The Secret to Hummingbird Cake

by Celeste Fletcher McHale

I held her up to Jack, and he carefully took her from my arms. I’d only seen Jack cry once in my life, when his grandfather died. Watching him hold our daughter for the first time was one of the sweetest moments of my life. Like me, he just stared at her.

  Ella Rae finally hobbled over to us and rolled her eyes. “I am so embarrassed,” she said.

  Laine and I both laughed, finally breaking up the tear fest.

  “In the immortal words of Tommy Weeks,” Laine said, “it ain’t a party till somebody hits the floor.”

  “I just couldn’t take all that grunting and pushing business,” Ella Rae said. “I’m glad that’s over.”

  “The show was tough on you, huh?” I made a face. “You should’ve been in my seat.”

  “I was fine until that first . . . thing came out.”

  “What thing?”

  “I don’t know what it was,” Ella Rae said disgustedly. “There was stuff coming out of you all night!”

  I was horrified. “Tell me you didn’t take pictures.”

  “Take pictures?” she said. “I couldn’t even look.”

  “Thank God!” Ella Rae was the official photographer for the event, but I had told her repeatedly not to get anything that showed me in a less than flattering light. Meaning, don’t snap pictures of my business.

  “By the way, Carrigan,” Laine said, “you had some pretty harsh words for me tonight. I was only trying to help.”

  “Seriously?” I said. “I expected you to start turning cartwheels any minute. You were like an NFL cheerleader. It was very annoying.”

  “I actually thought at one point you were gonna take a swing at me.”

  “Too much energy,” I said, “or I would’ve.”

  “Look,” Laine whispered. She pointed at Jack and the baby by the window. He was holding her close to his face and whispering. She looked as if she were watching him and understanding every word. Ella Rae, thankfully, had the presence of mind to snap a picture of it. Jack just kept on whispering.

  “I told you what kind of man Jack Whitfield was, didn’t I?” Laine said softly.

  I smiled and wiped at the tears. “Yes, you did,” I agreed. “You always did.”

  “Okay, okay,” Ella Rae said, “that’s enough of the Little House on the Prairie crap. Bring us the baby, Daddy!”

  Jack walked over and handed her to Laine. “Hi, baby,” she said. I had to look away. I was intensely aware of this moment between my daughter and my best friend.

  “Her name is . . .” I faltered. “Jack, tell them. I can’t do it without blubbering.”

  “Ladies, meet Ella Laine Whitfield,” Jack said.

  Their jaws dropped. “Are you serious?” Ella Rae asked.

  Laine pursed her lips together in an effort not to cry.

  “We’ll call her Elle,” I said.

  “Hi, Baby Elle,” Laine said. “I’m your Aunt Lainie.” She kissed her face lightly. “You are such a pretty girl. I love you already. I have so much I want to tell you.” She paused and kissed her again. “So much to say and not so much time.”

  That cut us all like a knife. I was physically exhausted from the birth, and I was emotionally and mentally exhausted by the explosion of feelings that flooded my heart and my mind. I was still in awe of the wonder of her birth just minutes ago. How she was just a promise, and suddenly she was real and breathing and mine.

  Then I was crushed by the reminder of how fragile life is. When Laine told my child hello and good-bye in the same breath. This bubble we’d been living in was delicate and precious, but bubbles don’t last forever.

  “There are a lot of people outside waiting to meet you, little girl,” one of the nurses said. “There must be thirty people out there.”

  “Y’all better take her out there, Jack,” I said. “The family will be dying to see her.”

  Laine gave the baby back to Jack, and he held her close to my face for a kiss. “Tell Mommy we’ll be right back. We just gotta meet some people.”

  I kissed her and adjusted the blanket around her little face. “Don’t stay out there too long,” I said. “And don’t let anybody hold her . . . She’s . . . little, you know?”

  Jack smiled. “Already turned Mama Bear?”

  They slipped out the door to introduce my daughter to her family, to all the people who would love her and mold her and shape her into a woman one day. I could already imagine how loved she was going to be. Laine’s heartbreaking and heartwarming words to my baby played over and over in my mind. Not so much time. I began to cry.

  Doctor Davis stood by my bed and put his hand on my arm. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s a happy time, Carrigan,” he said. “Don’t look down the road right now, just look at today. She’s a beautiful, healthy baby. Concentrate on what you have.”

  “Thank you, for everything,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.” He patted my shoulder. “They will get you to a room shortly, and I’ll be around in the morning to check on you.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to follow his advice. He was right. Of course there was so much to be thankful for. And I was thankful.

  Much later that night I woke up and realized I had managed to hold on to that thought. I opened my eyes to see Jack sitting by the window holding Elle and telling her what a big world there was outside. He told her there were ponies to ride and wagons to pull and puppies to love. And then he said the most beautiful thing of all: “Daddy waited a long time for you, little girl.” I drifted back to sleep happier and more at peace than I’d been in a very long time.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We brought baby Elle home two days later to a house full of people. I was a nervous wreck. I wanted everybody in the house to provide me their full medical history including a report on the last time they sneezed. I didn’t say that, of course, but I had a buffet of assorted hand sanitizers available for all the germ-laden people salivating to hold my baby. You would think they were a horde of strangers fresh from the CDC instead of Elle’s grandparents and family.

