Chapter 4: What Ryan Hadn't Said About Danny
I made the lasagna Sunday morning while Ryan took the older two to the park.
The baby sat in her high chair and watched me move around the kitchen, occasionally banging a wooden spoon against the tray with great satisfaction.
I browned the mince.
I made the sauce from scratch, which I don't usually bother with.
I layered it properly, the way my nan used to, with enough béchamel that it goes golden and slightly crisp at the edges.
I don't know why I went to that much trouble.
I just did.
Ryan came back with the kids at half eleven, muddy and loud, and stopped in the kitchen doorway when he smelled it.
"That's not a jar sauce," he said.
"No."
He looked at me.
"You didn't have to do all that."
"I know."
He didn't say anything else.
He got the kids out of their coats and I heard him in the hall, quieter than usual.
I covered the dish with foil and wrote nothing on the lid.
Ryan came back into the kitchen.
"I was thinking," he said, "maybe I should go now.
Before his shift starts.
Give him time to put it away before the lads see."
"Why would that matter?"
He leaned against the counter.
"He's nineteen and he's just lost his mum.
The last thing he needs is Pete making a big thing of it in front of everyone."
I thought about that.
"Does he know it's coming?
The food?"
"No.
I was just going to knock and leave it."
"Does he live alone?"
"In a flat, yeah.
Above the chippy on Marsh Lane."
I'd driven past that row of shops a hundred times.
I knew the building.
The front door was always propped open with a brick.
The buzzer panel had half the labels missing.
"Take the kids' old casserole dish," I said.
"The red one.
It's at the back of the cupboard.
Put it in that instead."
"Why?"
"Because a glass dish with a blue lid is going to make him think of his mum the second he sees it."
Ryan went still.
"I hadn't thought of that," he said.
"I know."
He transferred the lasagna while I got the baby down for her nap.
When I came back downstairs he was standing at the table with the red dish in his hands, and he looked like he was trying to work out how to say something.
"What?" I said.
"He reminds me of my brother," he said.
"At that age.
After Dad left."
Ryan's brother, Callum, was thirty-four now and lived in Edinburgh.
They talked on the phone every couple of weeks.
It was fine between them, the way things can be fine without being close.
"You never told me that," I said.
"I know."
"Is that why you rang your mum from the car park?
Not just because of Danny?"
He set the dish down.
"Probably."
I sat down at the table.
"Tell me about Callum.
At that age."
"It's not—"
"Ryan."
He pulled out a chair and sat down opposite me, the same seats as the night before, the same table.
Different dish between us.
"He was seventeen when Dad went," he said.
"I was twenty-two, so I was already out of the house.
I used to ring him but I didn't go back enough.
I thought he was fine because he said he was fine."
"Was he?"
"No.
He wasn't eating properly.
Mum was working doubles and she didn't always notice.
He lost about a stone in three months."
"How did you find out?"
"I came home for Christmas and his jeans were hanging off him." He looked at his hands.
"I took him out for a curry and he ate like he hadn't seen food in a week.
He probably hadn't.
Not a proper meal, anyway."
The baby monitor crackled on the counter.
Settled again.
"You should have told me this on Friday night," I said.
"When you first heard about Danny."
"I know."
"I would have rung your mum myself."
He looked up.
"I know you would have."
"So why didn't you?"
He thought about it for a moment.
Actually thought about it, which I appreciated.
"Because I didn't want to make it about me," he said.
"About Callum.
It's Danny's thing.
I didn't want to drag all that out and make it into a whole conversation when it was just about getting a lad a decent meal."
I looked at my husband across the table.
"It was never just about the meal," I said.
He picked up the dish.
He didn't argue.
He was gone about forty minutes.
When he came back he was quiet in a different way than the night before — not careful, not braced.
Just thoughtful.
He came and sat beside me on the sofa instead of in the armchair, which he doesn't always do.
"How was he?" I said.
"Surprised.
Didn't know what to say." Ryan looked at the wall.
"He said thank you about four times in about ten seconds."
"Did he know it was homemade?"
"I don't know.
I didn't say."
"Good."
We sat there for a minute.
The kids were upstairs.
The house was quiet.
"He's got a photo of her," Ryan said.
"On the windowsill.
I saw it when he opened the door.
She looked young in it.
Younger than I expected."
I didn't ask how young.
It didn't matter.
"We should check on him again," I said.
"In a week or two.
Not make a big thing of it.
Just check."
Ryan nodded slowly.
Then he said: "Pete told me something else last night.
Something I didn't mention."
May you like
I turned to look at him.
"Danny's birthday is next Saturday."
