Chapter 6: Fried Chicken at Night

On Tuesday evening I stood in my own kitchen with a bucket of fried chicken and no idea what to do next.

All day I had been seeing that ring on the steering wheel.

At lunch I had texted Leigh: Who was driving the grey car?

She wrote back inside a minute: A friend who gave me a ride. Jamie's inhaler is in the front pocket.

It was the only answer I was going to get, and I knew it.

Jamie sat at the island swinging his feet.

"You said we could," he said.

"I said we could get the game card," I said.

"I never said anything about chicken."

"Mom's not here."

He had a point, and he knew it.

I opened the bucket.

We ate with our hands, out of the box, and Jamie told me about a boy at school who could burp the alphabet.

It was the best conversation we'd had in months.

It was also the first time I had been alone with my son at dinner on a weeknight.

I thought about that while he talked.

Eleven years of dinners, and Leigh had been at every one of them.

I had been at maybe half.

I washed my hands and took out the game card I'd bought on the way home.

Jamie's whole face opened up.

"Thanks, Dad!"

"Homework first," I said.

"I'm doing it first thing after dinner."

"Mom said I do math before anything else because I'm good at it."

"Is that right?"

Keep reading free with an account. Start One Affair, One Divorce, No Way Back from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.