He groaned loudly. “Go eat some toenail clippings, Bernice.”
She shrieked. “I wasn’t eatingthem!”
Bernie tried to grab the tablet, but Mom held it out of her reach. “Stop it, you’re both too old for this kind of behavior.” Before either of them could say a word, she continued, “You’re still young enough to be sent to your rooms, though!”
Mom’s eyes were twinkling, and they all burst into laughter. Yeah. Del loved his family.
“Talk to you later, Mom.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She made a shushing movement with her hand, the tablet rocked, and the connection closed as she swiped the screen.
“Be me…?” Del whispered into the silence of his big, empty house.
It was good, solid advice. There was just this one tiny problem: Del didn’t know who he was anymore.
* * * *
The next morning, he woke up to the school bus rumbling again. Once he was ready for the day, he began to dig through Nanna’s recipe books for something child friendly. There were so many recipes, scribbled down on the faded pages he still needed to copy onto his computer for safekeeping.
It was an embarrassment of riches, Nanna’s recipe book, so Del put it down and thought for a while. Del and Bernie’s Nanna might’ve been Irish, but their paternal grandparents were of Italian descent.
That thought led to Del to another source, his very first cookbook, his Italian Nonna’s present for him when he’d announced he wanted to be a chef at the ripe age of sixteen.
Of course both Nanna and Nonna had taught him things in their own kitchens, but this particular book, Authentic Sicilian Recipes, was an old favorite. It had served him well, but he was pretty sure that the O’Dwyer kids wouldn’t appreciate anything with eggplant in it and that had seemed to be the trend when the book was written.
It took him a while more, pondering over tastes and textures, what would be easy to make in a large quantity and what would warm up nice and tasty the next day. Del realized he was having fun, considering the endless options.
Once he made up his mind, he took a trip to town for some fresh ingredients he didn’t have in the house. He spent the better part of the day using his pasta machine and making sauces for a proper lasagna. Once he had it in the oven, he realized he needed something sweet for dessert.
He’d loved lemon bars as a child, so he hoped that would work for Justin and his siblings as well, and made a large batch. As he waited for everything to be done, his mind provided him images of pizza, a healthy version of mac and cheese, snickerdoodles, maybe brownies, too. Things the kids would like but Del could make sure weren’t crap quality and but instead made with fresh ingredients.
* * * *
Del was washing up when he heard the school bus again. Perfect timing.
He packed the goodies into his car and drove the short way to Justin’s house. Or whoever’s house it actually was; his mom still hadn’t gotten back to him on that.
He could hear screaming as soon as he stepped out of his car. Great.Sounded like Harper, though, and not Scarlett. That was a plus in his book, but then what did he know about handling three little kids.
He left the lemon bars in the car—he refused to pile the dishes on top of each other—and quickly walked to the front door.
There wasn’t a doorbell, just a spot where some wires came out where one should’ve been. Del had a quick thought of using the wires like someone might hotwire a car, just to see if the bell still worked. Snorting at himself, he rapped his knuckles on the door while balancing the lasagna with the other hand.
The screaming stopped. Then a small face appeared in the nearby window. Wyatt.
The little boy raised his hand just enough for Del to see his fingers and wiggled two at him. Del smiled.
The door opened and an incredibly harried looking Justin stared at him for what must’ve been five seconds.
“W-what…?”
“I made food for you guys,” Del said, pushing the lasagna dish against Justin’s chest until he instinctively grabbed it. Then he looked past him and saw Harper edging closer. “Miss Harper? Can I borrow you for a moment?”
She looked suspicious, but her curiosity won over. “What?” Her tone was so much different than her brother’s Del had to hide his smile.
“There’s a plate of lemon bars in my car. Could you go get it?”
She looked dubious, then glanced at Justin who nodded, still obviously trying to parse together what was happening.