a cupboard and opened a new bottle of red. “Casey and Eli aren’t all that prepared to bring the baby home. My mother and sister are finishing up the nursery this afternoon and washing all the baby clothes, and I said I’d tackle the meals. We didn’t want them coming back to a house where they’d have to worry about cooking meals. They’re not going to have the time.”
“So you’ve prepared them a month’s worth of dinners?”
I grinned. “Yeah, I figure it will make things a bit easier on them. I did some reading and it’s important for mothers who are breastfeeding to keep a balanced diet and eat well for milk supply and all that stuff. Not that you care, I’m sure, but I wanted to do my part to help Casey out. Eli only has two weeks off work and then she’ll be home full time with the baby by herself. She’ll have enough on her plate without having to worry about feeding herself.”
Kathryn bit her bottom lip and looked down at her feet.
I frowned. Had I said the wrong thing? “Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded and cleared her throat. When she looked back up at me, her eyes were glassy. “Yes, I’m good. You’re a good guy, Ethan. Really. This is going to mean the world to Casey and your brother.”
I moved toward her and held out a glass of wine. “I’m not trying to pry, but why does it look like my cooking is making you cry?”
She laughed lightly, but it ended in a sniffle. “It’s a bit of an eye opener for me.”
“How do you mean?”
“There was so much more I could have done to help Miriam out when her babies were born but it never occurred to me because I was always so busy with work.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up about it. This isn’t an expectation anyone has of someone. This is just my way of helping out. I’d planned on doing this anyway, but you know, in a month from now.”
She nodded and wiped at the corners of her eyes with her thumbs. “Do you want some help?”
“I don’t know. Are you any good in the kitchen?”
“I can follow instructions.”
He grinned. “Then I’d love some help.”
Kathryn shrugged out of her jacket and draped it over the back of one of the stools tucked under the island. She pulled her hair out of its severe bun, shook it loose, and tied it back up in a high ponytail that made her look like she was straight out of the TV shows I used to watch as a kid in the eighties.
She flashed me a charming smile before clapping her hands together. “Where do you want me to start?”
“I’m not sure if I can trust you to your own devices yet, so how about we work on this macaroni and cheese? It’s my mother’s recipe and impossible to botch.”
“You’re worried I’m going to botch something as simple as mac and cheese? Please.”
I sipped my wine. “In my experience, women who are completely dedicated to their careers don’t have much prowess in the kitchen. I’m more than willing to be proven wrong tonight.”
“Well buckle up, buttercup, because I’m about to knock your low expectations out of the park.”
I guided Kathryn through the macaroni and cheese recipe. I didn’t have it written down anywhere. It was committed solely to memory. Back when I was in college, I used to make this recipe to impress girls who came over. It worked only forty percent of the time because most of the girls who ended up in my apartment had an aversion to carbs and dairy.
In hindsight, I could see the error of my ways and why a relationship had never lasted more than two years. The girls I’d gravitated to weren’t compatible with my lifestyle. Food and celebration played a big role in my life. I’d grown up in a relatively large family and one of our traditions was sitting down around the dinner table every night at the end of a long day. We’d talk about what happened at school or work over bowls of spaghetti. Dad would toss bread rolls at us across the table and Mom would scold him. Eli would try to sneak his vegetables to the dog and Dana would tattle on him.
Mom and Dad would steal a kiss at the kitchen sink while he washed dishes and she dried them. Meanwhile, us kids would