Page 22 of The Doctor's Simple Life

“Come in, come in!” says Peggy, noticing me standing bemused in the doorway. She rushes over to me with open arms and kisses me on the cheek. I stand stiffly as she does, not quite sure how to react to this affection.

Family dinners aren’t something I have a lot of practice with.

Peggy ushers me over to the table, sits me down and pats me on the shoulder. I never knew my grandma. I can’t remember my parents ever being this affectionate with me.

“I should have asked if you had any sort of food things,” she says. “Like nuts or milk.”

“No, no,” I shake my head. “I’ll eat anything.”

She smiles widely at me. “That’s the kind of good boy I like to see.”

It’s a weird kind of compliment, but it makes my heart skip a beat anyway. I glance over to Sienna, who is stirring a pot with the intensity of someone who is very deliberately trying to ignore what’s happening in the rest of the room.

“I brought this too,” I say, pulling out the expensive bottle of red wine I took all day to find. They don’t really do classy in liquor stores around here. “Thank you so much for having me here.”

Peggy all but skips over and takes it from me, and both her eyebrows shoot up her face as she reads the label. “Honey, thankyou. You didn’t need to bring anything. I won’t have you go home to all your city friends and tell them how awful and cruel our small town is. I want you to remember us as kind, friendly people. I want you to tell everyone else, look, the country’s not just full of people who hate you.”

“I never thought that,” I lie. “You all seem really nice to me.”

She grins, and I catch Sienna rolling her eyes out of the corner of mine. This might be enough to win over her grandmother, but I still have ground to make up with her.

Sienna goes over to the sink, picking up the washing up, presumably where she left it. This way, she can turn her back on me fully. I guess now she can pull whatever faces she wants at me.

It just makes me want to try harder to impress her.

As the other two dance around the kitchen, avoiding each other with the skill of people who have done this waltz a thousand times, I feel the urge to pull out my phone and scroll. I don’t because I don’t want to be rude, but my fingers start itching for something to do, and Peggy has already forbidden me from helping three times.

Instead, all I can do is watch.

And as I watch, I notice the way Sienna helps her grandmother without Peggy even noticing. She preempts what implements Peggy will need, quietly does the washing up, and makes sure that all the handles of the pots are turned so nobody will bump into them and hurt themselves. Silently, she cares so much, and she’s never going to get recognized for it.

“All righty, I think we’re all set,” says Peggy, turning off the last burner.

“Service!” calls Sienna with a wink, and Peggy chuckles. Some inside joke, I guess, and it must be a funny one because they both giggle as they put the food into bowls and start to bring it to the table.

I get up to try and help, and Peggy all but slaps my wrists and tells me to sit down. I obey.

Plates upon plates get crammed onto the table: a whole joint of beef, vegetables, side dishes, and condiments I can’t name. Slowly, I start taking food, hesitating from starting as I wait for Peggy and Sienna to sit down, but Peggy waves her hands at me as she drops down a huge bowl of steaming broccoli and says, “Eat, eat! What are you waiting for?”

I guess I was kind of expecting her to want to say grace or something. I don’t know; it just felt wrong to start. But she seems determined that I start to eat, so I do.

The first mouthful explodes over my tongue, and I let out an accidental moan of delight. I don’t know what she’s put into this, but it’s delicious. My first bite was a little hesitant, but as I realize how good it is, I have to stop myself from eating too fast.

By the time Peggy finally joins us, I’m about to take seconds. She grins at me. “My, look at your appetite! See, Sienna, he is a healthy young man.”

“Gramma…” She groans. “Enough, please. Let’s just eat.”

What the hell has Peggy been saying about me behind my back to get that reaction? I decide to try and change the subject. “This is great, Mrs. Hale.”

“Please, call me Peggy. I won’t tell you again.”

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“It’s good to see you enjoy yourself. You must be having a good experience in our town.”

I shrug. “I haven’t seen too much of it.”

“You haven’t?” She gasps, sitting back like she’s genuinely offended.

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