“Oh, Alan.” Alaric doesn’t miss a beat. “Gerald can always find a reason tocelebratesomething.” He nudges me. “Isn’t that right, Big G?”
The little bugger’s shoulders are going up and down as he holds in a hoot of laughter.
“Yeah,” I manage and flush beetroot, suddenly terribly busy with the salad dressing. Lasagne prep aside, we’ve celebrated all fucking day.
“So what’s the occasion this time?” chips in Sandra, also smiling at the both of us.
Oh fuck, do they think Alaric and I are… do they think we’re about to make an announcement? That we’re… together…engaged? At this point, I’d settle for reassurance Alaric isn’t about to move out. I don’t dare begin to dream beyond that.
Under the table, his small hand sneaks onto my thigh and stays there. He’s been remarkably restrained; that hand has landed on my dad’s arm more times than on mine. Which is fair enough, I suppose, considering we aren’t actually a couple.
Aware of three sets of eyes on me, all kindly, I settle on the truth. Sometimes, it’s the easiest option.
“I… um… I guess I wanted to thank you—both of you, actually—for continuing to show up here, week after week. Not stepping away, even when I gave you plenty of reason to.”
I put my hand over Alaric’s, and he gives it a squeeze. “I don’t want to rehash the accident. But I always knew you weren’t to blame, Dad. I should have… well, I should probably have tried harder to help myself get over it psychologically, tried more with the counselling or whatever. Mum wouldn’t have wanted us to be like this. But I’m?—“
Embarrassingly, my throat chokes up.
“It’s all right, son,” Dad interrupts, bless him. “You don’t have to explain anything. We all come to things in our own time. God knows it’s not been easy.” He casts his gaze at Sandra. “For any of us. Not a day goes by when I don’t wish I’d not been driving up that hill or I’d braked sooner, or swerved into the hedge. But it won’t change anything.”
“I know you did your best. Neither of you stood a chance. I know that—I’ve always known really.”
He pats my shoulder, only briefly, and I’m glad, because anything more would feel awkward, as if he was trying too hard. My mum was the demonstrative one. “But me and Sandra are really glad we’re here now. Hopefully, this is the first of many dinners. We got there in the end.”
No recrimination, no reproach. No nothing really, because after Dad swallows his last mouthful of lasagne, he turns his attention to Alaric and asks him how his parents find living in Spain. Sandra quizzes me on the latest book club choice. The tension doesn’t dissipate immediately, but as Alaric proffers second helpings and talks about the salad dressing ingredients as if he made it instead of continually poking his finger in it, something heavy inside me slips away.
“We can’t offer you a pudding, I’m afraid,” Alaric declares as the last of the lasagne is scraped from the dish. “Gerald,” hethrows me a dramatic, hard-done-by look, “thinks I should cut down on refined sugars.”
“You liar! I did not say that!”
He pouts. “Each time you add a sprinkle of blueberries to my Coco Pops, it’simplied.”
“And you wolfed a huge bowl of them this morning. Coco Pops might technically be advertised as a cereal, but nutritionally, they’re dessert.” Faced with that ridiculous pout, my severe expression fights a losing battle with the corners of my mouth. “So, no pudding required.”
“Don’t we have anything sweet at all?” he wheedles as if he’s a nineteenth century street urchin peering through a bakery window.Please, sir, can I have some more?He’s laying it on thick, for Dad and Sandra’s benefit. My dad’s laughing behind his hand. “I’m not thinking of me, Gerald—I’m thinking of our guests.”
Wide and beseeching, his eyes are almost the colour of blueberries. As ridiculous as he is, I’m a puddle of goo; I can deny him nothing. Rising to my feet, I gather our plates. “I’ll see if I can rustle up something.”
Alone in the kitchen, I give myself a minute. Having achieved his goal, Alaric’s entertaining Dad and Sandra with tales of the many disastrous meals he’s prepared in the past. My dad contributes a couple of his own from the immediate aftermath of Mum’s death when he barely knew how to put together beans on toast. In his own quiet way, he’s funny and self-deprecating, much as he’s always been.
Why did I wait so fucking long? Pushing away the one person who knew my mum and me best, carrying all that misery alone, as if my pockets were weighed with stones. For all these years, I’ve felt so bitter and cheated losing my lovely mum. And it took one single dinner with Alaric supporting me to recognise, a few years too late, that, in life’s draw, getting my parents waslike being gifted a gold rosette. Even though one of them was snatched away far too soon.
Speaking of rosettes…
“So, Gerald’s been a rather busy bee over the last few months, down at Sutton Common church hall,” Alaric announces. I know what’s coming. He’s persuaded me that if I want my dad back in my life, then I actually have to open the door and let him in.
I bring out the lemon cheesecake. He does a double take. “Where the hell was that hiding?”
“Somewhere you wouldn’t find it.”
I made it first thing this morning whilst Alaric was lounging in bed. It’s mine and my dad’s favourite, a recipe my mum used to make for our birthdays. We exchange grins as Alaric treats me to an expression reminiscent of a toddler having his sandwich cut in half the wrong way. I’ll make it up to him. Clowning around, flattering Sandra, showing interest in my dad, he’s right, the best wingman I could wish for.
“What’s been keeping you occupied in the church hall?” Dad queries, with interest. Sandra looks faintly alarmed, as if I’m about to announce I’m in training for the priesthood. Until Alaric, I might as well have been. I give her a reassuring smile, hoping I’ll get to know her better. She’s lovely to my dad. They bounce off each other really well.
“Brace yourself,” Alaric warns. “You’ll never guess in a month of Sunday sermons.
Gerald here, along with his beautiful, intelligent, dashing, and loyal partner—” Alaric’s blue gaze flicks up to our guests, “not me, alas, though I can see how that sentence could easily be misconstrued, given that I possess every single one of those attributes—has been perfecting a dance routine.”
