The best meal of the day was the late-night snack. It was inarguable. Perhaps that’s why I saw my daughter up at 3:32 AM balancing precariously on a bucket in a futile attempt to reach for the top cabinet.

I snuck up behind her rather carefully, I didn’t want to startle her and cause her to fall, after all. If I were a better person I’d wrap my arms around her, pick her up, and go from there. I was not a better person.

“Boo,” I whispered in her ear.

As she shrieked, she fell. My ears rang.

“I gotcha!” I caught her. Perhaps a bit late.

“You’re going to wake up the entire neighbourhood with that horrible shrieking,” I stated, looking her over.

“You could have killed me!” She whisper-shouted, her arms doing a thing.

“A tad dramatic. I was right behind you. I’d catch you. No, I did catch you,” I reasoned, nodding my head along with my words.

“And if you didn’t?” She raised her eyebrow, so much like her mother.

I looked her in the eye, “I’ll always catch you.”

She looked away and mumbled something a bit too quiet to hear.

“What was that?” I questioned. She had so much sass. No clue where she got it from.

“Nothing,” she sighed.

"Mhmm,” As I’m a great dad, I decided to let it go.

“Now, what are you doing up at this time?”

“Eating,” she responded.

“Yes, I’m sure that’s why you were trying to break into my cabinet.” I drawled.

“I was not trying to break into your cabinet!” A rather indignant response.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I raised an eyebrow.

“It wouldn’t call it “breaking in” per se,” she added.

“Convincing.” My voice was flat.

“What do you keep in there, anyways?” She did another hand thing, pointing at the cabinet somewhere in between the motion.

I smirked, “I already told you this before-” “Nothing for you,” she mimicked.

“I don’t sound like that.”

Now she smirked, “You so do.”

I looked at her rather unimpressed.

She didn’t back down.

I shook my head.

“Teenagers,” I sighed.

“What do you wanna eat?” I herded her to a seat.

“Dunno,” she responded.

I nodded, expecting this, “Did you sleep?”

“Yes, I did.” She was a terrible liar.

“I’m going to have to start taking your phone at night, missy.” I threatened.

She looked mortally terrified. Her face was funny.

I checked the fridge, “Do you want eggs?”

“No, they make my teeth feel icky.” Nobody in this house ate eggs.

I sighed, “How old are you?” I already knew the answer.

“Sixteen,” she answered curiously. She knew I knew.

“Don’t tell your younger brother about this,” I said.

“About what?” She asked with a tilt of her head.

“What’re you doing?” She said, her tone disgusted.

“What does it look like?” I was climbing onto the countertop.

“It looks stupid,” she emphasized stupid.

“Manners, young lady,” I reprimanded.

Precariously I reached out towards the top cabinet. It was relatively unused and made a terrible creaking noise as it opened. Inside I found all sorts of confectionary and from them all my eyes were drawn to a half-eaten tiramisu. I withdraw the tiramisu.

My daughter looked back at me confounded. Perhaps a bit of horror was mixed into the look as well. She made the stupidest face.

“Y-you...” she followed with an unintelligible string of half-curses and half-words, and perhaps a few noises that weren’t either, that you’d expect from someone outraged. I eased myself off the countertop during her failed tirade.

“Yes, I totally understand.” I did not.

“Why!?” Importantly, she did not shriek. Unfortunately, it was still loud.

“I’m a single father. I get stressed sometimes,” I explained.

“Okay, then why did you hide it from all of us!? You told us it was off-limits to use the cabinet! Why are you telling me now!?” She was still clearly outraged.

“You,” I pointed at her, “and your siblings,” I swirled my finger around, “eat like horses.”

She looked a bit indignant, yet I continued, “Remember Auntie Eurl-, Auntie Senti’s wedding? You remember how huge the wedding was, right?” I picked up a knife, “Do you remember the cake? You better remember that damn cake, you kids ate half of it! Half! A wedding cake!” I swung the knife around as I spoke.

“We did not! We ate like...” she was thinking. It was not her strong suit, “a quarter? Most of the cake went to the damned squirrels!”

“You fed squirrels cake!? You probably killed the poor things!”

“Huh, what? Really? We killed squirrels!?” She seemed ready to panic.

“Probably? I’m not sure. Search it up.”

She nods, “Gimme a sec,” I cut the tiramisu in the meanwhile.

“Okay, so, cake probably wouldn’t kill the squirrels, but those squirrels are obese.” I gave her a slice and sat down next to her with mine.

“You know, this reminds me of that one Reddit thing where they hate fat squirrels,” I said after I finished chewing.

“That’s a thing?” She said while chewing. I taught her better than that.

“Eat first, talk later,” I menacingly tiramisu covered fork at her.

Besides the usual noises made when eating sweet desserts, I heard the soft pitter-patter of someone walking up the stairs.

“What are you two doing? Is that cake? When did you buy cake!?” My daughter, clearly not having heard her brother walking up the stairs, jumped.

“We bought some because we were hungry.” My daughter was a very bad liar.

“Oh, okay, can I have some?” My son was very gullible.

There was no tiramisu left in the morning. By the next week, the cabinet was emptied. I changed my confectionary collection's location after that.