Luscious Lemon

by Heather Swain

  As I stand with my hand in Eddie’s and look at the statue, I realize how afraid I was to become a parent. I thought since I hadn’t known my own mother very well, I wouldn’t know what to do with my child. But in this backyard, where most of my childhood took place, I realize that I’ve had many mothers. My aunts, Little Great-Aunt Poppy, and my grandmother have taught me well how to love. I look forward to bestowing those gifts on my own children one day.

  My grandmother offers to feed us when we come in from the garden. “I have some nice amaretti cookies from Monteleone’s. I can make coffee. Or maybe you want some lunch?” She wipes her hands on a dishtowel and scans the interior of the refrigerator.

  “That’s okay,” I say and lay my hand on her shoulder. “We’re not hungry.”

  “Well, here.” She opens the box of cookies anyway. “Take a few with you, then. You’ll want something later.” Her offer has nothing to do with hunger, but everything to do with feeding our souls, and we gratefully accept.

  She hands a foil-wrapped packet of cookies to Eddie, and he pulls her into a deep hug. For the first time since my miscarriage, I see my grandmother’s eyes well up with tears. She buries her face in Eddie’s shoulder. Wipes her eyes against the fabric of his shirt. Something inside of me swells at the sight of this. They’ve been beside me all along, two pillars, so that I wouldn’t fall too far. To watch them collapse against each other now, I know that I am strong enough to support myself.

  “Now, get out of here,” my grandmother says, completely composed. She gently pushes Eddie away. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Thank you, Grandma.” I kiss her on the cheek, then take Eddie’s hand in mine.

  From the stoop, I see Trina before Eddie does. She is walking down the sidewalk, Chuck beside her, pram proudly out in front. My first reaction is panic. I want to flee. Run back inside the house and hide.

  She spots me before I can make a plan of escape. “Lemon!” she yells and waves her arms as if we’re drifting out to sea.

  “Hey, Trina,” I say reluctantly.

  “Oh, Christ,” Eddie mutters beside me. “Just what we need.” He takes my hand, and we walk down the stairs together.

  Trina abandons the baby carriage and runs to greet us. She throws her arms around my neck and squeezes tight. “I haven’t seen you since,” she whispers in my ear, then stops.

  I’ll save her the trouble. I disentangle myself from her grip. “How’s the baby?” I ask.

  Trina beams at me. “Oh,” she says, full of reverence. “She’s so beautiful.”

  Chuck pushes the stroller closer to us. He even grins a little as Trina carefully pulls the blankets away from her daughter’s face.

  “Her name is Delilah,” Trina says. “Hello, Delilah, hello beautiful girl,” she coos.

  The baby blinks up at us with her unfocused blue-gray eyes. She has incredibly fat cheeks and a perfect little rosebud mouth with bubbles perched on her lips. She reaches out, and Eddie lays a finger in her gripping hand.

  “She is beautiful,” I say, and I mean it.

  Trina doesn’t take her eyes off Delilah. She looks genuinely happy, and as much as I’d like to begrudge her this contentment, I can’t. I have no idea what this child will bring into the world. Or how her experience with Trina for a mother and Chuck for a father will shape her. I have no idea what the bigger picture is. Call it luck or fate. Mine will come later.

  “Well,” I say. Even though I can be happy for Trina, I don’t want to linger over this kid. I’m still too fragile for such a thing. “It’s good to see you guys.”

  Trina turns to me. “You, too,” she says. “You take care.”

  Eddie takes my hand, and we walk away.

  At the end of the block, he slings his arm around my shoulders. “Were you okay with that?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s getting easier. How about you?”

  “It’s hard to be pissed off when you see a baby.”

  “She was pretty cute,” I say. “But I still like the name Nicotina better.” Eddie and I both laugh.

  We stroll down Smith Street, past all the new restaurants. Half of them are fake French bistros; two Indians sit side by side; a sushi shop and a burrito place share an awning.

  “How long do you think these places will last?” I ask Eddie.

