Between Them
written by: Peter Rehn
Morning light fills the kitchen, leaving Peter in shadow. It’s the first Saturday after Erik’s funeral, but Peter mixes batter anyway.
Jamie sits at the table, heels thudding against the chair rung, watching the bowl like a screen.
Rain smudges the window. The house smells of flour and wet coats.
Peter cracks eggs against the rim. Misses. Shells fall into the bowl. His hands still shake.
Last spring, his father had folded over beside the car, rain carrying vomit down the gutter.
“I’m fine,” Erik had said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
In the passenger seat, his fingers shook so badly Peter had to click the seat belt for him.
Peter whisks harder than necessary. Batter spills onto the worktop.
Jamie jumps down, lines up knives and forks.
When Erik visited, the boy followed him everywhere. Into the shed, the garden, under sinks, and behind doors, copying how he held a spanner, a rake, a screwdriver.
If Erik tightened a bolt, Jamie tightened the air beside him.
“Can I have the first one?”
Peter pours a circle into the pan. It spreads too thin, catches at the edges.
The last time Erik sat at this table, he had slept half the afternoon in the chair by the window, chin on his chest, sunlight across his knees. When he woke, Peter made pancakes to tempt him.
Erik ate two, slowly. Between bites, he watched Jamie as if trying to memorise him.
Three months later, Peter held his hand through a Finnish night and kissed his forehead at dawn.
Butter blackens in the pan.
“Grandad?”
Jamie is staring. Peter looks down. Tears have fallen into the batter, dimpling the surface.
“You’re burning it.”
Smoke lifts from the pan and drifts toward the window. He laughs once and turns off the heat.
He sets a fresh pancake on Jamie’s plate.
The boy pushes it back.
“You don’t want pancakes?”
Jamie shakes his head.
“Why not?”
He studies the plate before answering.
“Erik ate pancakes last time he was here,” he says. “Then he didn’t come back.”
Peter slumps onto the chair.
No footsteps in the hall. No deep voice asking for coffee. No grumble at the radio.
Across the table, Jamie’s hand rests beside the plate, dusted with sugar. Peter places his own over it.
The pancakes cool between them, untouched.
- Between Them - August 3, 2026
- The First Rung - April 25, 2026
- Come to the Cove - January 27, 2026
