While he moves about the kitchen, I arrange my workstation. Pie pans on the left, lined up in sets of four. Sheet pans on the right, also in stacks in four, and two ice cream scoops aligned next to them.
He hands me a bowl of cookie dough. "That's enough to get you started. When they're done, I'll have Peggy put them out front for you."
Peggy is the waitress who works at lunch. She's in her thirties, married with two kids.
"Can you get me another bowl?" I ask.
He sighs and gets a concerned look on his face. I've seen it before. Many times. And yet he never says anything.
His eyes move over my workstation, his expression growing even more grim, and I'm suddenly afraid this is the day he's going to confront me. "Callie, you need to—"
"I'll just get it myself," I say harshly, hoping he gets the message. He needs to stay out of this. This is my issue to deal with and I'm not ready to. Besides, I don't know how to fix it, so I couldn't deal with it even if I wanted to.
My knee aches as I hurry to the drawer to get another bowl, then hobble back to my stool. "Don't you have something to do?" I ask, not looking at him as I divide the dough into the second bowl.
I can't work with a single bowl. It's an odd number and odd numbers are bad. One car. Colliding with one van. Killing three people. One person left behind. I hate odd numbers. Odd numbers are bad.
Everything has to be even. And my workstation has to be set up exactly this way. If it's not, I panic. I crave order. Order makes sense. Chaos doesn't. And I need things to make sense. Because losing my family? Being left here all alone? It doesn't make sense.
Lou is still watching me. I can feel it, but I won't look up. Instead, I set my bowls where they belong and begin scooping cookie dough.
One, two, three, four...I continue counting in my head until I've finished the first row.
"Callie, stop." He holds my wrist before I begin the next row.
"What?" I narrow my eyes at him. If he confronts me about this, I swear I'll blow up at him. I like Lou and I appreciate what he's done for me but I'm not his responsibility and he needs to stay out of this.
"What do you think about you and me having dinner tonight?"
I fake a smile. "Sorry, but you're a little old for me. I usually date guys in their twenties."
"Callie, I'm serious. Let's have dinner tonight. Anywhere you want to go. It's on me."
He's tried this before and I've always turned him down. Except for last Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lou's wife died ten years ago so he always spends the holidays alone, but last year, he invited me to eat with him here at the coffee shop. I didn't want to go because it was the first holiday season without my family and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and cry. But I felt really bad for Lou, being all alone, so I agreed to it. It was still hard, being with Lou instead of my family, but at least he understood what I was going through. His wife died in a car accident so that's something we share. Sudden, unexpected loss that rips your heart out and leaves you feeling like you're no longer whole. It's why we understand each other and why he hasn't confronted me about my obsessive behaviors. But I'm worried that's about to change.
"I can't go out," I tell him. "I need to rest my knee."
"What about tomorrow?"
I pull my wrist from his grasp. "I'm busy then, too."
"Callie," he says in a stern tone. "You can't spend all your time in that house."
"I don't. I go to work. I go to the grocery store. I go—" I stop because those are the only places I go.
"How about if I come over and cook you something?"
"No," I say forcefully. I don't want him coming to the house. If he did, he'd probably commit me to a mental ward. I told him I got rid of almost all their stuff and packed up the rest. If he found out I lied, he'd freak out. He'd say it's not healthy. He understands I need time to grieve, but leaving all their stuff exactly where they left it isn't right. I know this, and yet I still can't make myself pack up their things.
At least I got rid of everything at the other house. The house I'm living at now is our summer home. It's a couple hours south of Chicago. We got it as a place to go to get away from the city. My mom and Greg were both teachers so we lived here all summer long.