White Space Season 2

course,” Emma said. “You’re my grandpa. You’re supposed to tell me stuff.”
    He smiled. “Whether you like it or not, you’ll be alone many times throughout your life. This is true for everyone, but especially so when you’re a smart girl as you clearly are, Emma. Loneliness is the burden of genius. Expect to spend much of your life in isolation, even when surrounded by friends, of which I’m sure you’ll have many, and family, of which you’ve recently added some more.” He winked. “I have both, yet I’ve been plenty lonely myself, I’d say more than most. I feel it deeply sometimes, Emma, permanently, like a scar inside me. The trick isn’t in learning not to be lonely, it’s in learning to find the comfort inside yourself because you know that’s the one thing in your world that once built can never disappear, or be taken from you. Embrace your isolation and you can find comfort in anonymity, building rooms inside your brain that will forever lend you space to feel comfortably alone.”
    Blake didn’t wait for Emma to respond, changing the subject, and the mood, instead. “How is your dinner?”
    “Amazing,” she smiled, shoving another forkful of cheesy pasta into her mouth.
    Emma had been worried that she would have to eat some sort of “grownup food,” at dinner, something awful. She complained on their way to the Gardens. Though Emma had brave taste buds, and was willing to try most everything Jon introduced her to, she was also nervous, and maybe intimidated, that the Conways would serve her something new and gross that she didn’t care for, and that she would be embarrassed if she couldn’t eat it.
    Emma had nothing to worry about. While the grownups did have plenty of adult options spread on their table, from steak and lobster to eggplant and asparagus, Carmen prepared a casserole with mac and cheese for Emma, white not yellow, by far the fanciest mac and cheese Emma had ever had, and she squealed as the first forkful melted on her tongue, then repeated at least once every fourth bite.

    **

    Conversation flew, as did minutes through dinner. Jon was shocked at how naturally banter passed from one Conway to the next, words making their way around the table like passed butter. Jon wondered how different it would have been had Cassidy decided to join them. He imagined the conversation would have been crippled and anxious, littered with land mines.
    Emma was happy, Blake engaged. Melinda was attentive and borderline talkative. Warren, oddly enough, didn’t appear the least bit jealous to be sitting outside the spotlight, staying relatively quiet. Every now and then Jon would catch Warren looking at him oddly, like he was about to say something, but chose not to. Or perhaps he was wondering why Jon had brought Emma to dinner.
    As dishes were swept from the table, Blake suggested they take their dessert in the sitting room. A few minutes later Emma giggled as she was handed a single scoop of vanilla ice cream.
    “What’s so funny?” Blake asked.
    “Nothing,” she giggled again.
    “It must be something,” he said. “No one ever laughs at nothing, unless they’re nervous, and you, darling, don’t seem to be anything of the sort.”
    “I’m just laughing because I thought we’d have something fancy for dessert, but this is only ice cream.”
    “What did you expect?” Jon asked.
    “I don’t knoooow … ” Emma gave know three extra syllables, “ … something with a French name, like you would order.”
    Jon said, “You mean like strawberry Savarin? That’s not hard to say at all.”
    Emma laughed. “I don’t know. You always order hard-to-say stuff. This is just ice cream, and it’s vanilla.”
    “Well,” Blake said, “that’s because vanilla is the best. You can try and get fancier, most people do, but they need a lot of luck and expensive unnecessaries. Other flavors try to improve something that can be tweaked, not bettered. Homemade, handmade vanilla ice cream,” he laughed. “It’s the best.”
    “What makes it better?” Emma asked, staring down at her still unlicked and unbitten scoop.
    “Well, everything, I suppose,” Blake smiled. “When you make ice cream yourself, you can use the best ingredients, and know exactly what those ingredients are. No guessing, which is important since you should always know what’s in your body. You’ll carry it around for as much of forever as you can manage to grab, after all. Store bought ice-cream can sit