He follows my directions. His hands move with confidence, but his eyes keep flicking to me like he’s checking whether he’s doing it right. It’s oddly disarming.
Daisy swings her legs and starts talking again, because silence is clearly not allowed in her world.
“Brendon,” she says, “do you live at the fire station?”
“No,” he answers, setting plates down. “I’m staying with my mom right now.”
“You have a mom?” Daisy asks, astonished.
Brendon laughs under his breath. “I do.”
“Does she make spaghetti?”
“Sometimes,” he says. “But she’s more of a stew person.”
Daisy nods, accepting this. “Stew is good too. But spaghetti is better.”
“I’ll make a note of that,” he says solemnly.
The water begins to boil. I dump in the pasta, the sound of it splashing oddly soothing.
For a few minutes, it’s almost easy.
Then Daisy says, casually, “My dad used to make spaghetti too.”
My hand stills on the wooden spoon.
Brendon’s movements pause as well, the air shifting subtly with the weight of the word dad.
Daisy doesn’t seem sad when she says it. She says it the way she says everything about him, like he’s a fact of her life. A story she knows by heart even if she never lived it.
“He made it with hot dogs,” she adds. “Mom says it’s illegal.”
I snort, grateful for the pivot. “It should be illegal.”
Daisy giggles.
Brendon’s gaze meets mine across the kitchen, and for a moment there’s something in it I can’t name. Not pity. Not sympathy.
But it leaves me feeling way too exposed.
“Mom says he was good at it,” Daisy continues. “He would cut the hot dogs into little octopuses.”
My throat tightens. “He did.”
Brendon’s voice is quiet. “I’m sorry you lost him, Daisy.”
She shrugs, earnest and small. “It’s okay. Mom says he loved me. Even though I wasn’t born yet.”
“He did,” I say, and the words come out like a promise I’ve repeated so many times they’re second nature.
It’s something I can’t think about too long or often. Her dad and I hadn’t been together long when I unexpectedly fell pregnant. While I hadn’t been sure if he was the love of my life, or if I was his, we’d made plans for a future together.
Then his accident at work…
The future we’d planned changed, but he’d taken care of us to the end. And his parents have stepped up to be the best grandparents a girl could have.
Daisy looks at Brendon, then announces, “You saved my life.”
