Page 18 of Perfect Pairing
My heart grew about ten sizes at the sight of my son’s smiling face.
Without argument or a sound of protest, I rose from the bed, tossing on a white cotton tee and a pair of pajama pants—yes, they matched Hansen’s—and padded out to the living room.
Though I was the chef in the family, I’d learned a lot frommy dad over the years, and he was in the kitchen, the scents of bacon and Swedish pancakes floating through the air. Beyond the windows of our house, the sun was barely lighting the sky.
Being awake so early may not have been my first choice, but the upside was, I wasn’t hungover. Still, I needed coffee if I was going to survive, so I shuffled into the kitchen, mumbling good morning to my dad.
“How’re you doing?” he asked softly. Across the great room, past the demarcation line between the kitchen and living room, Hansen sat near his mountain of presents, practically vibrating with excitement. He waited patiently for me and Dad to join him and give him the go ahead to tear into his gifts.
Today was a hard day for both of us, and I may have gone a little overboard.
“I’m fine,” I grumbled as I filled a mug to the brim and took a large swallow, the scalding liquid burning a path down my throat.
“It’s okay if you’re not,” Dad said. “It’s the first big holiday—”
“Thanksgiving was the first big holiday,” I said, cutting him off. “And we survived that just fine.”
My dad gave me a disappointed look at my tone, but I didn’t want to talk about it. Shannon was gone, and talking about my feelings wasn’t going to change that.
Besides, where she was concerned, my feelings trended more toward anger than despair.
Thankfully, Dad didn’t press and, after removing the last batch of pancakes from the pan, he washed his hands and joined me and Hansen in the living room.
Watching my son open his gifts did wonders for lifting myspirits, and after he finished and we ate breakfast, we spent the remainder of the day taking his new toys from the packaging and playing with them. Later that afternoon before the sun went down, we headed outside to make snowmen and sled down the hill near our house. Though he was nearly three, Hansen had never seen snow like that. We’d taken a few trips up north to Vermont when he was a baby, before life had gone to shit, but this was the first chance he’d gotten to truly enjoy the season and be the toddler he was.
When he started to complain about the cold—he lasted far longer than I’d expected—we returned to the warmth of our home, and I set to preparing our Christmas dinner.
Next to Hansen’s smile and laughter, cooking was the one thing in the world that soothed me. With a knife in my hand, chopping potatoes or fileting salmon, my jagged edges smoothed. Food was my happy place, the arena where I was confident. Where everything made sense, and the worst thing that could happen was accidentally over or undercooking a dish.
I’d been formally trained, but my earliest memories featured me and Dad in the kitchen, experimenting and bonding. I hoped that when Hansen was bigger, we could have those times together too.
A few hours later, we were gathered at the dining room table, an impressive array of food spread out before us.
Yes, impressive even to me, the man who cooked it all. I may have gone a bit overboard.
There was the aforementioned salmon, which I’d filleted and broiled with garlic butter and lemon slices. I’d made a mountain of garlic parmesan Hasselback potatoes, a huge salad toppedwith thick chunks of tomato and black olives, and my grandmother’s turkey stuffing. I’d never met the woman, but my dad had her cookbooks hanging around, and I’d attempted a number of her recipes over the years. That would always be one of my favorites, my lone traditional Christmas offering to our dinner table. My cooking style tended more toward blending Swedish cuisine and American, and I typically balked at anything status quo.
But damn, that stuffing. I could never pass it up, and I loved feeling connected to the woman responsible for raising my father.
Yeah, I came from alongline of single parents.
Dessert was not my forte, but I still managed to whip up a decent-looking array of Hallongrotta, butter cookies topped with raspberry filling. I even added some shaved coconut because I knew it was Hansen’s favorite.
“So what’s your plan for the next week?” Dad asked when we’d finished our meal. He reclined in his chair and settled a palm on his stomach, which he pushed out comically far for Hansen’s benefit. My dad was wiry, even in his fifties.
“In terms of…”
“Work,” he said. “What’s your schedule look like?”
Even though it was slow season, Leon and Lena had asked if I wouldn’t mind opening the kitchen for a few days for locals to come in and enjoy a meal with their out-of-town families during the holidays. I’d jumped at the chance. I loved my dad and my son, but it was better than sitting around this house wallowing.
Plus, the Delatou family was coming in for dinner in a few days, and I knew Brie was going to be there. It’d be the firsttime I saw her in nearly six months, and my skin tingled with anticipation.
“We’re open on the thirtieth, and then we’re shut down until April first.”
My dad raised a brow. “And what are you going to do with all that free time?”
I shrugged. “I was thinking maybe we could get started on some of the projects around here.”
