How to Bake a Perfect Life (23 page)

I frown over my shoulder. “Right.” I pour beans into the grinder and push the button, releasing that most elegant, reviving scent. I breathe it in.

He comes up behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders, his forehead against my hair. “Ramona,
tesoruccio mìo
, give me another chance. I have been an ass, I know it, but just forgive me, huh?”

For the first time I realize that his feelings are strong, that perhaps I have been leading him on in a way, leaning on him because I am lonely without my family. And he, being the man he is, took my continuing friendship as encouragement.

Gently, I turn and put my hands on his dear face. “Cat, I’m grateful to you for all the things you’ve done for me.” I rub his smooth jaw with my thumbs. “But I am not in love with you and I never will be.”

“I don’t need for you to be in love with me.” Urgently, he takes fistfuls of my hair into his hands. “I love you enough that it doesn’t matter. We can be happy. Prosperous. It’s a foolishness that women now have to prove themselves, even if they fail, when they don’t have to.”

I drop my hands, smiling gently. He genuinely doesn’t understand, and nothing I say will make any difference. “You need to go, Cat.”

And to my surprise and dismay, he bends his head and gathers me into a bear hug. “No.”

I endure it for one minute, then push him away, and it’s only then that I hear the footsteps on the stairs. He’s still clinging
to a fistful of my hair, and there might be tears in his eyes when my mother comes into the kitchen, carrying a flat of bedding plants. She halts, taking in the tableau. A slide show of emotions moves across her face—surprise, then dismay, then fury, and then something I can’t quite identify. She’s looking at Cat, not me.

And then she does look at me. Squarely. Her nostrils flare ever so slightly before she rights herself, almost visibly slipping into her cloak of blankness.

“I’m sorry,” she says smoothly. “Are we interrupting?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say, scowling at him. “Cat was just leaving.”

“Hello, Lily,” he says. He, too, is a master of the cloak. His is debonair and charming. “You look wonderful,” he says, and means it. We all know he does. It is his gift, that he sees the best in all of us and gives it back to us like a shiny apple—all women, everywhere, and he genuinely admires each one. When I am with him, I forget the ten extra pounds I am carrying, forget the lines etching themselves into my face, and become as gloriously beautiful as a mermaid. Is that what my mother feels, too? If he is so devastating now, how much more was he at twenty-five, when he pursued her as if she were a queen to rule over his kingdom?

“Thank you,” she says coolly, putting the flowers on the table. “How are you?”

“Very well, thank you.”

I’ve never seen them in the same room together. Cat and my father are sworn enemies, so there would be few chances for Cat and my mother to cross paths. Looking at them—she so trim and well tended, looking much younger than her years, he so big and sturdy and beautiful—I think they must have been a stunning couple back in the day. What happened there? What made my mother choose my father?

My mother brushes her hands delicately, gives me a glance
loaded with meaning. “Katie is on her way up with some dahlias. Would it cause any trouble if she came to my house for supper? She wants to help me plant some more, and I told her I’d make her a banana pudding.”

Katie comes into the room then, looking flushed and as happy as I’ve ever seen her. In the new clothes—clothes that actually fit her—she doesn’t look nearly so awkward. “We bought zillions of flowers!” she cries, and puts geraniums on the table next to the dahlias. They are Martha Washingtons, with their extravagant magenta petals edged with white. She points to a box of bachelor’s buttons, too. “Lily let me buy these to plant in front of the bakery, if that’s okay? To replace the stuff that got messed up in the repair.”

“No problem.” I glance at my mother, widening my eyes to say,
Where did you find this sunny child?
Her mask cracks slightly and she grins. “Katie has an aptitude for flowers. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Not at all.” I frown at Cat, who is still standing there in the middle of the kitchen. “Thanks for everything, Cat,” I say pointedly. “I’ll see you later.”

He lifts a finger. “Right. So long, ladies. Enjoy your flowers.”

