Page 74 of Bad Love

"Damn." I shake my head. "You have everything excepttortellini.”

He cocks his head. "You can'tbuystuffedpasta."

"Sure, youcan."

"You have to make it yourself. It's easy. Flour. Water. Egg. Stuff it with ricotta and spinach." He passes me, jerking open the refrigerator door while I stare. He holds up a brick of cheese. "No ricotta.Gruyère."

Rory looks at me expectantly, and that’s when everythingclicks.

This pint-sized redhead in front of me with serious eyes is not only into cooking—whatever that means when you’re not yet nine—he’s a damnedfoodie.

The muscles I didn’t know were still tight in my neck relax.Oh, it’s onnow.

I fold my arms, bracing against the counter. "Why d'you want to skip this macaroni project if you're so intofood?"

He mimics my posture. "Because you're not supposed to cook it," he says as if it'sobvious.

I reach for the sheet of paper. "It says 'create something you love using pieces of pasta and otheraccessories.’"

"But it's what they mean. You can't ignore what they mean tosay."

His eyes glint as I reach for the cuffs of my shirt with a grin. "Wannabet?"

16

Things never gothe way youplan.

Not that I had a plan for my mom to fall off a chair and be rushed to Yale New HavenHospital.

But traffic seems to know it’s keeping me from my mom, that my heart is pounding out of my chest, and is flipping me an extremely rude gesture despiteit.

It's Thursday, not Friday, but it seems as if the entire state is on the road as I drive my rental car toward Orange, Connecticut. I tap my fingers on the steering wheel the whole waythere.

As I pass Orange on the turnpike and continue to the hospital, I call my father. "I'll be there infifteen.”

When I arrive and park, I run through the endless halls. The hospital is an impressive facility, but it’s hard to be grateful for that right now. Either you’re there visiting someone, or you’re there as a patient, and usually the donor plaques and fake greenery aren’t foremost on yourmind.

The last time I was here, I hadRory.

It brings up all kinds of feelings I’d thought I'dburied.

I find the right waiting room, and mydad.

"Kendall." He hugs me, some of his usual “what will be will be” replaced by a pale face. "Thank you for coming. We called your brothers but only reached Robert. William’sworking."

I don’t say that it would’ve made my whole day if he’d called me first and not as a plan C. Instead I squeeze his hand. “I’m glad to behere.”

We go in together to see my mom, and my first thought is how small she looks in the bed. Like me, she's not short, but she looks as if she's lost weight since I saw her last. She’s also hooked up to some monitoring equipment, a machine that blinks silently behindher.

Her lips curve when she spots me and I try to focus on her, not themachines.

"Nice place you’ve got here,” I tease, looking around the two-person room with one emptybed.

Her eyes crinkle. “Slow dayapparently.”

I take a seat next to her, smoothing down the blanket without taking my gaze from hers. “What were youdoing?"

"Trying to fix something on the top shelf in thegarage."

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