“Can I do both?” Sally asked.
Isabella set a bowl in front of her, leaned in to kiss the top of her head and murmured there, “Why not?”
Sally threw both her hands up, nearly hitting Isabella in the jaw and shouted, “Hurrah!”
“Mental,” Jason mumbled.
Isabella looked at him and chuckled.
“I wish I found making tuna casserole so exciting,” Mikey remarked, carrying his whisky around the counter to sit beside Jason.
“You’re too cynical,” Isabella told him, opening cans of mushroom soup. “Making tuna casserole is exciting.”
And it was when one was making it for Prentice, his family and one’s best friend.
“She’s mental,” Mikey stage-whispered to Jason and Jason grinned as Prentice joined them from the other room.
Well, that reprieve didn’t last long.
Sally didn’t waste any time getting Prentice up to speed.
“Mister Mikey says we can call Mrs. Evangahlala, Miss Bella and I’m doing the crunchy and smushy bits for dinner.”
“Crunchy and smushy,” Prentice murmured, his eyes warm on his daughter. “Sounds like dinner is going to be interesting.”
“Tuna casserola!” Sally shouted and Prentice looked at Isabella.
Isabella busied herself with draining the tuna.
“Have you had her tuna casserole?” Prentice asked, she looked over her shoulder and saw he was talking to Mikey. The palms of his hands were at the edge of the counter and he pushed up to sit on it.
“I’ve sampled Bella’s entire culinary arsenal,” Mikey replied. “It must be said, the woman can cook.”
“We know. She made us chicken fingers, homemade, the other night. They were brilliant,” Jason put in.
Isabella ducked her head and bit her lip at the compliment while she went to stand behind Sally and set the cans around the bowl.
“All right, honey, we need to dump all this into the bowl and then smush it together. Yes?” she told the girl softly and Sally nodded exuberantly.
She handed Sally a spoon and Sally went straight for the mushroom soup as Isabella, her arms around Sally, her eyes looking over the girl’s shoulder, used a fork to flake out the tuna.
Isabella was attempting to ignore everything and focus on the food and Sally.
This was difficult.
It became more difficult.
“Isabella doesn’t seem the type of woman to have tuna casserole in her culinary arsenal,” Prentice commented and Isabella felt her shoulders get tight.
Didn’t he remember she cooked for him all the time twenty years ago?
Didn’t he remember what she’d cook for him?
She’d never made him tuna casserole, of course, that was winter food and she was only there in the summers.
But, still…
Mikey laughed, loud and with great hilarity.