Rafe puthis newfound culinary skills to use helping out Anna, Mary, and Olivia in the kitchen. The girls were on toast duty at the kitchen table, Anna manned the stove, and Rafe was in charge of chopping up potatoes and vegetables for something called bubble and squeak. Eamonn was supposed to be setting the patio table, but he kept walking up and down the wooden steps to thelawn.
“What are you doing?” Rafe called from thekitchen.
“I think one of these steps isloose.”
“It’s fine!” Mary called tohim.
Eamonn squatted down and checked out the middlestep.
“Eamonn, it’s fine!” Annasaid.
“It’s fine if you want to fall on your arse!” Eamonn marched over to theshed.
“He still likes to be the man of the house and take care of everything.” She scrambled up the eggs in her frying pan with a wooden spoon. Rafe noticed that the lawn was recently mowed and the bushes around the perimeter were nice andtrimmed.
“He cares,” Rafesaid.
“He really does. He gives people his whole heart, that’s for sure.” There was a serious undercurrent in her words, almost like they were awarning.
Anna got out another frying pan for him. She had him fry the carrots, peas, and cabbage he finishedchopping.
“He really stepped up when his dadleft.”
Eamonn left the shed waving a screwdriver in his hand. “The steps just have a few loosescrews.”
“Takes one to know one!” Mary said. Eamonn stuck his tongue out ather.
Rafe smiled to himself. He was home. It wasn’t even his home, but he felt that warm feeling of home, the kind that wraps you in a blanket on thecouch.
“Did you know his previous boyfriend Nathan?” Annaasked.
“No, but I’ve heard about him. He’s going to be in amovie.”
“I won’t be seeing it.” She stirred the eggs, maybe a little too hard. “A mother neverforgets.”
Rafe gulped back a lump in his throat. He tried to tread lightly while also satisfying his own curiosity. “I heard Nathan broke up with him to be a movie star or something likethat.”
“Eamonn tried to stay together with him. He was in love, and my son falls hard. The night Nathan was set to leave, he borrowed the car and made a mad dash to Heathrow Airport. He bought a ticket so he could get into the terminal. It cost him most of the bloody money he made that month. When he told me what he was doing, I thought he was telling me the plot of some romanticcomedy.”
“It’s likeThe Wedding SingermeetsLove,Actually.”
“If only.” She stared at the eggs with this intense gaze that was like a carbon copy of her son. Her blue eyes went dark. “He got to the gate, and Nathan was snogging someone else. When Nathan saw him, Eamonn said he just shrugged and boarded theplane.”
Rafe’s heart broke for Eamonn in that moment. He jabbed at the vegetables a little too hard. He wished Nathan was here right now. He’d punch him in theface.
Hissing and sizzling came from Rafe’s frying pan. He went to shut off the burner, when Anna stoppedhim.
“That’s the cabbage. It’s bubbling andsqueaking.”
“I’m making a traditional English dish!” The sounds of his food frying were like a symphony. He took a picture of his bubble andsqueak.
“You still have to add in thepotatoes.”
Rafe did as Eamonn’s mom commanded. The potatoes mashed with the vegetables into something resembling a quiche. Rafe took anotherpicture.
“What made you decide to go to school in Britain?” Annaasked.
“I’m just studying abroad for the semester. It’s an immersion program, so I can get a taste of life in another country. I, uh, go back in December.” Rafe glanced outside. Eamonn hammered in extra nails to the middle step. He smiled at Rafe in a way that went straight to hisheart.
Eamonn stood up. He pulled at the middle step. “There! All better. Nice and tight!” He jumped onto the step to return to the kitchen, when it snapped it half, sending his foot to the grass below. “Cunt shit buggerfuck!”
The step was only a few inches off the ground. The real victim here was hispride.
Mary and Olivia burst out laughing. Rafe tried to resist joining in. He failedmiserably.
Eamonn gave him thefinger.
“I was just telling your mate how handy you were,” Anna said. “Maybe I spoke toosoon.”
