“Bummer, man.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll probably be back next week.”
I perk up. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. There’s a lot to get through here. I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it in just one night. Anyway…” He waves some papers in the air. “I should get back to this.”
“Of course. Don’t let me stop you. I came by to use the kitchen.”
Wagner cocks a brow. “Why?”
“To cook, duh.”
“But you never cook,” Ollie says.
Wagner nods in agreement.
“So? There’s a first time for everything, right?” I say, hoping they’ll drop it as I fetch the grocery bag I left by the door. When I pass by the living room carrying it, Wagner blocks my path to the kitchen. “What’s going on, Mav?”
“Nothing. It’s just…Jackson and his grandfather had food poisoning yesterday. They’re both still unwell, so I’m going to make them some chicken soup.”
“That doesn’t sound like nothing,” Ollie offers from the couch.
“Well, it is.” I adjust the bag in my hands. “Jackson is my best employee, and his grandpa, Clancy, is a good man. He used to know our grandparents,” I say to Wagner, who shrugs like he finds it nowhere near as interesting as I do. “I want to do something to help them feel better.”
“By poisoning them even more?” my fuckhead brother quips, folding his arms across his chest, one side of his mouth turned up in amusement. “Since when do you know how to cook?”
“It’s not that hard.” I move around him, stealing a quick glance into the living room at Ollie, who’s ditched the paperwork in favor of this. He winks at me, laughs to himself, then returnsto his work. “I have ingredients. I have YouTube. And I have your kitchen,” I tell Wagner.
“And you have me,” a small, sleepy voice says. “I’ll help you cook, Uncle Kick.”
“Right on, my man.” I stick my hand out, and Sammy toddles over to me, clapping his tiny palm against mine. “This will be a piece of cake,” I tell Wagner, who still doesn’t look convinced. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, the professionals have some cooking to do.”
“That’s right,” Sammy agrees, sticking his nose into the air and waving his father away. “We’re pwo-fessh-nuls.”
9
Jackson
I glance nervously through the kitchen window, shielding my eyes from the glare. Clancy is grilling up sausages while my sisters’ partners, Tim and Chris, are setting up string lights for tonight.
“He’s fine, Jaxi,” my sister Sibella says, waddling over to me. She’s due in the fall but looks like she could pop any second now.
“He’s not fine.” I’m too strung out about Clancy to chide her for using the nickname I hate. “He’s been sick for the past two days.”
That food poisoning really affected Clancy. When I called in after work to check on him, he looked awful, so I moved in and have been taking care of him. I don’t know if a fear of throwing up is an actual, real thing and something that can be genetically passed down, but whether it’s real or imagined, Clancy and I both suffer from it. Big-time. No way was I going to let him go through it alone.
He ate some crackers yesterday afternoon and managed to keep them down and seems to be doing better today, but I still think we should have canceled. Even if it is the Fourth of July. I’m not sure he’s ready for this. That’s my biggest concern. It hasnothingto do with me not wanting to tell everyone about my diagnosis.
“And how are you feeling?” my other sister, Verity, asks.
She and Pip have taken over the counter. She’s putting the finishing touches on her world-famous potato salad, and Pip is slicing up watermelon.
“You never miss work,” he chimes in. “Everything okay?”
Food poisoning–wise, yes, I’m fine. Eye-wise? Not so much. The headaches have been getting worse lately, and my centralvision gets intermittently hazy. “Just the usual headaches,” I say, saving the whole truth for after the meal.
“How bad are they?” Verity asks.
