Her chin jutted into the air.
“Absolutely you are. You can call me Luca, though. Easier to say than Farmer Man.”
“Are you having dinner with us, Loo-kah?”
Emerson’s heart skipped a beat. Of course Daisy would somehow pronounce Luca’s name that way. That barely off-kilter, slightly mis-emphasized Daisy way. It was just—nowLoo-kahwould inevitably be added to Emerson’s mental Rolodex of Daisy Speak. It was already there, ink seeping onto a new notecard of his mind.
“I—”
Emerson had already turned, gathering plates and forks. But he could feel Luca’s eyes on the back of his neck, hear the uncertainty in his halting voice.
“I don’t know if?—”
“Room and board, right?” God, he hoped his voice sounded normal. “You can have dinner with us, if you want. If you like lasagna.”
“Who doesn’t like lasagna?”
“It’s one of Daisy’s favorites.” He picked up a metal spatula, carved out a few slices. “So…we have it kind of a lot.”
Every time Emerson fed his family, he saw it in dollar signs. How much this meal had cost in extra ingredients, grown on another person’s land. Manufactured in a factory somewhere far away. The fossil fuels it had taken to transport it to Daisy’s plate.
If he only fed himself, he might be able to live closer to that ultimate fantasy of the micro farmer: self-sustainment. He spent pretty much all of his time thinking about it. Food, how we provide for ourselves. How we live, day to day. But he knew Daisy needed more protein than morning eggs, and even his eggs only lasted for as long as the hens kept laying for the season.
Even on his well-planned acreage, he could never provide all the nutrients and supplies his family needed. On his good days, he didn’t feel like an enormous failure about it.
“You can sit by me!” Daisy patted the seat at the kitchen table next to her.
The chair where Jayden used to sit.
“Need something to drink?” Emerson asked as he cut Daisy’s lasagna into smaller pieces with the side of a fork.
“Just a massive glass of water would be great, if possible.”
Emerson busied himself with plating, with drinks, followed by tidying up the counter for so long that by the time he actually joined the table, Luca and Daisy were well into their meal and a conversation Emerson was only now fully tuning into.
“Do you have any babies?”
Luca almost choked on his lasagna.
“No,” he said, recovering. “I don’t have any babies. I do have a nephew and a niece, though.”
Daisy stared at him blankly.
“My brother has two children,” he clarified. “I’m their uncle.”
Daisy’s face lit up. “I have an uncle! Uncle Cruz. He lives in...”
She trailed off, glancing at Emerson for help.
“Bellevue. Outside of Seattle.”
Jayden’s brother. They only saw him once a year or so.
“Hey, that’s where my brother Kjell lives, too, the one with two kids.”
Daisy’s mouth shaped into anoof shock. “Are they friends?”
A sound formed on Luca’s lips, the very beginning of ano, until he appeared to re-think it.