  This new, strange, and overpowering need to protect had taken me by complete surprise. Every time someone passed her to another pair of hands, I envisioned them as a petri dish swimming with the most horrible diseases ever known, including the plague and something that made your head explode. I’d seen that one on a horror film when I was fourteen.

  As I watched my daddy fumble with Elle’s pacifier, I wondered if he’d been working in his garden this morning, if he’d used fertilizer, if he’d washed his hands afterward. Suddenly, Elle grew a third hand in my head. I took a deep breath.

  “Hey,” Laine said, “come see.” She held her hand out to me.

  I looked back at my daddy, who was now holding the pacifier by the bulb. I almost died. Luckily, Jack took it and said, “Here, let me try.” I had given Jack the “don’t you dare put your nasty fingers on her binky” speech last night at the hospital. Jack had been thoroughly briefed on the importance of clean hands.

  “I don’t know if I should leave,” I said.

  “Carrigan,” she said, “come on. We’re only going to the kitchen. She’ll be ten feet away. If there’s an outbreak of chicken pox, we’ll have time to save her. Now, come on. Follow me.”

  Ella Rae was waiting in the kitchen and smiling at me when I walked in. She stepped away from the huge island and there sat a Hummingbird Cake under a glass dome. I squealed and threw my arms around Laine.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  Laine laughed. “You are very welcome. I hope it’s as good as you think it is.”

  “Oh
, it will be,” Ella Rae said. “She wouldn’t let me cut it until you got here. I’ve been mad at her all day.”

  “Ella Rae,” Laine said, “you didn’t have a baby.”

  “If that’s the ticket, I better eat two pieces of this one.” Laine and I laughed.

  “What are we waiting on, ladies?” I hurried to the cabinet to get a plate and grabbed a fork and knife on the way. I lifted the glass dome and closed my eyes. “Ahhhh . . .” I could smell that cream cheese frosting and the toasted pecans sprinkled on top. I couldn’t wait to taste it and cut a large slice. The first bite was everything I knew it would be. Pineapple, banana, the faint taste of cinnamon and something . . . something I just could never put my finger on. But today I wasn’t going to try. Today I was just going to enjoy this cake. Period.

  I licked a sliver of icing off my finger. “Laine,” I said, “you’ve outdone yourself this time.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Ella Rae said as she enjoyed her first bite.

  Laine smiled. “It’s the exact same recipe,” she said.

  I shook my head. “No, this time it’s better than ever. It must have more of the secret ingredient.”

  “Carrigan,” she said, “about that secret—”

  I put up my hand. “I get it. I’m not going to ask any more. I promise. I just want you to know, using more was the key. This is the best Hummingbird Cake you have ever made.”

  She smiled. “Maybe so.”

  We quickly fell into a routine at the Farm. Elle was a good baby during the day. She nursed, stayed awake for a little while, and then slept again. She had quickly become the light and the center of my life, and everybody else’s life too. And I had stopped making every one boil themselves before they touched her.

  Then six weeks later, things changed. Every night at two a.m. the den became the site of the Nightly Colic Festival, and the whole house got up for the party. They didn’t really have another choice. I don’t know where the child got her set of lungs, but they were strong, I assure you.

  Everybody had their own version of what would work. Poppa Jack usually took the first swing, walking her around showing her pictures and telling her stories. Then Mrs. Diane would take her into the parlor and play the piano while Elle sat in the bouncy chair. Laine would join them and sing every children’s song she could come up with. Ella Rae never took a turn, but sat miserably in a chair and marveled at the volume of Elle’s screams. Jack thought taking her on the porch was the magic trick, and when I finally got to hold her, I rocked her and waited it out. Some nights they all tried to send me back to bed. Tonight I had taken them up on the offer.

  I lay in bed thinking about how drastically my life had changed. Just a year ago I was running around, chasing my tail, looking for something I couldn’t identify. I had been scared to death Jack would make a fool out of me before I could make one out of him. We’d never finished our conversation about what happened between us. But it didn’t matter any more. After Laine got sick, I became intensely aware that the only day that mattered was this one, right here, right now.

  Besides, even if he was guilty of everything I ever suspected, I had made a terrible and irrevocable choice during that time too. And I didn’t ever want to think of it again. But that was easier said than done. I had tried many, many times to file it, tuck it away, bury it. But sooner or later, it would pop up again. And it wasn’t just my indiscretion that weighed me down. I had a surplus of negative emotions swimming around inside me every day. Guilt. Regret. Sorrow. Anger. But there was nothing I could do about any of them right now. My focus had to stay on Laine, and most of the time it did. Thank God for this house full of unconditional love.

