“No, not yet. I’ve been snacking.” He nodded to a bag of trail mix on the corner of the table. “I didn’t realize how late it was. Nothing makes me lose time like assembling an army.”

I chuckled, hauling myself out of the chair. “Come on. Let’s get you fed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, leaning back in his wheelchair as I grabbed the handles.

He hated when I pushed his wheelchair but accepted my doting as the affection it was.

He’d lost his legs in Afghanistan, third tour, IED. And he was the lucky one, the only one in his unit to survive. We moved to New York just after that, into an apartment left to my mother by her mother. Four years later, Mom was gone. It’d been me and Dad ever since.

By the time they’d found her cancer, it had spread to her lymph nodes and bladder. Chemo slowed it down but couldn’t stop it. One year from her diagnosis, and she slipped away from us. Before she’d died, she’d made me get genetic testing—I always assumed to ease her mind, make it easier to let me go. The results were good, although she still put me on preventative birth control and helped me organize a plan for my doctors, including regular screenings to be insisted on, no matter my age.

I hadn’t been the only planner in the family.

Much of the last year of her life she had spent teaching me how to adult, preparing me for what would come next as best she could. By failing to prepare, you prepare to fail, she’d quote Benjamin Franklin with a smile. Grocery shopping. Managing bills. Budgeting. She showed me the best way to clean around a faucet and how to get out every imaginable stain from laundry. I learned how to help Dad when he needed it—though not through practice. He was so hell-bent on the idea that he didn’t need help, it inspired a level of independence not always seen in people who had lost so much freedom. Never had I heard him complain. Never had he asked me for help.

I was always there to offer it anyway. And on occasion, he even let me.

Like when it came to cooking. His recipe repertoire was limited to cereal, hot dogs, and chili, but Mom had left me recipes on recipes, all written in her hand and housed in a box my father had made her when I was a baby.

I pushed him up to his spot at the table, the space with the missing chair, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

“What do you think tonight? Betsy’s famous beef Stroganoff or Meatballs à la Betsy?”

“Stroganoff. I’ve been dying for that sauce for what feels like ages.”

I chuckled, heading over to the recipe box. My fingers lingered as I flipped through the cards, the corners curled and soft, some speckled with grease or sauce. I found the one I had been looking for and set it on the counter even though I knew every word by heart.