  “I think they’ll do okay,” he says. “I was talking with one of my buyers the other day, and he said these neighborhoods have boomed. So many people are moving out here from Manhattan. It’s a great place to be trying something new, because the rent is still relatively cheap and people are hungry for great food.”

  “But don’t you think some of this stuff is too trendy? How many French bistros can one strip support?”

  “You know what this neighborhood needs?” Eddie asks me. “Something simple.”

  “A little rustic even,” I add.

  “I remember when we first started going out and we’d come over here to your grandmother’s, there were all kinds of old-school Italian restaurants. Family places.”

  “There’s a few left,” I point out. “But they’re not going to attract that Manhattan crowd. Those people want something more daring, more fresh. Butternut squash gnocchi or arugula ravioli.”

  Eddie stops and looks at me. “What would you call it?” he asks.

  “Call what?”

  “That restaurant you’re describing.”

  I laugh. “I’m not saying that.”

  “Come on,” he chides. “You’ve thought of a name already, haven’t you?”

  I face him in the middle of the sidewalk. We’re only a few blocks from the space I saw the other day. Eddie leans forward and watches me with a big grin. This is the look he gave me on the night I told him about my grand scheme for Lemon. The look that means he completely believes in me and he’s willing to do anything to help.

  “Poppy’s,” I tell him. “And I’ve found the perfect place.”

  “Show me,” he says and reaches for my hand again.

  I lead him down the street. “You should see the way the sun comes in the front windows,” I say. “And it has these wide-plank floors and exposed brick walls. I know exactly how I’d do it. There’d be an open kitchen. And no futzing around with the basics this time. I’d get a manager so I could just be head chef. I’d hire one sous-chef, some line cooks, and Makiko to do desserts. The menu would be simple. We’d have signature dishes and a few specials every night.”

  As we’re crossing the street in front of the building, I see the same realtor from the other day locking the door.

  “Hey,” I call out. “Excuse me. Wait.” I jog across the street, Eddie close behind me.

  She turns around, startled, and drops her keys.

  “Is this place still available?” I ask. Eddie presses his face against the window.

  “Yes,” she says eagerly as she retrieves her keys.

  “Lem, it’s great,” Eddie says. “I think it even has a garden.”

  “Can we see it?” I ask. “Right now?”

  She looks at her watch. “I only have about fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s fine,” I tell her.

  After we walk through, the realtor leaves us with hearty handshakes, her card, and all the specs. We promise to call her in the next few days after we sit down and look at the possibilities of financing the deal.

  “One of my stocks just split,” Eddie says as he paces in front of the building. “So I could easily generate some start-up cash. And according to the accountant, the finances at Lemon weren’t as bad as you thought. But this time, I really think you should hire a bookkeeper and a manager. It was too much for one person to handle. I could write up a business plan.” He stops and looks at me. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I always do this. It’s your place. I’m supposed to be a silent partner.”

  I look at Eddie, and my heart revs, my palms sweat, my mouth goes dry. I see the excitement in his eyes, the way he truly believes that I could pull off Poppy’s. I’m ready for
Eddie to truly be my partner. And I realize for the first time, that means I have to be willing to let him help rather than trying to prove that I can do everything myself. “I want you to be a part of this,” I tell him. “My full partner, not silent. But I’ll only do it on one condition.”

  “Okay, what?” he asks.

  I know without a doubt that this is what I want. I can’t explain my certainty, except to say that standing across from Eddie, I realize that I want him in my life. I don’t know that everything will always be okay between us. I don’t know that we will never go through more hard times. This restaurant could fail. Parents will die. Friends will come and go. We could lose another child. All I know is that whatever happens, I want Eddie with me.

  “You have to marry me first,” I say.

  The silly grin on his face dissolves, and he reaches out his hands to take me by the shoulders. He shakes his head, and I panic, certain I’ve made a mistake. Misread the situation. Irrevocably damaged our lives together with all the blunders I’ve made in the past few months. I can’t stand the thought of more hurt, and just as I’m ready to backpedal, to withdraw my offer and slink away into some other version of my life, Eddie pulls me close to him. He holds me against his body. “I can’t believe it,” he says. “Are you serious? Do you really want to marry me?”

