“Oh, no emergency, just trying to finalize some details but that didn’t take too long. After that, it was just dinner,” Sam explained, getting up from the table and searching the cabinets briefly before finding the plates.
My face was flat, my nodding seeming almost robotic. So my mom hadn’t had an actual emergency, at least not one that would have kept her from dinner with me. For some reason, it didn’t faze me, becoming just one more thing that couldn’t hurt me in the midst of my numbed state. What it did do was solidify the decision that had been dancing in my mind since I’d talked to Jesse and Ms. Rogers; if Mom wanted to work on things between us, she could instigate it from now on.
“Emma, your mom told me about having forgotten dinner with you last night, and from there the idea of dinner tonight was born; we wanted to make up for it.”
“We or you?” I blurted out, my eyes immediately widening when I realized I had said that cynical thought out loud. “Did you know T-shirts were invented in 1904 and marketed to bachelors who couldn’t sew or replace buttons?”
“Smart marketing move on their part, and to answer your question, it was my idea about dinner. I don’t want you to feel like I was trying to take over all of your mom’s time, but I really wanted to meet you,” he said with a shrug.
“Two birds, one stone thing?” I surmised, my lip twitching with a smile. It hurt to hear that my mom had in fact forgotten about me—again—but part of me was happy, though admittedly slightly off-put, knowing that someone I’d never met before seemed to care about how I felt. Why would a stranger care about me when my own mom can’t seem to bother? As soon as the question was in my head, I knew the answer.
He wasn’t just a stranger; he was my dad.
“Yeah, two birds one stone thing,” he agreed with a matching smile. “Want me to cut this up?” Pointing to the lasagna, he waited for my answer. When I nodded, he slid over and took the oven mitt I held out for him.
As he worked, I looked at him—really looked at him. I had always thought I looked like my mom with my hair and eye color, but now that Sam was here, I realized that wasn’t the case. Yeah, we had similar shades of dark brunette almost black hair, but the specific tones in his hair were almost identical. His skin tone was only a shade tanner than mine, and he had the same hint of golden honey tones in his brown irises.
“Did you know that because the number of possible combinations of genes isn’t infinite, there are probably at least seven humans that look the same as you?” he rattled off randomly, and my cheeks burned at being called out for staring.
“How did you know that’s what I was doing?” I countered, crossing my arms over my chest defensively.
“Can you tell me that wasn’t what you were doing?” Sam smiled, looking over as he held up an empty plate. Grabbing it, my eyes narrowed on him playfully, feeling oddly at ease with our banter.
“...No,” I muttered, sticking my tongue out in jest, only making him laugh more. I was feeling lighter, happier here in the house than I had in months, and if I was honest with myself, I loved that home felt like a home.
“Sorry about that.” My mom sighed in irritation, her cheeks flushed bright pink as she walked back into the room. “Where were we? Oh, right. Yes, Emma, Sam is your biological father, and I felt with everything going on recently it would be good to have a father figure back in your life.”
“Uh...” I tried to come up with something to say, not seeing the connection a man that I had literally just met would have with everything going on currently. Does she even know what all I’m going through?
“Well, you’ve changed since the divorce,” she explained, her tone hard, her icy gaze daring me to argue. “The major difference was you no longer had David in your life, so I felt it was best to introduce you to Sam. I also had hoped you would be mature enough to handle meeting your biological father. Was I wrong?”
“We’re getting along great, Erin,” Sam reassured her. I appreciated his assistance in the matter since my mom refused to see anything without her own jaded views. Even with that, it still sat sour in my stomach that this meeting had somehow become about the incorrect fact that I needed some semblance of control from events in my life. Why can’t it be that I just deserve to know who my biological father is?
“That’s good then, is anyone hungry? I’m assuming so since food’s dished up.”
“Emma?” Sam jumped back in. “You hungry, or do you have homework to do? It’s been quite a while since I was in high school, but I remember the workload.”
“I have a little time,” I murmured, curiosity getting the better of me. As we dished up the salad from the fridge, the silence grew, and the only noise was the shuffling of our movements and the plates and silverware clinking together. Nerves and anxiety started to build while we all took our seats around the table. Had it just been my mom and me, I think it would have been even worse, but for whatever reason, Sam’s presence helped. Hopefully he’ll be more open-minded than Mom. I grimaced.
“Did you know that the Liber de Coquina is the first book to have the modern lasagna recipe in it? It was published in the fourteenth century,” Sam stated when we were all seated. It seemed random at first, but when I looked at him, his encouraging smile gave away that he’d thrown that little fact out for my sake. Having someone attentive around was definitely different, and it was nice to have how I felt acknowledged even if I hadn’t said anything.
“Cookbooks have specific literary agents and publicists who specialize in recipe books,” I added, taking a bite of my food. “And after a recipe is perfected by the creator, it’s tested by at least two independent testers before it’s added to the book.”
“I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t surprise me,” Sam replied with a nod. “So, tell me more about yourself, Emma. Have any favorites you’re willing to share; color, food, movie, band? Or maybe what you’re thinking of doing after high school?”
And there it is, the dreaded introduce yourself prompt.
You can do this, Emma, I told myself. You can totally talk about yourself to your actual dad who has only heard about you through your mom who seems to have all sorts of skewed perceptions on your life... here goes nothing.
“Uh, not much to tell,” I started. “Straight A’s in school, looking into college, but I still haven’t fully decided which one yet. I’ll be deciding for sure this week after talking to the career counselor at school. Don’t really play any sports since I would probably break a bone. I tend to spend my free time doing homework or at work.”
Phew, that wasn’t so bad.
“Where do you work?”
“One of the local coffee shops, Coffee Grounds,” I told him, finding it easy to talk to him, but with my mom’s gaze falling to me every few moments, I couldn’t fully relax. “Zarf.” Foot meet mouth. I almost darted away from the table and to the basement as they both looked at me with furrowed brows. “It’s what the cardboard sleeve that you get around a to-go cup of coffee is called—a ‘zarf.’”
“Speaking of Coffee Grounds, is that something you’re enjoying?” Sam transitioned easily, not focusing on my embarrassing moment unlike my mom’s arched brow. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything.