When she got to the café, she pulled in beside Mitch where he’d parked at the side of the building. They didn’t verbally greet each other, although she was aware of him looking her over.
As they entered the café, a waitress trundled past them carrying a large tray loaded with platters of food. “What’ll y’all be wantin’ to drink?” They ordered iced teas. She nodded. “Sit wherever. I’ll find you.”
Mitch gestured toward an unoccupied booth in a less busy section. It was only large enough for a party of two. When they slid in across from each other, their knees bumped.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll go right, you go left.” She was aware of him stretching his legs out, taking up most of the empty space under the table.
When they were situated, he said, “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a glass of wine? A beer?”
“No thank you. Wouldyourather?”
“God, yes,” he said with a groan. “But I’m abstaining. Have you been here before? Food’s good.”
“This isn’t a social occasion, Mitch.”
He bobbed his chin. “Right.”
The waitress delivered two tall glasses of iced tea and laid a pair of laminated menus on the table. “When y’all are ready.”
Once she was out of earshot, Dylan asked, “What’s keeping you from tomorrow’s appointment?”
“Straight to the point, then?”
“You’re on the clock.”
“Got it.” He sat back and drew a breath. “My mother-in law.” He took a sip of tea, then cupped his fingers around the glass and moved them up and down, collecting condensation.
Dylan had noticed his hands before. The backs of them were ropy with plump veins, his fingers slender and strong-looking. They were the hands of a soldier, but one who would admit to shedding tears while watching his son sleep.
She tried not to think about how much she liked that combination, and instead to concentrate on why he’d sought her out. If it was about his mother-in-law, it must relate to his son, which would qualify it as being “that important.”
“I’ve already told you that I don’t know what I would have done without my in-laws,” he said. “But Mary and I butt heads every now and then, and today was one of those times.”
He told her what Mary had done. “I’m all for Andrew goingto preschool,” he said. “What pisses me off is that she took the liberty to get him enrolled before I even knew about it.”
“You have every right to be angry, Mitch. She assumed a parental privilege and authority, which rightfully belonged to you. Did you ever grant her permission to make decisions such as this before consulting you?”
“No.” He looked down at the menu and traced the outline of the blue crawfish with his fingertip. Then he said with chagrin, “Or maybe I did. Not outrightly, nothing said, nothing written down. But I might have conceded the right to her through neglect.”
“Neglect?” She frowned. “I very much doubt you’ve been neglectful of Andrew.”
“Not intentionally. But, to be perfectly square with you, I never thought about preschool. It never occurred to me.” He leaned forward and braced his forearms on the table. “It should have, though. Why didn’t it?”
“Not out of neglect.”
“What would you call it?”
She thought, then said, “Wiring.”
Taken aback, he said, “Of all the words I thought might come out of your mouth, that wasn’t one of them.”
She smiled. “Then allow me to elaborate. Based on what you’ve told me, you had a traditional marriage and a traditional family dynamic. Consequently, the division of labor would also have been traditional.”
“I changed plenty of diapers.”
“I’m sure you did. Willingly. But who put diapers on the grocery list?” She could tell by his expression that he got where she was going with this. “Checking into preschool enrollment wasn’t on your to-do list, any more than getting an oil change and tire rotation would have been on Angela’s.”
“She would have been on top of it, but I would definitely have been interested and involved.”
