The Love We Missed novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Ailie

"Tomorrow's Tricia's birthday," I said. "Her fortieth."

"I know. She told me. Twice."

"Then come cook it," I said. "Tell me after."

He nodded once.

On Tuesday night, my sister's kitchen was full of steam and garlic and four ER nurses.

They had all come straight off a shift, and they were all still in scrubs, and they were all drinking Tricia's wine out of mismatched mugs.

Ciaran had taken over her stove at four.

He'd brought his own knives in a canvas roll and two grocery bags and a pot so big Tricia had to clear a shelf.

"What is it?" she kept asking.

"Dinner."

"What kind of dinner?"

"The kind you eat," he said, and gave her a spoon to taste.

She tasted it.

She closed her eyes.

"Okay," she said to the nurses. "Okay. He can stay."

It was short rib braised in red wine, falling apart, on a mountain of buttered egg noodles.

Nellie ate hers on Ciaran's shoulders.

She'd climbed up there during the salad and refused to come down.

He ate one-handed, holding her ankle with the other, and every so often she dropped a noodle into his hair.

"Nellie," I said. "Not in his hair."

"He likes it."

"I don't like it," Ciaran said. "I'm just used to it."

The nurses thought this was the funniest thing they'd ever seen.

One of them leaned over to Tricia and said, not quietly, "Where did you find him?"

"He's Aileen's," Tricia said. "Technically he's her brother-in-law. Don't think about it too hard."

"I'm thinking about it pretty hard."

"Everyone's thinking about it," Tricia said. "That's the beauty of it."

I threw a dinner roll at her.

She caught it and ate it.

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