Chapter 3: What Was Underneath the Lid
I pointed at the dish.
"It's been opened," I said.
"The seal was broken when I found it this morning.
There's a serving missing from the corner."
Ryan looked at the dish.
Then back at me.
"I know."
"You know."
"I had some when I got in last night." He said it quietly, like he already understood how it would land.
"I was hungry.
I'd had a couple of pints and I hadn't eaten since lunch and it was just sitting there and I—"
"You ate from a dish that was meant for a grieving nineteen-year-old."
He put both hands flat on the table.
"Yes.
I did.
And I felt terrible about it the second I put the lid back on."
I looked at him for a long moment.
The baby was in the bouncy chair in the corner, starting to grizzle.
I didn't move.
"Why didn't you just tell me last night?"
"Because it was half one in the morning and you were asleep and I didn't want to wake you over a lasagna."
"You could have told me this morning."
"I was gone before seven."
"You could have texted."
He didn't answer that one.
Because we both knew he could have.
I got up and lifted the baby.
She quieted the moment she was against my shoulder.
I stood at the kitchen window with my back to him, looking out at the garden.
The kids' bikes were on the lawn where they'd left them.
The grass needed cutting.
There was a plastic dinosaur sitting in the birdbath.
"I spent the whole day," I said, "thinking something was wrong with us."
"I know.
I'm sorry."
"I went through every possibility.
Every single one."
"I know you did."
I turned around.
"And the real answer is that you ate someone else's lasagna at one in the morning and then went to bed without saying a word."
He looked at me steadily.
"Yes."
Something moved across his face then.
Not guilt exactly.
Something more tired than that.
"I didn't want you to think I was a bad person," he said.
"For eating it.
I know that sounds ridiculous."
"It does sound ridiculous."
"I know."
The baby grabbed a fistful of my collar.
I shifted her to the other hip.
"Is the rest of it true?" I said.
"Danny.
His mum.
All of it."
"Every word.
I can give you Pete's number.
He's the one who brought it up at the pub.
Ring him right now if you want."
I didn't want to ring Pete.
I didn't need to.
I could hear it in the way Ryan had said the boy's name — Danny — the same way he says our kids' names when he's worried about them.
That particular softness.
"How old did you say he was?"
"Nineteen."
"And his mum only passed last month?"
"Five weeks ago.
He came back to work after two weeks because he said being at home was worse."
I looked down at the dish on the table.
The blue lid.
The marker writing.
"She used to write that on his packed lunches?"
"Every day, apparently.
Right up until he left school." Ryan's voice had dropped.
"Pete said the lads found out and nobody said anything about it.
Just let him get on with it."
I put my hand on the lid.
"We're not giving him a dish with a corner missing," I said.
Ryan blinked.
"I'll make another one tomorrow," I said.
"A full one.
In one of our dishes so it doesn't matter if he doesn't return it.
And you can drop it to him before his shift."
Ryan was very still for a moment.
"Okay," he said.
"And you're going to tell me things," I said.
"Even small things.
Even stupid things.
Even at one in the morning."
"Okay."
"Because I don't care about the lasagna, Ryan.
I care about the hour I stood in this kitchen this morning not knowing what was happening in my own house."
He stood up from the table.
He didn't reach for me straight away.
He just stood there and let that land, which was the right thing to do.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I mean it."
The baby reached out toward him.
He took her, and she grabbed his ear immediately, and he winced, and I almost smiled.
Almost.
"I'm still annoyed," I said.
"I know.
You're allowed."
I picked up the dish and put it in the fridge.
May you like
Not because it deserved to stay.
Because we weren't done with it yet.
