Page 52 of Doctor Daddy

“That’ll work.” I had never really thought that peanut butter and jelly went with beer, but it was better than nothing. I didn’t need to start drinking on an empty stomach. I handed over the strawberry jam and watched as she quickly and precisely slathered one piece of white bread with a thick smear of peanut butter and repeated the motions with the strawberry jam on the other piece. She wrapped the sandwich like a gift in a paper towel and handed it to me.

“You let David know everything’s marinated and ready for him. Can you hook the sprinkler up to the hose pipe for the girls? They’ve been pestering me all morning.”

I nodded with my mouth full of sandwich. I could do that. By the time I stepped outside, the sandwich was half gone. I handed David his beer and parked my ass in one of the deck chairs.

“Shelly told me to get the hose and sprinkler set up for the girls.”

David looked at me over his shoulder. “Good, so why are you sitting?”

I shoved more of the sandwich into my mouth and headed off the porch. I dragged the sprinkler, already attached to the hose into the grass. A few spins of the spigot, and that spit spit hiss noise of water coming through the sprinkler system sounded. As if eagerly awaiting that signal, my two nieces shrieked with excitement as they ran out the back door across the deck and straight into the water. They giggled and danced in the spray.

The afternoon passed in a drift of conversation with Shelly asking if we were ready from time to time. At some point she came out to tell David to tell the girls to stop wasting water and go back inside.

As the afternoon sun headed toward the horizon, David finally got the grill started. I got up and crossed the deck to the grill to see if the coals were ready. “This looks ready to me.”

David shrugged. “Give it about five more minutes and then they’ll be perfect.”

We didn’t have five minutes before one of the boys came outside holding a large pan.

“Mom told me you had better be ready for this. She’s tired of waiting. Hey Uncle Mark.”

“Hey, Brian.” He was wearing half of some kind of uniform. “Did you have a game?”

He nodded. “I’m a benchwarmer.”

“Your coach will put you in eventually,” I said, trying to offer encouragement.

“Brian’s not allowed to play right now. Who won?” David asked.

“The other guys.” Brian shook his head as he held the pan while David picked up the large slab of beef and positioned it on the grill. “I twisted my knee so I can’t play. We have to have a minimum of twelve players to qualify. We only have fourteen guys. So, I go just to make head count.”

“Even if they don’t play you?” I asked.

“Brian is the team’s twelfth man, but he counts,” David said. “He should be able to play before the end of the season. Okay, go let your mom know it is started”

David watched his oldest son go back into the house. He took a drink of his beer and looked content, a man and his family.

24

BROOKE

Icarried another box into our apartment and set it down in the small living room. I looked around and couldn’t believe we were here. The apartment was small, but we each had our own rooms. The living room was long with a large window at one end. A long counter separated the living room from the small galley kitchen. We had a full kitchen with an oven and a full-size refrigerator. With a deep breath, I headed back outside and downstairs.

There were only stairs and no elevator from our front door to the outside. But this was our first apartment, so it was wonderful. As I skipped down the stairs, Angela lugged another box up the stairs. The weather was hot but not nearly as humid as it would have been in Atlanta. We were going to need to get a small air conditioning unit to hang out the window, but otherwise, it was going to be amazing.

The excitement of living on my own with Angela as a roommate fueled my energy for climbing all those stairs over and over again. After several hours of hauling boxes, we both collapsed, using the aforementioned boxes as places to sit. The only big pieces of furniture either of us had were our beds. Those were only mattresses on the floor at this point.

Angela groaned, “That was a lot of work. Now I understand why people hire movers.”

“Everything is going to hurt in the morning.” I rubbed my face. “Want to stop for pizza after we drop off the trailer?” I asked.

“I think our first official meal in Chicago should absolutely be pizza,” Angela said with sudden renewed energy.

“We should finish moving these things into our rooms,” I said in a slow moaning voice. I didn’t want to move. My legs were tired from going up and down the stairs with boxes all afternoon.

“Yeah, we should probably do the responsible thing like setting up our beds or something.” She didn’t look like she was moving anywhere fast either.

“You’re right, that does sound too responsible. What time does the U-haul place close?”

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