“I’m hungry,” Katie says. “Are there any more doughnuts?”

“No more doughnuts,” I say.

“Have a sandwich or something, sweetie,” Lily says.

Our eyes meet over her head. My mother’s eyes say,
This is not finished
.

“It isn’t what you think,” I say aloud, crossing my arms.

She raises an eyebrow in disappointment, and it is as devastating as it was when I was seven or fifteen or twenty. “Really.”

Katie is in the fridge, comfortably taking out sliced turkey and mustard, and I’m glad, at least, for that. “What’s not?” she says, oblivious to the undercurrents.

“Nothing, kiddo,” I say. “You want some iced tea?”

• • •

My cell phone rings later, as I am refreshing the sourdough starters. I glance at the unfamiliar number and debate whether I should answer. I’m not interested in talking to solicitors. “Hello?”

“Mom?”

“Sofia!” I head out into the backyard. Merlin follows me. “What’s up? It must be very late there.”

“It is.” Her voice sounds squashed. “Past midnight. I couldn’t sleep. How’s Katie doing?”

“She’s with your grandmother, planting flowers.”

Sofia gives a soft laugh. “Gram must love that.”

“Yeah.” For a long moment I listen to the silence, the phone pressed tightly to my ear for fear I might miss some clue. Between us, the air rushes, sounding like the ocean that divides us. “What’s on your mind, honey?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want you to worry about me, okay, because I know you have other things on your mind, but you’re the person I really need to talk to. Can you promise to just let me fall apart without needing to solve my problems?”

“Do I do that?”

“Yes. You’re a fixer. That’s your entire impulse, and it’s okay, but it’s not going to work for me right now.”

“Okay. I promise.” I rub a hand over my belly. “Fall apart.”

“I don’t know if he’s going to live. He has so many things wrong and he’s really burned. I don’t know if he’ll
want
to live. I don’t know what to say when he’s lying there to—” Words give out and a puff of air comes through instead. I can see her in my imagination, hand pushing through her thick dark hair, making the bangs stand up. “I don’t know what I’m calling you for.”

I take a breath and try to find the right non-fix-it words. “Because you know I love you. Because you know I’d rather hear
your voice than any other on the planet. Because I’m thinking about you and it’s really good to hear from you.”

“Yeah. All those things. The funny thing is, Mom, there’s no list to make this any better. I don’t know what to do,” she says, and begins to cry. “I have to be strong. For him. For Katie. For my own baby. And I have no idea how. I don’t know if I’m that strong.”

Tears well up in my own eyes, but it’s absolutely critical that she not hear them. I blink and look up at the tops of the lilac bushes. “Close your eyes.”

“Okay.”

“Now imagine for one minute that you’re standing in the backyard with me. There’s a soft breeze, and it smells almost too much of lilacs. Somebody nearby is watering their lawn, and the sprinkler is making that
tick-tick-tick
sound. Milo is sitting at your feet.”

“Okay. This is good.” Her voice is still wavery but better.

“Now imagine, sweetheart, that I am taking your hand. Can you feel it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m right there with you. I’m always holding your hand. I am always here, whenever you need me. You are not alone.”

“Imagine that I’m putting my head on your shoulder now, and just let me do that.”

I close my eyes and imagine that I truly can hold her, that her face is pressed into my neck, soaking my shirt. Tears pour out of my eyes, down my face, as Sofia cries in my ear.

After a time, she sniffles hard. “Okay. Thank you. I love you, Mom. I’m holding your hand.”

“I feel it. Get some sleep. That will help, too.”

“Light some candles, or have Grandma do it, okay? We need them.”

“Consider it done. I love you, baby.”

“I love you, too,” she says, and hangs up.

Holding the phone in one hand, I rub the yawning ache in my chest with the other. My hair falls over my shoulders—too long for someone my age, I know it is—but there is no cutting it. It is the thing that is most myself, no matter what anyone else thinks. At moments like this, it’s like a cape shielding me from the world.

