We’d finished the chops, the salad, and the mashed potatoes when there was a knock at the door. Dad looked toward it, and I wondered aloud if Mary Beth had changed her mind and at least come for dessert—homemade chocolate pudding.
“Who the hell is that?” Dad said, after pulling a toothpick out of his mouth long enough to speak. He stared at the window in my door.
I turned around, because it obviously wasn’t Mary Beth. Dad, I think, would recognize his own flesh and blood.
My eyes widened a little in surprise. Maisie Rogers stood outside, smiling. When she saw me looking, she held up the blue Le Creuset Dutch oven I’d left at her place last week, as if she needed to justify her visit.
My father and I had talked about a lot of things over the course of our meal—how I got the pork chops s
