Being a chef was my dream.
When I was a little girl, I'd wanted nothing more than to bake, but when I found out how it's too much of a science than an art form, I found my calling for cooking.
I was eight, and my parents were hosting dinner parties all to brag about the food I could make - buying bag after bag of groceries and letting me run wild with the kitchen.
I remember them beaming with pride over me, being so happy that I had a gift - the gift of food.
Food rots. The gift, in their eyes, rotted quickly when it hadn't been a phase, and my brother was doing bigger, better, more practical and reliable things.
He was an aerospace engineer, and he designed parts for planes. I had always been jealous of Paxton, and how he could fly our parents anywhere in the world for nearly free, and take them on tours of his next project, or even have the parts he designed in reference to him. Like another title. Another degree to the list.
Paxton was everything, and always perfect - being the golden child with a house and nice car and secure career with Air Canada.
I could make them dinner. I was nothing compared to my brother. The only time I sat in the sun of my parents days was when I had been eight, catering for their dinner parties.
But food rots, and buying your daughter extra groceries to practice cooking, or dishing out tuition for an education in the culinary field was beyond what they desired to do. Especially when the divorce happened, it was more pressing that they sue each other for everything they were worth instead of showing up to their daughters opening night at The Blue Chicken, sixth best restaurant in the world.
My brother came. It was great of him to, and I loved that I had family there, but I remember looking out from the kitchen, seeing him alone at the table I had reserved for the family, and was struck with the realization that no one cared.
Paxton had come because he was my brother, but also to tell me our parents were stuck in court.
My break down hadn't been that night. My break down was a year later, and I had snapped because an expo ticket that I had been handed was what they used to order when I was eight, and when they had believed in me.
Salmon dinner.
I had gotten so pissed that they had finally shown up, and not even bothered to look at the menu. The place was named after poultry, not fish. We didn't have a single fish item.
What they had wanted was oven baked salmon, fresh roasted vegetables, and a beautiful summer salad. That was what I had so often made during their dinner parties. It was what they had been impressed with most.
I left the blue chicken with the ticket in my hand, and a fist full of cash from my purse, and charged down the street that night.
Cole didn't know the rest. He didn't know all of it. He didn't know I hated the fucking fish to death - that even seeing it on a menu makes me feel ill.
He gave me his tired smile, nudging me as we had been driving to The Grill. "That sound okay? Figure I should try to learn a little, and it was on sale. Salmon might be good for dinner?"
The look on my face said everything - how repulsed I was by that option. He sighed and blew a raspberry as he looked back to the street, moving ahead with the green light. "Okay, so no fish. Should've assumed that would make you nauseous,"
I zoned out again when he was talking about the labor day weekend party Kelce and Mary were hosting that night. It was at restaurant, and I thought it was stupid. But, Cole wanted to be with his friends, and I would make something for everyone to eat.
