The Wedding Gift

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER NINE

"Come on, Andrew, how hard can it be to cook one meal?"

Andrew's father sat at the dining-room table, knife and fork already in hand, looking as if he might start banging them if the food didn't appear soon.

His father had gained a few pounds in his sixties, but he kept his hair dyed black, and his gaze was as steely as ever, perfect for reminding juries to take their jobs seriously.

Next to Andrew's father was his mother, who had stopped counting her age sometime after she hit forty. Between her fitness routines, plenty of days at the spa and the occasional plastic surgery, she didn't look that much over it, either.

Then there were Phil and Nancy. Phil took after their father, more heavily built than Andrew, with the same piercing stare. He dressed with the expensive elegance afforded a doctor with his own very successful practice. Nancy was blond and bubbly, but definitely no airhead. She had plenty of success in PR to prove it, too. Andrew watched as she leaned in to kiss her fiancé.

At least somebody's love life was going well.

"Come on, Andrew," Phil said a few moments later, "isn't dinner ready yet?"

"I'm just finishing the game hens now," Andrew said, taking the birds out of the oven and starting work with the carving knife. "You'll all just have to be patient a little while longer."

"Honestly," his father said, "I don't know why we can't just have steaks. Throw them on the grill for ten minutes and-bam!-they're done."

The answer to that was perfectly simple. Andrew flatly refused to serve steaks the way his father liked them, which was best described as "just this side of cremation."

Besides, steaks wouldn't have given Andrew the chance to show just what he could do with an oven. If putting up with a few complaints about the choice of food was what that took, then so be it.

His mother's brow barely wrinkled as she looked over the kitchen counter and said, "If you like, I could come give you a hand with-"

"It's fine, Mom," Andrew said quickly. "Our meal is nearly ready."

The sauce was bubbling away nicely, the potatoes were done, the vegetables were layered perfectly and all that remained was to get everything onto the plates. A family meal done with all the skill Andrew possessed, just to make it that little bit more special.

Family. Such a simple word in theory, such a world of difficulty in practice.

How many times had he invited his family over for meals like this? Dozens? And how often had they come? As often as their busy schedules allowed, certainly, but not nearly as often as Andrew would have liked. Invariably, his father would point out that he had a big case, or Phil and Nancy would be busy with either work or a night out with their friends. They'd either cancel altogether or suggest some other date, then not understand when Andrew pointed out that his constant rounds of show tapings and cooking didn't allow for many breaks in his schedule, either.

As he plated up the meal, they began to get into a discussion about some big trial his father had worked on. That was fine, but it also meant that any minute now...

"You know, Andrew," his father said, "my thoughts about legal work still stand. With all the work out there, we need everyone we can get. I just know you'd be a phenomenal lawyer if you'd only put your mind to it."

"I enjoy my career, Dad."

"Or you could go off to medical school. It's not too late, you know. You had the grades, so there's no reason why you couldn't eventually go into practice with your brother. Think what it would be like, two Kyles working side by side."