Whose Idea Was This?

Kid’s band concert, doctor appointment, business meetings, work…why are there all these things in my schedule when I have a deadline? Who did this?

…oh. Right.

Uhh…have a bit of Louder than Sirens, Louder than Bells? It’s now past 30,000 words, oops.

Saturday dawned with low threatening clouds, but it was dry and the weather report said we’d have sun by afternoon. The leaves had hit their peak, and the air had a nip that would feel good when I was sweating my way up Two-Face. I had to get up early to fit everything in, but I honestly wasn’t sorry to be spending my day on the rocks. As I tossed my equipment bag in the truck, I tried to remember why I’d stopped climbing in the first place. Lilia came onto the porch with the big picnic basket, not the little lunch I’d packed.

“Aunt Lilia—”

“You said Alan would be there. He doesn’t eat enough.”

“He ate everything in sight on Labor Day and was looking for more.”

“That just proves someone’s not feeding him right.”

I didn’t tell her he worked at Quikburger and had access to all the calories he could possibly need. I just put the basket in the back of the truck and hoped she hadn’t gotten too creative. Lilia baked with the best of them. Cooking was another story. I kissed her temple and got in the truck before she went back for another installment.

As I drove, I wondered about Lilia and Alan. It was no surprise that he adored her. She fed him cookies, patted and praised him and spoiled him—what self-respecting college student wouldn’t return the love? The surprising part was that she acted like that. When I moved in Lilia had told me we had a business arrangement—that she expected us to be friends, but she wasn’t a grandmother and she didn’t mean to be. She liked meeting my friends, and she liked the praise when she baked for them. But I’d never seen her do the supposedly-standard old lady fattening-up process before she met Alan. If Mallory, who was built like a gazelle, never had a piece of pie pushed on her…

Maybe Lilia had just spotted Alan’s near-poverty a month before I had. It would be just like her to see his pride and use her harmless-old-woman looks to get around it.