Page 62 of Passing Ships

“I don’t know, munchkin. The grill is really hot,” I say.

“Gramps lets me do it,” she says.

“Well, Gramps is braver than I am.”

She wrinkles her nose. “You’re big and strong and fight bad guys. You’re big-time brave. Like Thor,” she declares.

“More like Popeye,” Sebastian quips as he comes out the door, carrying a cast-iron pan of melted butter.

“Who?” Leia asks.

“He’s a sailor man who eats his spinach to make his muscles grow.”

“Auntie Miya says if I eat my vegetables, my boobies will grow,” she reveals.

“What? You don’t need to—you … are fine. What?” Sebastian sputters.

Leia looks at him like he’s grown another head.

“Our next kid had better be a boy,” he mumbles under his breath.

Avie brings us a couple of glasses of iced tea and checks on our progress.

“Potatoes are almost done, and the steaks are about to go on,” I say.

“Where’s Amiya?” Sebastian asks.

“In her room, catching up on some work. Why?”

“Do you know what she told our daughter would happen if she ate her vegetables?” he whispers.

“What?”

“That she would get bigger in this area.” He gestures to Avie’s chest.

She bursts into laughter. “That’s brilliant. I was wondering why she had been cleaning her plate lately.”

I move the potatoes to the top rack to keep them warm, brush the steaks down with the melted butter, and season them with garlic, salt, and pepper before tossing them on the grill.

Avie takes Leia inside to get washed up.

Fifteen minutes later, dinner’s ready, as I carry a tray of meat inside, Amiya emerges from her room. Her face pale and her hands shaking as she reaches out and steadies herself on a barstool.

“Everything okay?” Avie asks, as she picks up on her friend’s distress.

“My grandmother fell and broke her hip,” she sputters.

“Oh no. Is she okay?”

“They have her sedated,” she says.

“Is that good?” Avie asks, her eyes flitting from Amiya to me.

I shrug.

“I guess. I’m not sure,” Amiya says.

“Do we need to go to Atlanta?”

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