Takata smiled as he took off his apron, still shy over my finding out he was my birth father. Most of his more famous songs had their inspiration in what he’d lost by giving me and my brother to his best friend and the only woman he’d ever loved. Now my father was dead, and though my mother missed him, it was good to see her in love again.

“Morning,” he said, pointing to the eat-at bar and two place settings.

“Thanks, Donald,” I said as I slid up onto the seat, feeling both welcome and awkward. My mom was out of the room, and I leaned in across the bar. “Hey, try to keep her from making my funeral into a circus, okay?”

Trent snorted, turning it into a cough as he took the chair beside me. The waffles steamed, but he reached for the coffee instead. Takata smiled, his big teeth and wide lips almost a shock as I saw myself mirrored in him. “I’ll try, but you know how she gets.”

I sighed, my wandering gaze finding three bags and Takata’s guitar sitting next to the door. “Enthusiastic,” I muttered, then blinked when Trent took his fingertip out of his mouth, smiled, and poured a dollop of syrup into his coffee. Must be the real stuff.

“You get your drive from her,” Takata said, and I met his eyes when he reached across the counter and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “It looks good on you.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly, not sure if it was enthusiasm or desperation that kept me going. I usually didn’t put syrup on my waffles, but seeing Trent enjoying himself, I dribbled some on, needing to shove my robe sleeves back out of the way as I cut dough into pieces.

Takata hustled to take Mom’s bag, and from the corner of my eye I saw the front of Trent’s main building on the TV. The banner, KALAMACK PIE SLICING UP SOUR, ran below it before it went to commercial. It was official, then. We were dead.

I took a bite of waffle, leaning forward as the syrup dripped. If this was dead, then sign me up.

“About time you got out of bed, sweetheart!” my mom called cheerfully, then gave Takata’s orange pants and striped shirt a disparaging look. A pang went through me as I saw the little clues we learned as children telling us that our mother was leaving to do grown-up stuff: her hair was brushed into a professional topknot, her heels clicked smartly on the tile, there was a blush of heavier makeup, and her jewelry was just shy of extravagant. Her expression was eager and her motions deliberate. I knew when I gave her a hug good-bye that she’d smell of her favorite perfume. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry.