“Yep. My dad reads, I cook.”
“Ah, of course.”
I read the first dot point out to her slowly. She grabs the ground beef and dumps it into the bowl with the herbs, salt, and pepper just as I instructed.
We work as a team until the bowl is full of what looks like a mushed-up brain with green flecks and the random diced vegetable poking from the mass. It looks...
“Your oven, it’s not on.” Maisey looks at me, surprised.
“Was it supposed to be on?”
“You always turn on your oven before you start cooking.”
“Oh shoot, really?”
“Yeah, it’s okay, this will wait. Baking is a whole different story, though,” she says with an exaggerated eye roll.
How is this little girl better at life than I am?
“Okay, how do I turn it on?”
“You serious?” Maisey’s brows fling toward her hairline.
“Yeah, my mom—I never learned to cook.”
“Oh, okay.” She looks as if she’s figured something out. “Turn this knob to bake. This one does the temperature.”
Marie was great at taking care of us. We never went without, but she didn’t teach us the things a mother would, I guess.
I’ve never cooked. Which was sometimes an issue for roommates I had, and not for others. Takeout is always welcome, and I was happy to buy it in lieu of cooking. A choice that is now coming back to bite me.
When the oven dings, I open the door and slide the loaf pan into the middle shelf under Maisey’s supervision. She holds a hand out for a high five when I shut the door. I slap my palm to her small one and she wanders toward the pantry cupboard, her head disappearing a second later. “Got anything to eat?”
“You mean apart from meatloaf and dark greens?”
“Yeah. Yuck, spinach is so gross.”
I pull open the drawers until I come across a bag of chocolate chip cookies. “How about these?” I ask.
She pulls her head from the depths of the pantry. On seeing the cookies, she plants herself onto the stool by mine. I bust open the bag, and we dig in.
Milk, we need milk . . .
“Milk, hon?” I ask.
She scrunches up her nose at the endearment but answers, “Sure.”
I grab two glasses and the milk from the fridge. After pouring our milk, we dig in again.
My name is a faint call as I scarf down the cookies, chatting away with my new friend and cooking buddy.
Dad.
“Sorry, I better see if he’s okay.” I rise from the stool, finishing off my milk.
“That’s okay, I’ll wait.”
“Be back in a bit.”
