Laura Caldwell - Look Closely

But still I pushed. “Really?” I said. “Do you really?”

“Yes, Hailey. I think about your mother all the time.” He blinked.

“Well, you never talk about her. You never talk about when she died.”

A strange, garbled sound erupted from inside my father’s throat, making me stop my words. I could have sworn he was about to cry, something I had never seen, and I bailed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I stood and took the tongs from him. “Let me do that.”

And, like an old man, he feebly handed them to me, wiping the grease from his hands on his immaculate khaki pants before he went into the house.

I had never brought up the issue again. If I could find my own answers, without confronting the parent who raised me on his own, I wanted to do that.

Which brought me back to Della’s.

“Sweetie!” Della said when she opened the front door now, a dish towel thrown over one shoulder. “Come in, come in.”

“Thanks.” I accepted a quick hug. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Not at all.” Della led me into the kitchen, a large, green-painted room smelling of garlic and crowded with plants, knickknacks and crocheted pot holders. It was the type of warm, homey kitchen I’d always hoped my father and I would have, one that was lived in, that was used to cook for a large family. My dad wasn’t much of a chef, though, and so although our homes were lovely and expensive, the kitchens always had cold tiles and stainless-steel appliances, and I never spent much time there.

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