Born To Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Spry as a thirty-year-old, Tilly hopped down from the cab of the ancient truck the minute her husband cut the engine. “We heard about Eli,” she said, a baseball cap covering her head as she marched around the front of the old Dodge. She was carrying a hamper, which wasn’t unusual. In the face of any crisis, Tilly Zukov turned to her pantry and stove.

“He’ll be fine.” Since Tilly was a world-class worrier, he decided not to mention the ear infections. “How’d you know?”

“I have a niece who works in the kitchen at Evergreen.”

“Small town.” Ed, a solid man with a wide girth and arms as big as sapling trunks, slammed the door of his truck behind him and followed his wife up the two stairs of the screened-in back porch. “Jesus, it’s cold!”

“Ed! Do not take our Lord’s name in vain,” Tilly reprimanded as they stopped just inside the kitchen door. In her plaid jacket and faded jeans, she was tiny, half her husband’s size, but she obviously ruled the roost. Her hair was steel gray and tightly permed, and rimless glasses were perched on the bridge of her tiny nose. From behind the lenses, dark eyes snapped with intelligence. To Trace, she said, “I brought over some stew and fresh baked corn bread, and some ranger cookies, ’cuz they’re Eli’s favorite.”

“She also brought a pie,” Ed added. He took off his trucker cap, showing off a bald spot in his snow-white hair, then unzipped his down jacket, beneath which were bib overalls and a flannel shirt.

“I had to!” Tilly insisted. “I wanted to try out this new recipe I found in the Better Homes and Gardens, last year’s holiday edition. It’s pumpkin custard with sour cream.”

Trace eyed the pie. “Sounds great. But, really, it wasn’t necessary.”

“Course it wasn’t.” Tilly was already stuffing the pie into his bare refrigerator. “But I wanted to give it a whirl before I served it on Thanksgiving. Ed’s sister, Cara, she’s pretty picky, so you and Eli are my guinea pigs.”

“Nothin’ wrong with the old recipe,” Ed grumbled.

“The one on the pumpkin can?” she demanded. “We’ve had that every year for the past forty-five years! Time to try something new.”

“It’s a tradition.” Ed was unmoved.

Tilly rolled her eyes. “Oh, show some originality, would ya, Ed?”

“Cara likes it,” Ed pointed out.

“What does she know?”

“You’re the one trying to impress her.”

“And I don’t know why,” Tilly admitted. “Ever taste her banana cream? Soggy crust. Overripe bananas. Horrible! Just ... horrible!”

“Then quit tryin’ to impress her, and make the damned recipe that comes with the fillin’.” Her husband sighed broadly, his teeth stained slightly yellow from years of chewing tobacco. “I always say, if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it.”

“You always say a lot of things, and I don’t listen to too many of ’em! Now, let’s quit bickering and I’ll heat up the stew.”

“She’s a bossy one, ain’t she?” Ed said to Trace.

“And you love it!” Despite the bite to her words, she sent him a fond glance, the kind they’d shared since high school, some fifty-odd years earlier.

“Seems to have worked out between you two,” Trace observed.

“That’s because he usually does what I ask.”

She began fiddling with the stove as her husband said, “I thought I’d help you with the livestock. Tilly, here, was frettin’ and fussin’ over at the house, worried you wouldn’t be able to get the chores done with Eli laid up.”

Tilly’s features pulled into a knot as she turned to Trace. “It’s just that I didn’t see how you’d leave the boy and take care of the cattle all at the same time.”

“Dad?” Eli called from the living room.

“Right there, bud!” Trace slipped through the swinging door and found his son in his stocking feet, looking groggy. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Who’s here?”

“The Zukovs. Come on into the kitchen.”

“Is that my boy?” Tilly called loudly, and for the first time all day, Eli smiled.