This was set the evening after they first meet Maggie. I just wanted to get an idea of what they’re like when they’re alone together.

“What’s for dinner?” Mina asks her father. He’s stretched out on the recliner, reading a book. She knows what’s for dinner because she was there when he bought it at the grocery store. But she needs to ask him now so that he’ll start cooking before it gets too late.

“Chicken,” he replies simply, looking over his reading glasses at the ten-year old girl.

“What else?”

“Broccoli,” he says, as if it’s just occurred to him. “Maybe stuffing, too?”

She perks up. “Really?”

“Weren’t expecting that, were you?” he replies with a grin. He sits up, bringing the recliner upright and lowering the leg rest. He winces slightly, massaging his knee a bit.

She shakes her head with a small laugh, chestnut curls spilling out of her ponytail. “No. But I like it.”

“Yeah?” He’s preoccupied with something, and when he says this, he’s looking out the window absently.

“You know who’s nice?” Mina tries again from a different angle.

This pulls him back. He studies his daughter. “Nice?”

“Yeah. Nice.”

“Lots of people,” he says, reaching out for her help as he stands. “Um, Sheriff Donnelly. Terry from the store, and Hank. Allison…”

She hands him his cane and they head to the kitchen. “Yeah, but today that new lady was nice.”

He shoots her a quick glance as he turns the oven on to preheat before retrieving lemons to slice up. “You mean Maggie?”

“Yeah!”

“Why do you think so?” He’s learned that if he asks her questions, it keeps her from asking them.

She shrugs, pulling a stool over to the counter to oversee preparations. “I can crush the garlic.”

A smile twitches at the corner of his mouth. “If you use the garlic press.”

“How come I can’t do it the way you do it?”

“Because you’ll cut your hand,” he tells her once again. “Use the press.”

She fishes it out of a large drawer overflowing with spatulas and other kitchen implements. “Anyway, she was nice. She didn’t talk to me like I was a little kid.”

Zach nods, pausing in his slicing to hand her a few cloves of garlic. “How come you didn’t want to talk about your stories when she asked?”

Mina is quiet then. She half-shrugs when she thinks he’s about to repeat the question. “They’re just kid stuff. She’s like, a real writer.”

“Ah. A professional. I see.” He slices the lemon into quarters, then halves the quarters again. He sees her struggling with the garlic press and offers, “Here, I’ll do that. Want to rinse off the broccoli instead?”

Wordlessly, she surrenders the garlic press. “I want to learn how to crush the garlic like you do.”

“You will,” he tells her. “But not until you’ve had more kitchen practice. It takes time to learn.” He’s said it before, and often wonders when he’ll come home to an impatient child with a bloody hand.

“Practice means I have to do it.”

She had him there. “Fair enough. Want to chop the broccoli?” It’s a safe concession.

Mina looks a little disappointed but agrees with a nod. She rinses off the broccoli and brings it to the counter, where her father is using the press to crush the garlic instead of smashing it with the side of a knife like he usually did. “She seemed kind of sad.”

Zach pauses. “Who? Maggie?”

Mina nods. “She’s all alone. That’s no fun.”

Zach looks at her, studying the way she gingerly pulls the leaves away from the stalks before carefully slicing them into forkable chunks. “She’s probably used to it.”

“Were you? Before I came to live here, I mean.”

He half-shrugs. “Yeah, sort of. I guess.”

“Were you happy when I first came here?”

“Immeasurably,” he says, adding, “I mean, after you got here. Before that, it was okay. But you’re right—it was a little lonely.”

“But it’s better now?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He adds, “It was probably good that I was here alone for a little while before you came. It gave me a chance to figure things out up here.”

Mina takes great care in how she slices the broccoli, eager to prove to her father that she can be trusted with a knife. “If Mom called today and was all better and wanted me to go back tomorrow, would you make me?”

“That’s a hell of a question,” Zach tells her. “There’s a lot of things wrong with that question. First of all, we both know that your mother is not likely to get better anytime soon. I mean, I hope she does. But… it takes time. And secondly, I don’t plan on making you go anywhere that you don’t want to go.”

“So you’d tell her no?” Mina has only sliced one stalk of broccoli.

“Here. Let me show you how to chop that up so it’s not so labor-intensive,” Zach says. He moves over to where she’s perched on the stool and places his hands over hers, one hand holding the broccoli in place, while the other hand moves the knife. “Now, you move the knife like this, kind of like a paper cutter, see? You don’t have to pick it up off the cutting board much. And use your other hand to kind of move the broccoli when you need to. But always, always keep your fingers way back here, away from the blade. Okay?”

She’s still listening, waiting.

Finally, he says, “No. I would not tell her she could just take you back. Not without a trial period.”

“But you’d let her have a trial period?”

Zach exhales, stepping away to the refrigerator. “Mina, she’s your mother. I can’t just keep you from her forever. She loves you and needs you as much as I do. Someday, she’ll want you to spend more time with her.”

Mina folds her arms. “I’m not going back to San Diego.”

“Nobody is telling you to, kiddo.” Zach extracts a small whole chicken from the refrigerator and begins rinsing it off in the sink. “I sure as hell don’t want you to leave. Mom doesn’t…isn’t ready to have you even for a visit yet. So, can we just not talk about it since it’s not even an issue?”

Mina nods, muscles relaxing. “Do you want the roasting pan?”

“Yeah. Sure.” He pats the chicken dry with a wad of paper towels as she retrieves it from the cupboard and sets it on the counter next to the sink. “Thanks.”