I woke about an hour later to the sound of Tam trying to be quiet in the kitchen. Kat was gone. I sat up and saw a wrinkled note lay on the coffee table, slightly draped over my journal. “Gone to get Donuts. Be back soon. XO Kat.” I tucked the note in the journal and slowly steadied myself for the trip to the kitchen. Tam’s back was to me. It looked as though he was cooking. Ah, he did love me.
“Hi,” came a scratch from my throat.
He spun around with the knife still in his hand. “Hi, How are you feeling?”
“Okay.”
“I got your pills. They’re there on the counter.” He pointed the way with the knife.
“Thanks.”
“You’ll want to use them. I’ve broken many bones in my day, and boy, the pain can sure be a bitch.”
I was surprised that he swore. He never swore, not any of the big ones anyway. I was the one who had the potty mouth.
“Are you hungry?”
“A little. What are you making?”
“Your favorite.”
“My favorite favorite? Or just my favorite?”
“Your favorite favorite.”
“I adore you.”
“I know.”
I took a whiff and immediately sucked in the scent of meatballs in tomato sauce and buttered mashed potatoes. Oh god, I was in heaven. It was the modified version of stuffed peppers, without the peppers, that my mom used to make for me. Peppers made me burp. I liked them, they just didn’t like me.
“I want to apologize...” Tam started to say. He kept looking down at the pot of potatoes he was smashing with the hand masher. “I didn’t mean to get curt with you. I was just...was preoccupied. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll accept your apology if you tell me what is going on.”
He sighed. “I think we may have a rabid coyote on the lose.”
“Is that all?” I nearly laughed, but tried to keep it in.
“It’s enough,” he said calmly. “You don’t need to be worried about something like this. I can handle it.”
“I know you can, and I appreciate it, but seriously, you could have told me that!”
“I wanted to get you home first. I just got confirmation about it this morning and when we were driving home, I thought I saw a dead animal in the field. Turned out to be nothing. Just a pile of brush.”
“Oh,”
“Anyway, I’m sorry. Here, taste this.”
Tam’s food was like an elixir; one taste and all of your cares and worries melted away; for a while anyway. But I had to forgive him. This was delicious.
“Mmmm. Fantastic.”
He smiled. “I was going to make spaghetti, but I thought that would be cruel.”
We both laughed as I wiggled my cast in the air. My laugh was not really a funny-ha-ha laugh but rather a sardonic ironic laugh. “Yes, that would have been hard.”
“Can you mange to get some plates?”
“Sure.” I tried to find the humor in my cast, but it just wasn’t there. I really did rely on my right arm for so much. I laughed to myself thinking that Tam was like my right arm man. I secretly hoped that he would never get broken.
