Twenty-four hours after Anna left him in a hotel room, John flew to Bend. As he leaned against the bar in his parents’ restaurant, he wondered if this might have been a mistake. Certainly, he’d needed to get out of LA. Clara had moved out before John returned from Rome, and the apartment was oppressively lonely without her. He’d sat motionless for a few hours, replaying the argument, replaying everything he’d done wrong, and replaying that look on Anna’s face. But as he glanced around the perfectly lit restaurant filled with happy families and couples, he thought maybe he shouldn’t have rushed home so quickly.

“Table five still doesn’t have its crème brûlée.”

John was roused from his thoughts by his brother, Henry. Shorter than John, he had a mop of hair that made him look like he belonged on a snowboard rather than in one of the most expensive restaurants in town. His brother loved it here, almost as much as their father did. Henry’s wife, Amy, tended bar most nights.

It was a slow night. John preferred it that way. It reminded him of when he was a kid and he would come here after school to finish his homework.

Henry gestured to the kitchen when John didn’t move quickly enough. John nodded, set aside his thoughts, and got to work. He served up the desserts for table five and got to work tending the other tables he’d been ignoring. His mother sat at her usual place at the bar, eating whatever his father had prepared for her that night. A charter plane pilot, she would come over after work to eat, read the paper, and visit with regulars until the restaurant closed.

“You’re leaving too much work for your brother,” his mother said in her low, steady voice. She didn’t need to shout to be in charge. It had always been that way.

All of this was a little too much like high school for John. Pretty soon he was going to—

“You’re on dish duty tonight.”

Yup, high school.

“Too bad you can’t ground me,” John said as he swung out the door of the kitchen.

“We can, sweetheart,” his mother said, reading her paper. “Maybe if you weren’t acting like such an idiot, we wouldn’t have to.”

John served up table seven, glad he was doing one thing right, until his brother swiped the plates with an apologetic smile.

“Family meeting,” Henry said as he moved into the kitchen.

His mother sighed but followed the two of them into the kitchen.

“Anyone can call a family meeting now?” John asked, incredulous. “Can we talk about the time Henry stole my truck?”