Page 81 of Don't Remind Me
Stephanie hadn’t had the baby yet, though she seemed to be doing well. Better than Alec, at least, who was a nervous wreck now that their birthing plan had gone off the rails.
Not gonna lie, I kind of enjoyed seeing him so unraveled for once. It reminded me of when we were kids and how worried he would get about whether Santa could still make it in the snow. He’d stay up as a six-year-old on Christmas Eve watching the WeatherChannel until our parents forced us to go to bed.
This time, instead of the Weather Channel, he’d fixated on the nurses’ station. The nurses seemed mostly amused by his constant questions and requests, but I still planned to pick them up some baked goods when I grabbed Alec’s and my takeout. Right after I checked on a delivery here first.
I made my way up to the office, taking comfort in each familiar step. Things had changed last night—with my brother and Dani both, in ways I hadn’t quite figured out yet—but Ardena, at least, was the same. And with each step I climbed, I remembered a little more of how it felt to be proud of something.
This restaurant was an achievement I could claim. Not mine alone, but still mine. Remembering it was like rediscovering a piece of myself, feeling it click back into place the way it first had the moment Frank put a knife in my hand.
I’d fought for those pieces of myself. Endured grunt work and burns, sometimes for no pay, often not knowing where I’d end up the next week. I’d dug deeper with each challenge, with each success, pulling myself together one chunk at a time until I finally felt whole.
Somehow, going back to my parents’ house always made me forget that. Like that version of myself I had created was nothing but an act, a clever disguise I fooled the world with while the real me was the equivalent of three monkeys in a trench coat. A poor imitation of what a son, a brother, a man was supposed to be.
But this place around me I had helped build—it was real. I could reach out and touch it. See the truth of what I had accomplished in every room and during every shift.
Where was the truth in what my parents thought of me? Their words? Their assumptions? Their expectations based on their own beliefs?
Next to the concreteness of this restaurant, those didn’t seem so substantial.
I walked into the office and paused at the sight of Jillian at her desk.
“I didn’t expect to find you here,” I said as I approached the order clipboard hanging on the wall beside her.
Her gaze stayed trained on her computer screen. “Just going over some numbers. Turns out we did very well this weekend.”
“Oh yeah? Talia have good things to say?” I was more ready to hear them than I had been last night. Might even have been willing to believe some of them. Or at least accept that others believed them like Dr. Ohara had said.
“No. Dani came by earlier.”
Her name shot through me like a pinball ricocheting around my chest, and I held my breath in anticipation of where it would land.
When I’d gotten the text from her earlier this morning that Stephanie was in labor, I’d still been reeling from my conversation with Dr. Ohara. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since she and I had last spoken, but it felt like it had been weeks. I’d wanted to pick up the phone and call her, hear her voice, ask her to meet me at the hospital so I didn’t have to endure my parents alone.
But it wasn’t her job to shield me from my parents. I didn’t want it to be. Which was why I needed to decide for myself what I wanted my relationship with my family to be before I brought Dani the rest of the way into my life.
So I’d texted her back to thank her for letting me know and headed to the hospital alone to be with my brother. It turned out my parents wouldn’t make it until tomorrow, so I had a bit longer to prepare myself. Which was good because I needed every second.
I cleared my throat. “What’d she say?”
“Apparently, they nearly doubled their funding goal,” Jillian said, still typing. “And then she informed me that not only did you stay within their slated food budget for the entire event but you managed to come in under it.” Now she pinned her focus on me, scrutinizing me over the rim of her reading glasses. “Do you know how many catering inquiries I got last night?”
I shook my head.
“Twenty-three. Ranging from private weddings to corporate events. Am I to understand you impressed them all with food that cost pennies a plate?”
“The budget wasn’t that small?—”
“Did I not make it clear that the budget wasn’t an issue? That I would cover any additional costs?”
I fought to keep my eyes from rolling. “I wasn’t going to spend your money if I didn’t have to, Jillian.”
She closed her laptop and angled her body toward me, one leg crossed over the other, hands clasped in her lap in the picture of ladylike elegance. I knew enough to be terrified.
“This accessible fine-dining restaurant of yours,” she said. “What kind of investment would you need for that?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, then froze as her words registered. “What?”
“Dani seems to think I should take the money I’d been prepared to spend on food costs for the symposium and use it to fund your new restaurant idea. She said that the overwhelmingly positive response to the event’s food was proof of concept, and I have to say, I don’t disagree.”
