Page 13 of To Save Him

 

 

 

Chapter Five

 

JR AND ANNABEL bounded through the door midafternoon.  My daughter informed us that she would be working that evening and wouldn’t be home till after nine.  JR almost immediately accosted Brandon, begging him to play a videogame with him.

“What’s your homework like, son?”

The sparkle in JR’s eyes faded as he realized the jig was up.  “Aw.”

“You know the rules.  Homework first; games later.”

“Fine.”

Brandon said, “Just say the word when you’re ready, my man.”

JR nodded and gave Brandon a fist bump before racing up the stairs to his room.  I could tell already that, if Brandon stayed any length of time and if he didn’t mind taking on the role, he was going to be a surrogate big brother to JR.  Hell, thanks to the father he was named for, the one who had visitation whenever he felt like—which was turning out to be less and less—he might even become a surrogate father.

That wasn’t good…not in the state of mind I was in.

“Guess I’d better get started on dinner.”

“Can I help?”

Already I was appreciating him.  “Sure.  I need to figure out what we’re having, though.”  I saw the look on his face, one that was half puzzled, half amused.  “What?”

“I thought moms like you were supposed to be organized.”

My mind’s eye saw my office mess when I said, “What do you meanmoms like me?”

A grin spread over his face, emphasizing the cute cleft in his chin.  “I mean…you seem to really have your shit—er,act—together.”

I believed it was meant to be a compliment.  Truth told, though, I hadn’t had either my shitormy act together for a very long time.  “Well, I don’t.”

“So no menu?  How do you know what to buy when you shop for groceries?”

“I just buy what’s on sale or what we’re out of.  And then I plan my needs around that.”

“Guess that keeps things exciting.”

“You could say that.”  I opened the fridge so I could scan the food we had on hand.  “I have a couple pounds of hamburger I need to use before it turns, and we just had spaghetti.  Any suggestions?”

“One of the few good meals that was hard for them to f—mess up in the service was Salisbury steak.  I think it was thanks to the gravy we poured all over everything.”

I hadn’t made something like that in a long time—probably not since Mel had been in the house—but I was pretty sure I had the right ingredients on hand…despite a lack of planning.  “We could do that.”

“I can peel potatoes—unless you’d prefer them baked.”

“No, let’s do mashed.  Mashed sounds good.” EspeciallyifIdidn’t have to do the peeling.  “What else do we want with dinner?”

“Salad or other vegetables?  You have anything you need to use up?”

“Go ahead and look.”  I couldn’t remember what I had, even staring in the fridge.  I grabbed the package of beef and held the door open for him.  His eyes met mine as he took the handle, and then I walked over to the pantry to find what I needed.  As I recalled, the most important ingredients—aside from the eggs I’d seen in the fridge—were saltine crackers (or bread if not), onions, beef broth or bouillon, and Worcestershire sauce.  Anything else was, as they say, gravy.

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