“Children these days,” Mom said back, “no gratitude.”
“Max, Mom called you a child again,” I told on my mother even though Max heard it himself.
“Yeah but she’s making her Mexican casserole,” Steve said, I sucked in an excited breath, Steve grinned at me then looked to Max. “Nina likes her mother’s Mexican casserole.”
Max stopped me at the end of the counter and I looked up at him and explained, “You will too. You taste it you’ll think nothing but ‘Ambrosia of the Gods’.”
Max smiled down at me and I was relieved to see this one was a little bit more like Max’s normal, beautiful grin.
“Never thought those four words in my whole life, Duchess,” he informed me. “In fact, I don’t even know what one of them means.”
“Food of the Gods,” I informed him.
“Then what you’re sayin’ is your Mom’s casserole is good.”
“The best.”
“And, it was one of my concoctions,” Mom put in snootily.
I got up on my toes and informed Max in a loud whisper, “A rare hit.”
“I heard that!” Mom snapped.
Steve intervened by saying to Max, “We’re gonna have to rig up some kinda hoist, you want that picture over your bed. It isn’t gonna go up those spiral stairs.”
“No problem, had to do the same with the furniture,” Max replied and concluded. “I’ll go to the barn, get my tools.”
“I’ll go with you,” Steve offered and slid off his stool.
“I’ll stay warm,” Cotton declined participation and slid on a stool.
“I’ll frost the cake,” I announced and started to pull away from Max’s arm but it tightened then I started to tip my head back to look up at him but stopped when his lips hit my temple.
Goodness but I loved it when he did things like that.
“Be back in a second, baby,” he said softly, giving me a squeeze with his arm.
I loved it when he said things like that too. And when he gave me a squeeze.
He let me go, Steve joined him and I watched as they walked away.
“He’s a keeper,” Mom noted, her eyes on the space where we last saw Steve and Max.
She wasn’t wrong but I was too emotionally depleted to deal with that fact right now or to process what I was going to do about it.
“Sweetie,” Mom called, I looked at her and my hand came out to clutch the edge of the counter at what I saw in her face.
“Come here, Neenee Bean,” she said softly.
“Mom.”
“Before you frost that cake, I want a hug.”
“Mom, you know –”
“Come here, Nina,” she demanded firmly and I did what I’d done since I was a child and I heard that tone from my mother. I obeyed and walked into her arms.
They came around me and the tears hit my throat, slid up my sinuses and then leaked out my eyes. I couldn’t control them and in the safety of my mother’s arms I didn’t try.