Page 18 of Omega’s Fold

I make an agreeable noise and Matthew turns back to the stove.

I do not know what to do with my hands. I stand in the doorway for one long second and then I walk over to the sink and wash my hands.

Julian hasn’t looked at me straight on yet. He has glanced at me once, when I came in, and then gone back to the pan.

“Hi,” he says, stirring.

“Hi.”

“I hope this is all right. Matthew said he was hungry. I was making something anyway.”

“It’s fine.”

I dry my hands on the towel. I look around for something else to do, and there isn’t anything, because he has the kitchen under control.

Caleb appears in the doorway in a t-shirt and sweatpants, hair still wet from the shower. He takes a single breath of the air in the kitchen and his eyebrows go up.

“Julian’s cooking,” Matthew announces. “It’s pasta. With cream. And there’s bread in the oven.”

“Huh.”

Caleb meets my eyes for a beat longer than he needs to.

We eat. It is the best meal I have had in the house since my mother died.

The pasta is good. Really good. The sauce is smooth and the mushrooms have been cooked down properly until they are sweet, and there’s parmesan grated on top.

I don’t need to talk because Matthew spends the entire meal firing questions at Julian from the other side of the table.

Has he designed any buildings Matthew might have heard of. Has he ever designed a stadium. Has he ever designed a theme park. Would he ever design a theme park, if someone asked him nicely.

Julian answers every question, saying he hasn’t designed a theme park but he has designed a concert hall.

Matthew is delighted. Matthew asks what the concert hall is called. Julian tells him. Matthew says he’s going to look it up next time he’s at Donna’s and uses her computer. Caleb joins in here and there.

I sit at my end of the table and don’t say anything. I can’t look at Julian for longer than a second at a time.

When I do look at him he is either looking at Matthew or looking at Caleb or looking at his plate, and every time his eyes move in my direction I find something else to look at. I’m a stranger in my own kitchen.

Julian tries, twice, to bring me in. He asks me something about the cattle. He asks me something else about the fence post I was driving in earlier. Both times I answer in one or two words, and both times, too quickly, he moves on and lets me off the hook, which makes me feel worse.

I finish the plate. I stand up.

“I’m going to bed.”

Matthew looks up, surprised. “It’s seven-thirty.”

“I know. I’m tired.”

“But —”

“It’s fine, bud.” Caleb, without looking at me. “Let him go to bed.”

I put my plate in the sink. I don’t look at Julian on the way and I feel him not looking at me.

“Thank you for dinner,” I make myself say.

“You’re welcome.”