Page 11 of Afternoon Delight

Zak

My sister walked in the back door while I was making a salad to go with the shepherd’s pie I’d already put in the oven.

I wasn’t exactly Wolfgang Puck, but I’d lived alone a lot, and Erica was a nurse—she only cooked when her twelve-hour shifts hadn’t left her comatose.

I’d also gone through a period in my early twenties when I survived on junk food and barely left my apartment.

One way I’d pulled myself out of that pit was by signing up for budget cooking classes.

“Hi,” I greeted.

“Hi.” Zara left her boots on the mat and draped her damp jacket over the back of a chair.

“Hey, Dad,” she called, poking her head into the living room just long enough to see he was engrossed in his game shows. “Doing okay? Need anything?”

“A better noggin,” Dad said—same as he’d been saying since his diagnosis. Then he blurted, “Clavell,” at the TV, and I once again wondered why we were even worried about him.

“You want a beer or something?” I offered as she came back into the kitchen.

“No. Jade’s at dance. I only have a few minutes before I have to get her.” She picked up the can I was nursing, though, and took a few healthy swallows.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Just a busy day.”

The way she did these little drive-bys made me painfully aware of how much I’d left on her shoulders for the last decade.

Sure, she’d filled her life to overflowing by having three kids, but even when she’d only had Lance, and Dad had still been fully on his game, she’d dropped by a few times a week to check on him.

When she started doing the books for Kyle’s business, she took over the books for the building too.

We’d all thought it made sense—Dad had still been doing it by hand back then.

She’d moved everything onto online software and built him a website, but it had all added up to her doing more work so I didn’t have to.

“How’s the shop?” she asked.

“Fine.” Boring as hell, but she knew that.

I had a sudden flash of Meg chuckling at Dad’s very, very tired joke about the magician. Don’t encourage him , I might have said in the past. Instead, I’d been grateful that she indulged him, helping him look and feel like himself for a few minutes.

“Oh,” I remembered. “Meg from the toy store? She’s doing a relaunch on Thursday. I said I’d keep our shop open late, too.”

“And take Dad?”

We both looked toward the living room, aware we were supposed to keep him in a routine. Zara was way more strict about it—she was a working mom and ran a tight ship.

I shrugged, still figuring things out.

“Have you heard from Erica?” she asked, picking a carrot disk off the salad.

“Not since she asked me what I want to do with the condo.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I haven’t decided. Calm down.” I held up a hand as her eyes widened. “Not because I want to move back there.”

I liked keeping that option open, though.

It was only a two-hour ferry ride between Vancouver and Victoria, but that fucking ferry.

It was the reason I hadn’t visited as often as I should have.

Island people were island people. They never left if they didn’t have to.

Mainland people were their own breed, and not many wanted to come here more than once a year on vacation. I didn’t.

I wasn’t prepared to be an island guy again—not that I had much choice. Erica had been very ambivalent about moving here. All her family was in Abbotsford and Chilliwack—drivable in an hour or two and you didn’t have to book a hundred-dollar ferry reservation first.

“Ric isn’t in a position to buy me out, and it’s a good investment,” I explained. “I don’t pay anything here, so I might as well keep paying my half of that mortgage. Why? Did she ask you about it?” They were still texting a lot.

“No. She sent me an invitation to a Galentine’s thing. I think she was just being nice—kind of letting me know she wanted to stay friends or whatever—but it made me wonder if she was taking the temperature here. Maybe she regrets not coming with you.”

“Maybe she does. And I say this with love, Zar, but don’t you have enough to worry about?”

“Yes, but I feel like this is on me,” she mumbled around the strip of red pepper she stole off the cutting board.

“You feel responsible for our breakup? Why? Did you make that happen?” I thumbed toward Dad in the living room.

“I told you to come home.”

“For Christmas. She was working anyway.”

“You know what I mean.”

I did. Zara had had a small nervous breakdown on Christmas Eve, crying so hard Kyle had to take Dad and the kids for a drive to look at Christmas lights without us.

I’d felt like a giant asshole, finally seeing how much stress she’d been under.

I said I’d come back until we figured out what was next for Dad.

In that moment, I only wanted to comfort my sister and pick up my share of the burden.

Maybe I’d thought there was some kind of protocol for how to deal with something like this and that I’d only be here a few weeks while we put a plan in place.

Erica had straightened me out when I got back to Vancouver. She knew what I was in for better than I did. Sure, there was a protocol and a process—one that would go on for years. We’d have to make thousands of decisions, and they were all going to suck.

Before Christmas, she’d agreed to marry me and we’d talked about trying to start a family once we were married. But she wasn’t prepared to quit her very good job, move to the Island, and help me care for a parent whose needs were only going to grow more complex.

Fresh off seeing Zara’s exhaustion from trying to juggle that with a family of her own, I couldn’t blame Ric for dumping me—but I couldn’t ignore what was happening here either.

We agreed to split, but here was my sister trying to buy a ticket for a guilt trip because Erica and I hadn’t fought harder for our relationship.

“You want me to go back to Vancouver and patch things up with her?” I asked.

“No,” she said glumly. “But you seem really bummed lately.”

I snorted and waved toward the living room. What did she expect?

“I know, but…”

“It is what it is. Let it go.”

Breakups sucked, and my feelings were hurt, but I didn’t regret being here.

There should be an app—like dating. Swipe right if you’re into diseases of the ear, nose, and throat.

“I have to get Jade,” Zara said, snapping me back to reality.

She went in to drop a hug across Dad’s shoulders, then came back to shoot her arms into her jacket while kicking into her boots.

“Next Thursday is book club. I’ll see if they want to swing by the sex shop on our way to dinner. Could be fun.”

I nodded, grateful. If she came by, she could sit with Dad for a few minutes and give me a chance to chat with Meg again.