By Danny's birthday. He would have been twenty-nine. I went to Holy Cross and sat with him and told him we're trying again. I told him about the miscarriage — the first time I've told anyone other than Megan. Not a person. Not alive. But telling Danny felt necessary. He was the first person I ever lost. He knows what loss sounds like. He knows how it sits in your chest. He knows because he IS the loss that lives in my chest, the original one, the one that all other losses echo.
I told him about the empty second bedroom. About Gerald the tomato plant on the windowsill. About Megan watching Kevin's kids at the Fourth of July cookout with that look. I told him I want to name a kid after him. Daniel. Danny. I said it out loud at the headstone and it felt like a promise, not a plan. The kind of promise you make to the dead because the dead deserve promises too.
Megan met me at a coffee shop after. She didn't ask about the cemetery. She handed me a coffee and said, "Big one." She knows the protocol. She's memorized the care instructions for a man who visits his dead best friend on birthdays and anniversaries. Big coffee. No questions. Just presence.
Made a simple grilled steak for dinner — ribeye, cast iron, hot and fast. Salt, pepper, butter. The simplest good meal I know. Sometimes you need complicated. Sometimes you need soup and ritual and four-hour pot pies. And sometimes you need a steak and a beer and the woman you love and the silence of a summer evening in Bay View. Sometimes simple is everything.
The ribeye that night didn’t need a complicated side — it needed something cold and crisp that could hold its own without stealing the moment. A wedge salad has always felt like steakhouse shorthand to me: no fuss, no apology, just blue cheese and bacon doing their job. It felt right for a night that had already asked enough of me, one where simple wasn’t settling — it was exactly enough.
Wedge Salad
Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 10 min | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 large head iceberg lettuce, cored and cut into 4 wedges
- 1/2 cup blue cheese dressing (store-bought or homemade)
- 1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
- 4 strips bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1/4 small red onion, thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons fresh chives, chopped
- Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Prep the lettuce. Remove any wilted outer leaves from the iceberg head, then slice it into 4 equal wedges through the core. Keep the core intact so each wedge holds together on the plate.
- Cook the bacon. Cook bacon in a skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 6–8 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate and let cool, then crumble into pieces.
- Assemble. Place each wedge cut-side up on a chilled plate. Spoon blue cheese dressing generously over each wedge, letting it run down the sides.
- Top it. Scatter crumbled blue cheese, bacon, cherry tomatoes, and red onion over each wedge. Finish with a sprinkle of fresh chives, a pinch of kosher salt, and a few cracks of black pepper.
- Serve immediately. Wedge salad is best served cold and right away, before the dressing softens the lettuce. Pair alongside a hot ribeye off the cast iron.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 210 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 17g | Carbs: 8g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 480mg