Chapter 5: Sunday at Maude's

Maude Carberry lived in a two-bedroom house on a side street, and the couch still had plastic on it.

There were fourteen photographs of Ewan on the living room wall.

In nine of them he was holding food.

"That's him at six with a turkey leg," Maude said, pointing with her cane.

"That's him at eleven with a pie he stole. That's him at seventeen with the burn."

The photo showed a skinny boy in a paper hat, grinning, with a bandage on his left arm.

"Gram," said Ewan. "Please stop."

"I will not."

She turned to me with enormous satisfaction.

"Fryer," she said. "He grabbed the basket without the mitt. His first day on the line. He didn't cry until he got home."

I looked at the arm in the photograph, and then at the man standing next to me, tugging at his sleeve.

The scar was the same.

I put my hands behind my back so I wouldn't touch it.

Dinner was pot roast, with carrots and potatoes, and a gravy that made me want to put my head down on the table.

Maude sat at the end, with a napkin tucked into her tracksuit.

Ewan sat on my left and ate three helpings and did not look at his phone.

I noticed that.

"So," Maude said, over the rolls. "How's the restaurant?"

"Slow," said Ewan.

"Slow like a river or slow like a funeral?"

"A little of each."

Ewan took a very large bite of potato.

"Business is business, Gram."

"Business is a thing men say when they've lost their shirts."

He swallowed.

"We're doing fine," he said.

I watched a man lie to his own grandmother with a straight face and a little salt on his lip.

I had never seen anyone do it so gently.

Maude didn't blink.

"Well, good," she said. "Your wife eats like a woman who's been starved, so I hope you're feeding her."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Hit the Jackpot! My Broke Chef Husband Is a Billionaire from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.