For Love Or Money

If Lil, Kelsey’s mom, had been able to take something for her paranoia, would she still be alive? Not that the paranoia had been the actual cause of death. No, the onset of labor at the beginning of the third trimester had done that.

“Dad, you promised me...”

A promise he might have made a mistake in making. Lil had, by example, made her daughter petrified of “drugging herself up.” She’d been almost fanatical about medication—to the point of toughing it out through headaches so she didn’t have to take an over-the-counter painkiller. She’d had Kelsey on the same pain management regime.

It had taken Burke getting really angry, raising-his-voice angry, before Kelsey had taken the antibiotics she’d needed for strep throat the previous year.

The girl seemed to think putting drugs in her body was disloyal to her mother. But there was so much she didn’t know. Some things Burke hoped to God she never knew.

Still, antidepressant medication was not going to be as easy a win.

Maybe because he didn’t want to medicate her, long term, either. Not unless she truly needed the help.

“It’s been two years since Mom died.”

“So give me something to get excited about.”

There it was again. That opening.

In all of the advice he’d received over the past two years, most of it well-meaning, and some of it professionally sought, no one had told him that raising a thirteen-year-old was going to make him dizzy. He’d never have believed, even a year before, that his sweet, rational, logical-beyond-her-years little girl was going to morph into a confusing mass of humanity that he could no more predict than the weather.

“What, Kels? What can I give you that you’d be excited about?” Knowing as he asked the question that he’d walk through fire to get it for her. As long as he didn’t think it would do more long-term harm than good.

She grabbed her tablet. Swiped and tapped so fast he didn’t know how she could possibly even read what she was choosing. She stopped. Seemed to be skimming the page. And turned the tablet around to him.

“This,” she said. “I wanted to enter but I can’t because I’m just a kid, and besides, you’re the master chef left among us.”

Lil had been a certified chef. Official ranking. In addition to teaching, she’d put in the hours necessary in professional food service. Because her dream was to open her own catering business. She’d talked him into taking classes, too, while he’d still been in med school. As something they could do to spend a little stress-free time together. And to his surprise, cooking had been right up his alley. Engaging him scientifically and yet offering him a relaxation he’d been unable to find elsewhere.

“I’m not a master chef,” he told her. He’d obtained a culinary art certification. That was all.

He looked at her tablet.

Made a cursory visual pass. Then read every word in the headline.

She was handing him the tablet, so he took it. Heart sinking.

She wanted him to be on a reality cooking show. As in, television. Like he could just pick up a phone and volunteer.

Like he had a chance in...any chance at all of making it on the show.

“It’s that one filmed here.” Kelsey was up on her knees, beside him now. He swore he could still smell that sweet baby-powder scent that had entered their home with her thirteen years before. “In Palm Desert. Family Secrets. Remember, they had that Thanksgiving special where they chose the first one of this year’s contestants...”

He remembered.

He’d wanted to go to Disneyland over the holiday. Thanksgiving—a food day by all counts—was one of the hardest without Lil. Kelsey wasn’t bouncing back from her mother’s death at all. If anything, with the onset of puberty, her moroseness was getting worse. He’d thought to distract her by heading to the coast for the holiday.

Instead she’d been adamant, to the point of tears, which always suckered him, that they cook dinner together, with all the trappings, and spend the day watching cooking shows. To honor Lil.

“So now it’s open auditions for the other seven contestants. It’s right here in town, Dad. You want me to be excited about something? Audition for this show.” She’d scooted closer, was resting her chin on his shoulder as she looked at the tablet with him.

“You have to use your own family recipes,” she said as he sat there, feeling more lost, more alone, than ever before. “It’s the recipes that are the real competition,” she went on, her voice gaining an energy that seemed to encompass their entire world.

“There’s an audition, and then four weeks of competition between eight candidates. Then whoever wins at least one of the four competitions goes to the final round. Each week you’re given a category and you have to make your family recipe with a secret ingredient. It says here that the candidates have to appear for one day of extraneous taping, too, before the competition starts.”

She was setting him up to let her down. He could see it so clearly even if she couldn’t. There was no way he was good enough to compete against real chefs.

“You can use Mom’s recipes, Dad! It’s a way for her to get what she wanted—to have her cooking recognized and appreciated. It’s a way to keep her alive. Like make her immortal or something. You have to do this...”

It was best to be honest with her. To face the tough stuff head-on. He’d been told. And he also just knew...

“I can’t.”

She slouched back. “I knew you’d say that.” There was no accusation in her tone. Just resignation. “That’s why I didn’t say anything before. It’s probably too late anyway. The auditions are this weekend and they were only taking walk-ons, without preregistering, if they had space.”

She hadn’t been going to ask him. Until he’d told her they had to find something to be excited about.

Lil, if you can hear me, now’s the time to jump in. What happens if I try and fail? Do I send our baby girl further into the dark hole she can’t seem to climb out of?

Will your recipes sustain me? Us?

“I was going to say I can’t force them to take me on.” He improvised while he waited for some kind of sign from above.

He’d take one from below or beside if it was clear enough.

Kelsey stared at him. And he could have sworn there was a glimmer of light in her blue eyes. His eyes.

“I took some classes, Kels. I do well enough here at home. I’m nowhere near the cook your mom was. TV? That’s for people like your mom. Real chefs. With real experience. And the auditions will be judged by people who are used to eating from the best of the best. All of which is completely out of my control.” He couldn’t make this happen for her.

“Like Mom always said, cooking is a lot about artistic talent, about knowing what foods go good together and stuff. She always said you had that talent, too.” Her tone wasn’t pushy. Or even persuasive. She sounded like a lost little girl. “Besides, this show is about the recipes. And Mom’s are the best.”

“And I might not be able to do them justice.” It wouldn’t be the first time he’d let Lil down. Or Kelsey, either, though he hoped she never knew just how badly he’d let them both down.

“You tell me that the important thing is to try.”

“I have no problem with trying, Kels. I’ll go to the audition.” He would?

Her mouth dropped open.

“But you have to understand that I might not win. And if I don’t, you have to be willing to find something else to get excited about.”

What was he doing, here?

“You’re going to do it?” She didn’t move. Just sat there. Staring at him. But the glisten in her eyes told him that he had to grant her request.

“And you’re going to help me,” he said, speaking the words that came to him as they presented themselves. “We have three days...” He’d have to cancel his appearance at a fund-raiser for the clinic Wednesday night. And dinner with the Montgomerys, friends of his and Lil’s who still continued to invite him and Kelsey over on a regular Friday-night basis. “You are in charge of choosing the recipe for the audition. I’ll make it each night this week, under your supervision, and you taste the finished results and give me feedback.”

“I’ll do all the dishes,” Kelsey said, still just watching him.