Uncle Gregor leaned close. “Then we get to know him. He comes from good people, Hawthorne. The Vincents are hard workers, kind, and stubborn as hell. I’d swear his grandmother was the hand of God. I felt her rod on my back quite a few times as a child.” He chuckled. “She’s a mean spirited witch with a heart of gold hidden under all that crass.”
I frowned. “I guess I just don’t get it. Of all the girls at school—”
“None of them are you. It’s that mysterious beauty.” He winked. “But it’s also just you. Men don’t always want simple. Some of them want complicated.”
“I’m not—”
Uncle Gregor winked again. “You are all kinds of complicated and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with emotional scars. Sometimes those are deeper than physical ones.”
I stared at my hands, at the scattered ingredients I’d begun collecting on the black marble bar. “I had you,” I whispered. “You were all I needed.”
Uncle Gregor’s hand covered mine on the counter. “But that doesn’t erase the pain. It doesn’t erase the questions and the doubt being abandoned at six years old would cause.” I started to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go. “It’s okay to have wanted more. It doesn’t make you selfish. It doesn’t mean you loved me any less. It makes you human, Hawthorne. Human is good. It means you still have the capacity to care. Give the Vincent boy a chance.”
My hand grew still. “Heathcliff,” I muttered. “In my mind I call him Heathcliff.”
Uncle Gregor laughed. “That’s my daughter.”
Those words made us both freeze, his hand on my hand. If my palm hadn’t been trapped, it would have trembled. Gregor wasn’t my biological father, but in many ways he’d become that.
For a long time, there was silence, the only sound distant hammering outside as Heathcliff worked.
Suddenly, I whispered, “Dad.”
The word didn’t feel strange on my tongue. It felt right. It felt certain.
Uncle Gregor’s hand tightened on mine and then lifted, his palm patting me awkwardly before his throat cleared. “Make your meat loaf. There ain’t a man alive who could leave that.”
He left then, and my gaze followed him, my lips whispering, “Dad.”
My heart had never felt so full and so broken at the same time. The feeling remained with me while I worked, and I poured love into the meal, the kind of love you have for someone that hurts so much that not having loved them would be worse than never having them in the first place. What a strange kind of love that is. I had that with my Uncle Gregor. There were so many people who didn’t have that with anyone, and I counted myself lucky. Yet my uncle was right, too. It was okay to still hurt, to be afraid to trust more than just him with my heart.
I was setting the table in the small dining room to the side of the kitchen when Heathcliff came in, his boots resting awkwardly near the door. The dining area was more of a nook. A small wooden table rested in a corner alcove surrounded by windows on three sides, its view a part of the yard badly in need of weeding. We had a formal dining room, but it was covered in dust and never used.
“It smells good,” Heathcliff murmured.
My uncle’s voice answered his. “It always does with Hawthorne. She’s been playing with food since I first let her use a stove. Even before that, she’d spend hours flipping through food magazines.”
My cheeks burned as they entered the small space. My uncle took the seat at the head of the table nearest the windows, as it was his custom to do so, and I took the seat next to him. Heathcliff sat across from me.
I stared at my plate, at the food so carefully laid out on it. I’d taken Gregor’s suggestion and made meat loaf, roasted potatoes, and butter beans slow cooked with bacon. Apple dumplings sat in a chipped china bowl in the center of the table. It wasn’t a fancy meal, but it was well made.
Heathcliff took Uncle Gregor’s lead, waiting until he’d taken a bite before following suit. After a moment, he sighed, and I fought not to grin at his mumbled, “Wow.”
“So,” Heathcliff said aloud, “is this what you want to do after school? Cook?”
I pushed at the food on my plate, my gaze sliding to his hand as it lifted and lowered. “Sort of,” I answered. “I’m also really into history.”
Silence fell, and I felt Heathcliff’s boot sliding toward mine under the table.
“What about you, son?” my uncle asked. “What kind of plans do you have after graduation?”
Heathcliff coughed, his foot tapping before resting. “Well … I like to piece things together. Especially machinery. So, I’m thinking something in engineering. Maybe welding.”
“No plans to go into the family business?” Gregor asked.
“Not really. It’s always an option for me, a fallback plan, but I’ve got a brother who’d do better with that than me, sir.”
“True,” Uncle Gregor chuckled. “It isn’t very good business for one to work on someone’s house for free.”
I could feel Heathcliff’s gaze on me, and I squirmed. “Not necessarily for free, sir. Sometimes keepin’ busy and doing things can be as much for pleasure as for money.”
“Right then,” Gregor murmured. “You know I don’t think I caught your first name, son. You’re a Vincent, so are you the eldest or the youngest of the boys?”