I slept in a little bit today after sleeping pretty hard last night. I didn’t even hear Eaddie get home, but apparently she was just dropped off and Noah didn’t come back to stay another night. I let her sleep in when I left, and went to Arby’s to pick up a classic 5 for 5 deal to take to Summer. She was at a therapy session when I got to Superfast, so I waited around for a while. Then I inadvertently made her mad with a joke and ended up going home to eat by myself.
After cleaning up, I took the Murano for a wash and then went to get Eaddie. We thought she might get out to practice driving a bit, but we ended up starting her cake pops instead. She had baked the cake a few days ago and it was still in the oven, so she crumbled it up with some icing and made little balls while I cut skewers. Then we stuck them in the fridge to cool off while we went to my parents’ house to visit.
Lelan and Steven were there when we arrived, and everyone was outside talking while Mom was watering plants. We went inside and I warmed up some food for Eaddie and myself since everyone else had already eaten. All the adults gathered around the dinner table while Lelan expressively discussed some issues and kicked around some thoughts about what Bác Vân left behind.
Once they got to a stopping point and Eaddie and I had eaten, they wanted to go visit the gravesite before dark. Eaddie asked whether I wanted to go, and then said she wanted to go too, so we followed along. It was still hot outside, but it wasn’t nearly as humid. They had piled all of the cut flowers on top of the burial plot the day before, so it was easy to find. They cleaned out a couple flower pots that were left, and I pulled flowers out of the three tripod arrangements. We looked around at some neighboring plots, cleaned up a couple of spots very minimally, and then started to leave. Eaddie wanted to see the mausoleum my parents bought, so we all drove to the back of the cemetery as Lelan and Steve left. I thought my parents, Bác Trân, and Bác Loan would get out, but they just kept driving. Eaddie and I parked and walked to the structure, which happened to be right next to a couple of large sarcophagi for some Duffields. They had a bench as a part of their plot, so we sat down to talk for a little bit as the sun set.
When we left, we drove by to see if the ice cream truck was open. Failing that, we stopped at a very busy Dairy Queen on the way back home. We almost went back to the grave because they forgot the flower pots there, but Dad went instead. When we got home, Summer was already in bed, but we went in to come up with a plan for the next day. Eaddie wanted to grill food at their house and invite everyone over. I checked with Mom, and she said she had the same idea for their house, so we planned dinner for there instead.
Foreshadowing