“Oh.” Suddenly the thought of someone cooking for her was enticing. “I didn’t know that. Thanks.” She relinquished her grip on the egg and took a seat at the kitchen table. She watched him deftly prepare scrambled eggs. He didn’t stop with the one she had—he cracked an additional three and added milk, whipped them up, and added some onions and cheese. She was amazed at his domesticity. Her nausea eased. “I forgot you liked to cook,” she said.

“I used to cook for you,” he reminded her.

“You did,” she admitted. “I remember that now. I remember because Mom never did, so when I moved in with you, that was a new experience.” She leaned back in her chair, and felt more relaxed than she had in what felt like a millennium. “You haven’t done it in a while, though.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “You haven’t been around during the evenings in a while.”

Was there reproach in his tone? “Neither have you,” she parried.

“Fair enough,” he conceded.

She decided it was best to leave it there. As she sat at the table, the aroma of the onions frying with the eggs smelled delicious. She wondered whether this might be the last time that they would enjoy a simple meal like this. “What was it that didn’t work between you and her?” she asked. Her mother was a topic they most often avoided, but it occurred to her that she might never have the opportunity to ask these kinds of questions again.

He grunted. “You were the only thing that worked with us. And even that was a struggle.”

“I’m serious.”

“I am, too.” Cormack scooped the eggs onto two plates and gave the plate with the larger portion to Diamond. He sat down next to her as she started eating. “I loved your mother, but she made it hard. She was a free spirit. She drank, she did drugs, she wouldn’t let anyone tie her down.”

“Would you have let her tie you down if she’d been willing?”

He smiled at the prescience of his daughter’s question. “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably not. I’m not saying I was an easy man to love either. I might have run if she’d been willing to slow down. I never got the chance to find out, though.”

Diamond looked down and realized that she’d nearly finished the eggs. They were so good, she couldn’t believe it, and her nausea was now completely gone. Cormack shoveled the remaining eggs from his plate onto hers. She gave him an embarrassed smile. “Thanks, they’re really good.” She tucked into the rest of them. “I can’t believe how much I’m eating.”