Harvey went to the house with Chinese food and a gallon of ice cream and sent Maria home. She protested, she wrote pages of instructions, and then she kissed the twins and left. He was alone with his children, which he’d fought for and argued about for weeks. Now he had a moment of uncertainty. What should he do? Would they ask him questions? He set the food down on the kitchen table and looked around for plates.
“The plates are in the cabinet by the refrigerator,” Corinne informed him knowledgeably. “And I hope you got the soil sauce on the side.” He smirked at her.
“I remembered.”
Harvey set out plates and forks and opened the paper containers and sat down. The kids stood by the table and stared at him.
“What?”
“You have to put some on the plates,” Caden prompted.
“And tell us to wash our hands,” Corinne said, and Harvey snorted.
“Fine, wash your hands. With soap! And I’ll put some of everything on your plate.”
“NO!” Caden bellowed.
“Don’t give him shrimp, whatever you do. Or those green bits in the rice.”
“Can he pick them out?”
“No. You have to.”
“Oh,” Harvey said dismally, spooning some rice onto a plate and poking around in the warm slippery pile of grains to find and remove tiny bits of green onion. He got about twelve out before the kids came back. He scooped them onto a napkin and declared the rice green-free.
“Are you sure?” Caden demanded.
“Of course, I’m sure,” he said, hoping the kid would dig in without examining his food. No such luck. Caden sat on his knees in a chair and proceeded to use his fork to pick through the rice and locate a seeming arsenal of green bits.
“There’s a bunch of green!” Caden said, his voice getting higher, his chin trembling. Corinne climbed out of her chair and put an arm around him, acting very official and adult.
“It’s okay, Cady. I can get them out,” she said, giving Harvey some serious side eye and seeming to judge him incompetent.
Corinne squeezed into the chair with Caden and started picking out the green pieces and putting them on the table. Harvey got a paper towel and wiped up the mess she was making. But since she was finishing what was apparently his job, he didn’t comment on her methods. Caden leaned his head on his sister’s shoulder as she took care of the offending onion particles. By the time she had excised all the green, the rice was cold.
Harvey had dished up his own hot and sour shrimp and rice and was shoveling it in while the kids picked at their chicken and rice. He made the mistake of offering the picky Caden an egg roll. The child reacted as if he’d offered to feed him a severed human hand.
“We don’t like those,” Corinne informed him loftily.
She ate a bite of chicken, and he wondered if dinner was always a three-act drama with these kids and if either of them ever ate a vegetable. Corinne was skilled at picking them out of her chicken and sauce, while Caden wouldn’t even let them be on his plate.
After supper, he threw away the leftovers and put the plates in the sink. He had a strange thought that there wasn’t a maid to put the dishes in the dishwasher and maybe he should do that. But he’d never used a dishwasher and didn’t have time to learn. So he decided to wash them in the sink. He attempted to clean up the kitchen and took out the trash. He then followed the kids voices, who had wandered off. He heard water running and trailed into the bathroom after them.
“Bath time,” Corinne said patiently.
“Both of you at once?”
“No, silly,” Caden said. “I go first and play boats.”
“Then I go after he’s done, and play mermaids,” Corinne corrected, and her twin shrugged his acceptance.
He hadn’t meant to bother Maria, but he called her to come over and help him. She was with her elderly grandmother at the nursing home who was on Hospice care. So he told her not to come. Just help with some advice.
“You have to wash their hair last and rinse it with lots of water.”
“Should I really be bathing them? I mean, we don’t know each other that well.”
“You are their father,” Maria chuckled.