“What happened to those?” I ask.
My brother glances to me quickly, then looks back at his child. My mom begins shaking a bottle, spilling a small amount on her arm. She wipes the drops off on the front of her shirt then hands the bottle to my brother, guiding his hand as they both work the tiny tip into Alyssa’s mouth. She starts to suck on it instantly, her cheeks pushing in and out, and the look of it makes me giggle.
“It’s pretty cute when she eats, isn’t it, Nico?” my mom says.
“Yeah,” I say, dragging my chair closer so I can watch.
We’re all silent for more than a minute, and then Alyssa makes a suckling sound that makes me laugh again. Vincent laughs with me, and he looks up, into my eyes.
“She’s amazing,” he says.
“I love her,” I say, bending forward and pressing my lips on her tiny warm forehead.
“I love her, too,” my brother says, his eyes back on his daughter.
“We’ll figure this out, Mijo. Come home,” my mom says.
My brother watches Alyssa in his arms, adjusting his feet under the chair and moving her even closer to his body. He nods.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”
14
There are some sounds that simply never happen in the Prescott house on a Saturday morning. We don’t hear a lot of pots and pans, for example, so when I catch the first few clanks, my eyes pop open instantly as if to alert the rest of my body that a foreign intruder has broken into the house.
Clank-clank-clank!
I jolt to a sitting position at the sound of a heavy pan careening off the counter onto the floor. At least, that’s what I think that sound is. It goes quiet, and I wait for another sign, but nothing happens until my nose recognizes the most magnificent scent.
Bacon.
I slide out of bed and crack open my door, leaning forward to listen closer. Then I hear something even more foreign.
Whistling.
I rub my hands over my eyes and yawn, letting my feet slide down the hallway, pausing at my brother’s door. I touch it with my fingers, relieved that it’s closed. He must be inside. He came home.
Quietly, I slide the rest of the way down the hall to the very front of the house, the blinds all still shut. I squint, looking at the clock over the refrigerator—five o’clock. My dad has four pans going—one on each burner—and he has something crackling in each. I was right about the bacon, but he also has some peppers and onions, sausage and eggs. The smell is surprisingly amazing, and I take a seat at the breakfast bar, letting my chin fall into my hands while my feet kick at the rail underneath.
“Whatcha doin?” I ask, and my dad jumps, his back to me. His eyes are red, and I doubt he slept at all last night.
“Do you know that I used to want to be a chef?” he says.
I bunch my lips and furrow my brow.
“I’m being serious. In college, when I met your mom. I had this dream that we would graduate Alabama, and then I’d head to culinary school,” my dad says, picking up the pan with eggs and rolling it from side-to-side with his wrist before giving it the perfect flick, folding the egg in half. He chuckles at it and grins. “Still got it.”
“Why didn’t you?” I ask, leaning back at the sound of my parents’ bedroom door opening at the end of the hall. I smile when my mom’s weary eyes meet mine, and when her expression looks questioning, I jerk my head toward Dad.
“I got the job at Cornwall. And I don’t know…I just couldn’t say no,” my dad says.
“Honey, what in the hell are you doing? It’s…Saturday. Aren’t you going in to watch films?” My mom shuffles over to the coffeemaker, pulling the water container out and filling it at the sink. My dad leans into her, kissing her cheek, and she raises an eyebrow at him.
“I am. But, film can wait…for breakfast,” my dad says. “Omelet?”
He holds the pan forward for me to see, and I take in the perfect egg speckled with cheese, peppers, bacon, and onion.
“Wow. Yes, please,” I say, sniffing one last time before he pulls the pan away and slides the perfect breakfast creation onto a plate.
“You want one, Lauren?” my dad asks my mom. She stands still, the water container for the coffeemaker now full in her hands, and she stares at my dad with an expression of disbelief.
“Uh…sure,” she says, her lip curling on one side.
“Cheese?” my dad asks as he cracks two eggs.
“Yes,” my mom says, her brow still bunched. She turns to me, and I shrug, pushing my fork into my breakfast and lifting a steaming bite to my lips. I blow for a second or two, but shovel it in quickly—unable to stave off the desire any longer, because the smell is just so damned tempting.
“Holy crap!” I say, the delicious flavors melting around my tongue. My breakfast is usually a granola bar, and the only other times we’ve had food prepared in our kitchen, it was from a caterer making mini-somethings for a party.