My poor girl. My poor, poor baby.

Merlin has been sitting with me, and now he jumps up as if he’s been called. He trots across the garden, walking carefully between the rows of new squash and corn, and heads for the open corner. There is an altar there that my grandmother erected years and years ago, and Merlin lies down alertly before it, paws neatly placed in front of him, his head high, as if he is listening.

“What are you doing, you funny dog?”

He looks over his shoulder at me and woofs softly, then looks back at the altar. Curious, I follow him. A garden statue of a saint I don’t remember stands amid a low border of alyssum. In the dimming evening, the flowers almost seem to have a light of their own, and I swear I can hear humming. It triggers an old hymn in my mind, something we used to sing with guitars—“Alleluia.”

Merlin lets go of a soft, joyous woof and his tail wags slowly. I sit down next to him in the cool grass, thinking I could do worse than pray for my daughter here in this sacred space where my grandmother said her own prayers so often. “Are you listening? Help her. Help him.” I stroke Merlin’s thick fur, trying to even think of what to ask for. “Let them find peace and happiness.”

The song is running insistently through my mind. So I begin to sing aloud, for my daughter.

Katie

TO: [email protected]

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: a letter you can read to my dad

Dear Dad,

I’m writing this from my stepgrandma’s house. I guess you already know Lily, because she’s Sofia’s grandma, too. We have been planting flowers in Lily’s garden all day, but more about that in a minute.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to this house, but it’s really, really cool. There is a lot of wood and a stone fireplace with two sides—kitchen and living room—so everybody can enjoy a fire! It’s kind of up in the hills, and Lily (don’t get mad at me for calling her by her first name, okay? She doesn’t like to be called Grandma) says they had it specially built in the ’70s when their restaurant was the number-one steakhouse in the whole state. Like, they hired an architeck and everything.

The restaurant is called the Erin Steakhouse because their family is Irish, which you probably already know. We went there for dinner, and it’s pretty cool, up on top of this bluff so you can see all the lights in the city and the mountains. It was kinda old school, but the food was really good. I had a steak, and baked potato with butter and sour cream, and a salad with little blue cheese crumbles on it, and big dinner rolls. I asked Lily if Ramona comes here, but she said no. Kinda mad like. I get the feeling Lily is mad at Ramona, but I like them both, although I got really mad at Ramona for losing my dog last night. It turned out okay because a man found him and brought him home.

Which I guess I haven’t even told you about Merlin! He’s a really cute dog, with white and orangey fur and a freckle on his nose. I love him.

The last thing I want to tell you (I can’t believe how long this is getting! I’m glad I wrote you first) is about the flowers. We went to a greenhouse and it was filled with flowers in every color. Pink and yellow and white and blue and even green. Inside, it felt like a different planet, like I could breathe ten times better. Lily let me buy a bunch of things, some marigolds, which are orange and brown, and dahlias, which she says come in a lot of different kinds, and she has a bunch of them and they will start blooming in a few more weeks, she says, so I’ll take pictures and send them. She let me take one with her camera, and although she couldn’t figure out how to upload it, I did and it’s attached here for when you wake up. Me and the garden.

Anyways, everything is okay here, but I really miss you, Dad, and I can’t wait until you come home.

Love, Katie

Katie is writing on the computer, which is on a built-in desk right next to a balcony looking down into the living room. It’s the best thing she’s ever seen in a house. In fact, the entire house is amazing, with the ceiling at all angles and hidden window seats piled up with pillows. Lily showed Katie to a room at the end of a long, long hallway and said she could use it whenever she was over. It used to be Ramona’s room, but it’s been
decorated since then with turquoise and green rugs and a bed that’s kind of low to the ground. The window is really high, looking down a rocky ledge and over the mountains. The first time Katie looks out, she feels dizzy, but the view is of mountains upon mountains upon mountains, like velvet cutouts in layers and layers of blue.