“Homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese,” I said. It was going to be a real mess if he hated that, but I figured it was a staple food choice of littles, and the sick, who often regressed to a state of age where they needed the food equivalent of a hug.
He gasped, and for a moment I really thought he was the outlier. “That sounds amazing. You made the soup? Why didn’t you buy it from the Stock Market?” he asked, referring to thesmall soup store on the main road, right beside one of the bread bakeries, the one who I was a little nervous about meeting in case they thought I was trying to take over the town’s baking needs. I suppose not buying my soup from them wasn’t helping my cause.
“I told you yesterday that I made a good soup, so I wanted to show you that I could,” I told him. “Plus, how else can I show you I’m a good caretaker if I can’t do something as simple as crack out my immersion blender and hide a whole bunch of veggies for you to eat.”
His eyes narrowed as he stared at me. “As long as they’re not going to beright thereand chunky, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“I know you’ll be fine, because the soup is amazing.” I’d made sure to taste it a lot. Not enough to spoil my appetite, but enough to know a little cracked black pepper on top was going to make it extra special once I warmed it through to serve.
Leo sat at the counter. “Are we eating here or—”
“Upstairs might be nicer, but I will be making the grilled cheeses down here. You want to go sit upstairs, give you a chance to snoop?”
He bit down on his bottom lip in a giggle. “You read my mind.”
It was a hint. I figured he’d wanted me to snoop, so he could snoop in return. In his defense, I’d stopped myself from snooping because it would have feel icky to do that while he’d slept. “And how much cheese do you want on your grilled cheese?”
“Lots! I want it leaking out the sides.”
“Leaking. I’ll make a note of that,” I said. “You remember the way upstairs, right?”
He nodded. “I promise to not to snoop too hard, unless you’ve got something to hide?”
“Snoop as hard as you want. The only thing I’ve got to hide are some of my grandma’s recipes, and that’s because they’re secret.”
“Got it. Don’t look for recipes,” he said, rushing away and giggling to himself.
I stared at the doorway for a moment after he’d left. It was almost like he’d left a trail of glitter behind him that my eyes couldn’t lose focus from. I wanted to tell him that, but without it sounding like I was just staring. Even if that’s what I was doing.
7. LEO
Daddy’s place was a work in progress, with boxes everywhere. He’d barely unpacked anything that he wasn’t currently using. It was very different to my place, although with a certain level of the same type of organizational skills.
The first box I peeked inside was beside the television unit. An old TV—probably something my grandparents would have watched TV on—built into a wooden cupboard unit of sorts. The box had a couple of old yellow polishing rags, but beneath it there were DVDs. I grabbed one. It wasMurder, She Wrote.All of them were episodes of the show. I could barely contain my excitement. Box sets upon box sets of DVDs, and the further I dug down, the older they got, becoming VHS tapes, which I hadn’t seen since I was practically a newborn.
Henry came upstairs to see that I’d stacked all the cases by the side of the television unit as if I was trying to seek a reward buried down at the bottom. He looked at me with a smirk and slowly nodded. “Was just coming up to see if you could clear the boxes away from the table. I’m almost ready to bring the food up.”
“How many of these do you have?”
“I’m not a complete obsessive,” he said. “I’ll explain over lunch.”
Doing my best job to follow orders, I cleaned away the boxes from the small dining table tucked against the wall. The boxes were light, most of them seemed to be filled with clothes or blankets, and from the smell, I didn’t know if any of them had been touched in a while.
Daddy Henry came up once more, nodding and smiling with pride at the work I’d done to the table. It hadn’t really taken much work, plus, there were placemats already underneath it all.I barely did anything. “I want you to be honest with me about this, okay?” he said, placing a bowl in front of me, and a plate with a grilled cheese oozing out all the gooey glorious cheese from the sides. “I’m not gonna take it horribly if you hate it, just so you know.”
“Where’s your food?” I asked. I was not going to be begin eating without him.
“Just try it for me while I’m here, then I’ll grab mine.”
I think maybe he thought I was going to get one of those diseases people get when they don’t eat vegetables and this was his way of making sure that never happened. “Okay, I’m sure I’ll love it.” I grabbed one half of the grilled cheese and dunked it with a splash into the orange tomato soup. My mouth watered as I kept it under, soaking the bread, before I yanked it out, splashing my face with the soup as I rushed it to my mouth and gobbled the end of it. I was for sure making a complete mess of my face and my T-shirt.
Daddy chuckled. “I should’ve got you a napkin to wear first,” he said. “So, what do you think?”
Chewing away, my mouth was exploding with all the flavors. It wasn’t super hot either. In fact, they were perfect temperatures. Without even thinking of answering, I went in with another dip, trying to scoop the soup up with the end of the grilled cheese as if it was a ladle.
“Take it that means it’s good, then?”
“Mhmm-mm!” I let out, giving him a big thumbs up, my thumb covered in soup. I stared at it before sucking it off. I had played through a phase of being a little of a much younger age where I had pacifiers and sucked my thumb. I didn’t play that young very much anymore, but the action took me back.
