Page 16 of Second Start: Family
Dan snorted.
“Say hello to Ms. Smith,” his father ordered.
He muttered a greeting.
She replied, then focused on Bobby.
No need to draw him out. Unlike the two older males in the family, he appeared to have no shell. When Lizzie invited him toTell Miss Kenzie about Christmas, he complied with dizzying relish.
“Hard to believe he didn’t talk much until then,” Molly said proudly.
“Not that he couldn’t,” Lizzie added for clarity, “because he could and he had before, but he didn’t want to for a while until then.”
Kenzie had seen what they were cycling in and out of the microwave, trying to make multiple meals ready at the same time, so she was prepared when they brought the first one to her, as the guest.
She smiled and said thank you as Molly, flickering from a wide smile to concentration, placed the plastic container on the plate in front of her. The broccoli and carrots were bright and steaming. Next to them, bubbling cherry liquid oozed over a pastry crust. In the center, a cutlet of chicken sat atop a bed of white rice with sauce coagulating in one corner. Ice crystals winked at her from the meat.
Lizzie, obviously the runner-up in the meal-delivery sweepstakes, placed another plastic dish in front of her father. This one had cubes of beef in a dark gravy, with noodles, green beans, and another bubbling pastry — something that was apple judging by the color. No ice crystals that she could see.
Kenzie looked up, and met Hall Quick’s gaze just as it left the plate in front of her.
“Girls, maybe Ms. Kenz— uh, Ms. Smith would rather have this dinner. Sure smells good, so—”
“No!” Molly’s shout stopped him with his plate in one big hand in mid-air. “Miss Kenzie’s got to have the chicken. Miss Otter said so. It wouldn’t be Sunday dinner without it being chicken, and—” Her voice dropped to an urgent whisper. “—that’s the only chicken one we have left.”
“I’m sure it will be delicious, thank you.” Kenzie gave the reassurance to the girls, and when they turned away to get the next plate emerging from the microwave, she looked directly at their father to add reassurance there.
His frown eased as he replaced his plate on the table, and humor glinted in his eyes. “Gotta be chicken, huh? Those are fighting words around here. Somebody who insists on chicken in beef country deserves what she gets.”
“That’s fair.” She smiled, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
Dan scraped his chair back, the noise jolting along Kenzie’s nerves. “I’m not eating this crap. I’ll make my own.”
“Dan, that’s—”
Hall’s reprimand was silenced by Molly. “Good. We didn’t have enough for you, anyway. There’s enough macaroni and cheese for Lizzie and Bobby and me but you eat too much. But you can have dessert,” she added magnanimously.
Dan growled something too low for his father to hear and slammed around in drawers and at the refrigerator. Kenzie sat with her hands in her lap, alternately fighting flinches at Dan’s noise and laughter at Molly and Lizzie’s cooking consultations.
By the time the macaroni and cheese was dished up, Dan had returned to the table with a double-decker sandwich with slabs of tomato and enough bologna to keep Oscar Mayer singing for joy.
“You can’t eat yet, Dan,” Molly said. “We have to say grace.”
“We never say grace,” he protested. But he put the sandwich on his plate.
“Can’t say never, Dan,” Lizzie said. “We do sometimes.”
“Yeah, Lizzie Borden? When was the last time—?”
“Christmas.”
“Doesn’t count. That was somebody else’s house.”
“It wasn’t a house, precisely—”
Molly plowed in on her sister’s side. “Last time here was Easter before last, when—” She broke off.
A thick silence fell.
