Then I smelled something burning, and the alarm went off abruptly as the kitchen filled with a thick blanket of smoke.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I curse over and over, rushing to open the door that leads to the backyard, the windows, and trying to clear out the smoke before it wakes up the boys.
It's only six, and I wanted them to be able to sleep in a bit. I'd been up since four, mercifully sleeping a couple of hours without a nightmare, but I’ve had a lot on my mind.
"What's going on?" I hear from the doorway just as the alarm finally shuts up. Liam and Noah stand there in their pajamas, looking half-asleep and confused.
"Oh, hey," I say, a little breathless from my running around that turned out to be unnecessary because I clearly woke them up anyway. "I was trying to make breakfast."
I gesture to the unplugged waffle iron, holding a waffle burnt to a crisp.
Liam and Noah look at it, and then back at me, unimpressed.
"I can do it," Liam yawns, moving to the waffle iron to pick it up and carefully dump out the burnt mess. When he sees my questioning look, Liam shrugs and mutters. "Mama showed us how."
"I'll wash the blueberries!" Noah goes to the fridge, opens it, grabs the blueberries from the shelf, and brings them over to the sink, using the step stool my mom keeps in here.
"Right," I say, feeling suddenly useless in the middle of my kitchen as my sons work to clean up my mess and make breakfast.
Needing something to do, I wash out the messy bowls as Liam grabs a new one and carefully measures the water to add to the mix. I then watch as Liam carefully adds butter to the iron on low heat, and uses a measuring cup to carefully add the batter. It doesn't sizzle and smoke as it did for me.
I want to step in, take over making breakfast for my sons because I'm the parent, and that's the way it's supposed to be, but I don't.
I just watch them work and do what I can, loading the dishwasher and cleaning up the counters.
"Your Mama showed you this?" I ask Liam.
Liam nods, focused on the iron.
Noah chirps up from the sink, "Mama's been teaching us how to cook more. She said she wants us to be self-suppicient."
Liam snorts and corrects, "Self-sufficient."
"That's what I said," Noah huffs.
I watch myself-sufficientchildren prepare breakfast that their father couldn't, and feel I've been missing out on so much more than I realized.
Though my heart does warm when we sit down at the table, and Liam silently hands me a plate of waffles, topped with blueberries and syrup.
My hands shake slightly when I reach out to take it from him, and he raises his eyes to mine. His jaw is locked tight, his mouth in a firm line, but in his eyes—my eyes—there's some softness there.
"Thank you, son," I tell him, my voice low and sincere. My words are filled with more meaning than I think he realizes.
He doesn't say anything, and his jaw still remains tight, but he still says, "You're welcome, Dad," and that's enough for me, for now.
We sit and eat in silence, slightly less awkward than last night's conversation.
The waffles are fluffy, the blueberries and syrup are sweet, and my sons don't feel so much like strangers.
A small spark of hope ignites in my chest.
???
"Hey, buddy. How was it?"
I open the door for Noah, and he takes his bookbag off, tossing it in the back before climbing inside.
"It was okay," Noah shrugs as he buckles himself in his seat.