  “Yes,” I say simply. I pull in his olive oil scent and wait for his answer, wait for this moment to define our lives.

  “Of course,” he says to me. “Of course I will.”

  Water Baby

  You reach out from the depths through murky cloudy water. Part the seaweed and jellyfish tendrils with your dry and brittle finger bones. Cross atolls and coral beds to get back to the river edge, where you thought you’d never go again. She waits for you.

  You recognize her instantly. That soul, a piece of you once, endlessly splitting and dividing the way only love can infinitely replicate itself while gaining strength. She is your daughter’s daughter who’s come to the water now.

  You emerge and taste the air, redolent with verdant life. Savor hints of what you had before. Then you lift that little lost soul from the shores and hold her as you once held your daughter. You whisper all the secrets of your time on earth. She tells you everything she was going to do in life. And in between was Lemon, the life you both missed. Now you know everything, before and after.

  The river crosses over from death to afterlife, but neither of you will make that trip. Together now, you wade into the deep. Let the water wash over you and carry you out again to the in-between where souls are never forgotten, but swim forever in the minds of those who love them.

  Up Close and Personal

  With the Author

  Okay, look, here’s the skinny. Most authors write their own back-of-the-book interviews. We try to come up with insightful questions and clever answers designed to clarify our work and foster an up-close-and-personal connection between our readers and ourselves. But I’m not going to do that here because frankly it makes me uncomfortable.

  If I wanted to tell you a lot about myself, I would write a memoir or a thinly veiled autobiography in the form of a first-person novel. That’s not what I do, though. I purposefully write fiction because it gives me a place to hide—behind characters and scenarios, inside narratives, crouching beneath the surface of the story. I also get to spy on people, eavesdrop shamelessly, steal stories, and adopt histories that are not my own. Yet I can pop up anywhere in a novel or fade away, and you, my dear reader, won’t know the difference. I do this because for me, fiction is a way to get at parts of life that aren’t accessible through a recounting of reality.

  Reality is so very messy. All loose ends, no clean clear arcs or tidy endings. So many superfluous details have to be stripped away, like peeling an artichoke, to make real life as palatable as a book. And then what’s left? The heart. I’m not so sure I want to lay myself bare like that.

  I could use these pages to tell you about how I write. What time I get up, where I find my inspiration, how long I sit at my little red desk every day. But honestly, none of that is very interesting. Besides, I think what you really want to know is how much of this book is true.

  Am I a chef? Are my parents dead? Are the experiences, attitudes, and feelings I portray my own? Am I writing from the heart?

  As for the last question, the answer is yes, I am writing from the heart. The story that I’ve told is very dear to me, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true. I will tell you, however, what’s not true.

  I didn’t grow up in Brooklyn. I was not raised by my grandmother and four nosy aunts. Nor do we have a weird old woman living in my family’s basement. I’ve never been a chef or worked in any restaurants in Europe, and my husband’s only relationship to olive oil is putting it on salad. I have no fruity nicknames, I’m not a blond, and I’ve never lived in the East Village of New York. I did, however, have a sweet little Italian grandmother and a large extended family in which food and love were inextricably intertwined.

  And yes, I am sidestepping the biggest question of them all. This book centers on the loss of a pregnancy. The isolation and hidden grief of that all-too-common experience that we skirt around and don’t address well in our tidy western world of happy babies and child rearing. By some estimates, nearly a third of all women who get pregnant will miscarry. For something that touches so many people (not just the women themselves, but their partners, family, and friends), there is very little literature or information out there. So I figured, why not write a book that deals honestly with one woman’s loss, hoping that it will bring some comfort or understanding or empathy to others?

  Of course this entire diatribe begs the question, have I experienced such a loss? The answer to that question, my dear reader, is in this book.