I was still staring when he straightened, looked down at Travis, who was studying the wonders of the inside of the fridge with rapt baby attention, and asked, “Spaghetti?”

Travis looked up at him and replied, “Guh.”

“Yep. Sounds good to me,” Joker replied, disappeared behind the fridge door and came back out with a package of hamburger meat. His eyes came to me. “Skillet?”

“Uh…”

“Dah!” Travis declared.

Joker looked to him then at me. “When does he eat?”

“Now.”

“You do him. I’ll do spaghetti.”

Okay.

What was happening?

“Um… Joker—”

“Drop your bag, Butterfly, and get your kid,” he ordered.

“Are you having dinner with me?” I asked.

“Yeah, after I cook it,” he answered.

I didn’t know what to make of that so I asked, “Why?”

“Why not?” he asked back.

I had no answer to that.

Fortunately, he gave me more.

“I’m here. It’s dinnertime. You need to eat. I need to eat. You feed your kid. I’ll make shit to feed you.”

I liked the idea of dinner with Joker. What I wasn’t so sure about was why Joker wanted to have dinner with me.

Maybe he was just being friendly.

Maybe he was just hungry.

I didn’t ask.

Instead, I shared, “I think the tally now is eighty-five cents.”

He shook his head and then he gently shook my son as a message to me.

“Get your kid, Carrie.”

Carrie.

Three people called me that.

But it started with Althea.

When she was little, she couldn’t say Carissa and instead said Cah-ree-ree which morphed into Carrie.

My parents called me that back then too.

When we lost Althea, they stopped.

No one had ever shortened my name to Carrie again. In fact, except for calling me “honey” sometimes, “beautiful” others, and “baby” when we were having sex, when he stopped calling me Riss ages ago for whatever reason, Aaron had had no other sweet nothings or cute nicknames for me.

The return of Carrie should have brought up bad memories. Maybe even hurt.

But it didn’t.

No, I liked Joker calling me Carrie.

“Babe, kid,” he said impatiently.

I jumped to, got rid of Travis’s bag and my purse, moved into the kitchen, and grabbed my son.

This commenced both Joker and I moving around, me putting Travis in his highchair and getting his baby food ready and Joker taking off his jacket, tossing it on a stool, then opening and closing cupboards, grabbing stuff, and starting to get our dinner ready.

I pulled the highchair around to the stools, sat on one, and started feeding my son.

I did it while also watching Joker. So I saw him season the browning meat with salt, pepper, and dried basil. I also saw him peruse my meager spice collection like he was looking for something.

“What do you need?” I asked.

“Red pepper flakes,” he answered.

“I don’t have those.”