My Dad's Best Friend Moved Into My Spare Room After His Divorce, and the Promise He Made My Father Lasted Four Days novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Freezer

My father's dining table seats eight and had six people at it, and every one of them could see Ed's hands.

It was four o'clock on Sunday.

The house smelled like hickory smoke and Lenny's secret rub, which was brown sugar and a lie about cumin.

Dad sat at the head in his good Huskers shirt.

A rack of ribs lay in front of him.

One of his old railroad friends sat across from us.

Dad's neighbor sat beside him with her husband, who was deaf in one ear and loud about it.

Ed sat beside me with his napkin on his knee and his boots flat on the carpet.

Under the table, my foot was on top of his.

He had not once looked at me since the driveway.

"Let me say something," Dad announced, and stood, and tapped his tea glass with a rib bone.

"Len," said Ed.

"Sit down, I'm talking. My best friend of thirty years is a man of his word." He pointed the bone at Ed. "He drove into my daughter's life with a dog and a hammer, and in eight days I haven't had a single phone call from her about a leak, a noise, or a man on the lawn. That's the kind of guy he is. To Eddie."

"To Eddie," said the table.

Ed lifted his glass.

His knuckles had gone white.

"Pass the potatoes," said the deaf man loudly.

Ed picked up the bowl.

It was the big yellow one, full of mashed potatoes with a lake of butter in the middle.

His hand held it perfectly steady while the whole thing went from his place to Dad's.

Dad took it, still beaming.

"You're sweating," he told Ed.

"It's hot in here."

"It's seventy degrees."

"It's the ribs."

"It's a good rib," Dad said happily. "Lori, honey, is he feeding you?"

"He's feeding me, Dad."

"Not cereal?"

"Pork chops. Rice from a bag."

"That's my boy."

Under the table, I dug my heel into Ed's instep.

He made a small sound.

Dad sat down.

He picked up his fork, put it down again and looked at both of us for a long, warm moment.

"This," he said, "is what I wanted. This right here. Both of you at my table."

I could not eat another bite.

Fifteen minutes later he had run out of rib.

"Eddie, go grab the second rack from the freezer in the garage," he said. "Take Lori, she'll hold the door. Lori, you hold that door."

"The door's fine, Dad."

"The door sticks."

It did stick.

He had been sticking it with a stick since 1996.

We walked out through the kitchen together with a very straight line between us.

The back door banged shut behind us.

The whole yard smelled of smoke.

The garage was a two-car with one car in it, an old green Buick on jack stands.

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