smiled, congratulated her on her swimming ribbon, laughed about the exploding popcorn incident, and bit back my words when she fondly mentioned the story my mother read to her before bed.
No mention of Bruce, luckily, or my composure may have shattered.
It didn’t spark anger to hear Abigail speak about my mother with so much excitement and admiration; it felt something similar to grief.
It comforted me to know my mother wasn’t trying to change Abi.
She seemed to embrace her youthful bliss and was her companion in playfulness and fun.
I worried about the chance that would shift eventually, but more so, I was longing for the same experiences.
Abigail described the mother I had. The bouncy, silly, adventurous mother who adored every part of me and showed me affection each moment of each day.
I lost that mother when my father died. Her light dimmed, and then she married Bruce. Then nothing shone any longer. But she’d returned for her granddaughter. And that dug at something inexplicably deep inside me.