CHAPTER SEVEN

Maggie

 

We sat down for dinner, squished to one side of the table due to my jigsaw puzzle. I tried a slow, silent count to ten to calm myself. Liam had prepared a salad and a pasta dish, which my parents appreciated, quite vocally, after their long drive and lack of home-cooked food. For dessert, he’d made a soufflé, a show-off move in my mind, but one that worked to impress my parents.

It amazed me how all it took was a display of his culinary talents to win them over. My father showed a renewed interest as soon as he tasted the salad, and spent the meal asking him about cooking techniques for a porterhouse steak.

“Why do you need to know that?” my mother interjected. “You can’t eat like that anymore. Liam, don’t answer him.”

Liam flashed me a look and I shrugged my shoulders. My father was going to eat whatever the hell he wanted, regardless of the number of supplements she shoved down his throat. I had no interest in getting involved in that old argument.

“So Mom, tell me, what kind of stuff have you seen?” I asked her, figuring I could at least provide a distraction.

“Oh, Maggie, you should see the birds. Depending on where we are, they’re different, but the cardinals are my favourite.”

She went on a twenty-minute ornithological tirade, most of which I blocked out as I tried to figure out what would happen after dinner. Things seemed to have gone okay so far. Maybe a little tense for a couple supposedly madly in love, but everyone had their days, right?

After dinner, Liam suggested we head to the living room while he cleaned up. I protested, but he steered me out of the kitchen. He may have just wanted some time away from my crazy family, so I joined my parents on the couch as my dad flipped through the Netflix options.

“Don’t you have regular TV?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Well, what if I want to watch Jeopardy!?”

“So, watch Jeopardy! Any time you want.”

His head whipped around to look at me.

“You serious?” he asked.

I nodded. He found the search screen and let out a laugh when he found Jeopardy! He settled into the couch and started his age-old yelling match with the TV. My mom turned to me.

“So, sweetheart, is everything okay between you and Liam?” she asked.

“Yeah. Of course. Why would you ask?”

“Because I’m a woman, and I can tell when things are a little…off,” she said gently.

Shit.

“Well, you just happened to come the day after a big fight. I’m sure we’ll work everything out and it’ll be fine by morning.”

“If you say so,” she paused. “Should your father and I put in earplugs tonight?”

“MOTHER!”

 

*

After a few rounds of Jeopardy!, Liam came to join us in the living room. I thanked him profusely for doing the dishes, and he gave me weird look.

“Why would you thank me now? To look good in front of your folks? I do this every night,” he said.

I swallowed, realizing my error. I cast a glance at my parents, but they were both laughing at a contestant who’d forgotten to format her answer as a question.

“Right,” I said, under my breath.

He sat down on the armchair, leaving the couch to me and my parents. My mom, over my father’s loud protests, reached for the remote and lowered the volume.

“That was a truly excellent dinner, Liam. Thank you. Can I ask what led you to become a chef?” she asked.

Liam smiled, almost as if to himself at some private recollection.

“I’ve always liked being in the kitchen, and I’ve always been good with my hands. It wasn’t until I was a little older and more experienced that I began to realize I also had a knack for creating flavours and textures that other people really enjoyed. My parents were not supportive. Haven’t spoken to them in over a decade. But I love the life. It’s rock and roll, non-stop.”

I listened as he peeled away the layers and I got a glimpse of the real Liam, the man behind the self-confident womanizer with the big muscles and multiple tattoos.

“That’s fascinating,” my mother said. “It does sound like a true calling. But like my husband earlier, I still can’t reckon how the two of you got together.”

“Well,” he said. “Sometimes opposites attract, don’t they?”

“Okay, enough already. Can we watch TV?” my father said.

I sighed in relief, grateful for once for my father’s complete lack of social skills. He was the one person in the room who wanted this conversation to end more than I did. I could’ve hugged him.

“What do you want to watch now, Dad?” I asked, willing to give him the moon.

“Does this thing have Die Hard?”

Liam reached over and grabbed the remote.

“You bet your ass it does.”

He found the film within twenty seconds and I went into the kitchen to make some popcorn. Apparently, there was still family time to be had.