Cheer Up, Daddy!

Clueless

"What are you cooking again? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention." Finn came back to the kitchen dressed in a soft-looking white henley, Andy tried not to show too much disappointment on his face.

"Beef feijoada with pasta carbonara and potato mash on the side. I bought some dino-nuggets if Alex felt the food a bit weird, is she taking a nap as well?" Andy took out everything out from the bags and already prepared himself by rummaging through all the cabinets to look for the things he needed.

"Alex's not here," Finn spoke up after a pause, "she's at her grandfather's house today and probably won't be back till tomorrow knowing my father."

"Oh." Andy stopped his action mid-track, the gear in his brain was trying to process what Finn had just said to him. If Alex wasn't here, it meant it would be just Finn and him in the apartment alone.

Alone.

Oh, the gripping realization finally dawned on him and Andy cursed himself mentally. Now the thought of buying a new tie to Finn wasn't too bad, clearly better than eating with a man that Andy had never shared a single decent conversation with, last time he was telling Finn he was a bad father and later the week his ex-boyfriend gave him a black bruise for no reason. They were particularly strangers to each other without Alex around to distract them from the horror of adult conversation.

"I guess these dino-nuggets are lucky they didn't get eaten today, huh?" Andy joked lightly however Finn was looking at him like he had grown two heads. It was a dumb idea, Andy regretted talking himself out from the tie idea and now look at him, coming into a stranger's home uninvited just to cook an apology meal because his paycheck couldn't withstand another cut. It was too late anyway so instead of running away out of fear and anxiety, Andy might as well immersed himself into the preparation of the dinner.

The whole time he was cooking, it was relatively comfortable since Finn was too busy typing away on his laptop to acknowledge his presence and Andy was fine with that.  Small talks were the stuffs of nightmare, especially with someone whose ex-boyfriend couldn't keep his own shit together and lash out on the innocent man. Andy shook off the distracting thought and took out the two containers from the grocery bags, one contained soaked black beans and the other was he had always prepared every week in his fridge, it was his sister's favorite dish when they were young so he normally had them in advance if she felt like having feijoada as lunch or dinner. Andy enjoyed cooking the feijoada out of all his mother's other recipes, Kathryn learnt it back in Brazil while visiting her boyfriend's family for the first time, they only started dating for five months and Kathryn was nervous to say the least. It was a special dish for her because Andy's grandmother believed that the recipe was meant for family only, the fact that she taught his mother the first time she was there meant the whole world for Kathryn. She never got to teach Andy how to make the feijoada, he was too young to hold a saucepan or light a fire. There was a bunch of recipes he never got to learn first-hand from his mother, after she got sick she had to write down every recipes from both families in a small notebook and traditionally, the daughter supposed to get it but Andy had it instead.

"I think you should have it since we know how Andrea is in the kitchen," Kathryn held four year-old Andy's hands in hers, "I wish I had the time to show you how to cook and help you to cook for that someone special in your life and maybe even get to teach her like how grandma taught me. Cook for someone you love, that's the best way to put a smile on the person's face."   

Andy was four, he wasn't sure what was going on but he remembered everything she said, the notebook might have misplaced somewhere back at his house's attic but Andy remembered all recipes by heart by the time he was eleven. 

Just like he found out Kathryn improvised the feijoada by replacing the beef with Carne Seca, that was what Andy was doing right now as he placed all of the different meats into the Dutch oven. After finishing adding the most important ingredient, pork's foot, along with the back beans into the Dutch oven, Andy poured the ready made broth and put it down to simmer. In between the preparation, Andy quickly took out a saucepan and heat it up on the other stove to make the white rice and potato mash. Cooking came easy to Andy, his mother always had a smile on her face whenever he volunteered to cook for their dinners with Andrea helping them. As he checked on the feijoada, Andy sneaked a peek at the man at the dining table and noticed Finn had fallen asleep on top of his laptop. For once Finn's eyebrows weren't pinched in the center in that irritated, furious way they got most of the times, Andy would say he was actually looking a bit peaceful with the screen light illuminating half of his face.