  Being at the Farm was like being safely tucked away in our own little corner of the world, like being wrapped in a cocoon where nothing and no one could ever touch us. I rarely even made the trip into Bon Dieu Falls any more, and when I did it was brief and necessary. I didn’t even go to my parents’ house too much because they were in and out of here all the time too. All I needed was already here and nothing could hurt us, bother us, or threaten us. Of course, that was nothing more than a brittle illusion that I clung to like a life raft. I shuddered to think one day soon something bad was going to happen.

  The Farm might have been a cocoon holding us safely and keeping the outside at bay, but that protection didn’t apply to Laine. She was frail and in more pain now. She would have to stop and catch her breath if she climbed the stairs or walked the length of the porch. And it wasn’t like she could hide it any more. She only talked about her medical issues with Debra and Mrs. Jeannette, so there was no use questioning her, but there was no way to ignore it either. She took her meds more often, she napped more often, and she ate less food. She’d lost interest in most everything except Elle and whatever she did in her bedroom when she disappeared for hours at a time.

  One day Ella Rae and I confronted her and asked the dreaded question: “Don’t you want to go back to the hospital, at least for a checkup with Doctor Rougeau?”

  “For what?” she said. “What’s he gonna do? Take an X-ray and tell me I’m dying?”

  Since last summer, when we found out I was pregnant, we had started taking pictures. Lots of them. It had been Laine’s idea. She wanted the baby to have pictures of her, and she wanted me to pick out my favorites so we could use them at her funeral.

  The funeral. Right. Discussing funeral plans was like planning a holiday. Food, decorations, guest list.

  “Do not,” Laine said, “I repeat, do not let anyone see me after I’m gone. The family, okay, but no one else. You got it? Slam that thing shut and leave it that way. I won’t be there anyway. I’ll be in heaven.” I tried to find comfort in the idea of heaven and a loving God, but it was no good.

  My mother always told me to pray—about the baby, about Laine’s cancer. When Elle was born, I knew she was a blessing, a heaven-sent blessing. And I was thankful for her, but still I wanted nothing to do with God or prayer.

  All my life I had been taught stuff like, “Everything happens for a reason,” or “Something good always comes from something bad,” or “God’s timing is always perfect.”

  I accepted that, up to a point. After all, I had lost the grandparents I loved so much, I had lost aunts and uncles, and I had grieved for each of them. But they had lived their lives. That was the way it was supposed to happen. Not like this. Not snatched out of the game in the fourth inning.

  What possible reason could God have for taking Laine? She was a gift to everyone who knew her, not just to Ella Rae and me. The children she’d taught in the past still loved her. They’d run up to her to say hello everywhere we went. She was a huge part of our church, not a sporadic part of it like I was. She was kind and gentle and wise. So how could God justify this move? And how was I ever supposed to forgive him for it?

  I was raised in the Deep South where God, family, and country were the other Holy Trinity right next to onions, bell peppers, and celery. My parents had taken me to church all my life, and after I grew up, I went on my own, even if it was hit and miss. But I was beginning to question all those things that had been drilled into me since I was small. Was life truly all a part of some grand design? Was God sitting up in the sky with a clipboard and a red pen keeping score and rolling dice? “You live, you die, and you I haven’t decided on”? Or was it all just some huge. random crapshoot? I truly didn’t know what I believed any more. Another manila folder in my rapidly growing filing cabinet.

  I went back to sorting pictures and picked up one of Laine swinging around a column on the front porch. It had been taken last fall. I could see all the mums blooming in the background. She had a huge smile on her face and looked healthy. And happy. Really happy. It captured her perfectly. This was the picture we’d use as the centerpiec
e at the funeral. I’d have it enlarged and framed, and we would set it on the table beside her at church. Tears came freely now, spilling down my face. I didn’t even really notice them and didn’t bother to wipe them. They were nearly as natural as breathing these days, and I had accepted them as normal. I set the picture on my nightstand and flipped off the light, very aware of the significance of the decision I’d just made.

  I woke up at ten a.m. I couldn’t believe I had slept that long. I would’ve probably slept longer too, but my milk had soaked my shirt. Whoever the winner of the “I’m holding Elle” contest was today must’ve used frozen breast milk.

  I went downstairs in search of my family and couldn’t find a soul, not even Mamie. But I could hear laughter coming from the porch and followed the sound. I peered out the bay window. They had a regular living room set up outside. Elle’s bassinet, Laine’s chaise, and Mrs. Diane’s settee from the sunporch were all on the big porch now. This porch was well shaded and the outdoor ceiling fans kept it cool. The tea service was beside the front door and was full of Mamie’s pastries and her signature cinnamon rolls. I reached for one but thought better of it and put it back. I only had five more pounds of baby weight left to lose, and I was determined to get rid of it. I poured a cup of tea, skipped the sugar, and went outside.

  “Good morning, Mommy,” Mrs. Diane said and turned Elle around so I could see her.

  “Good morning, my baby,” I said, put my tea down, and took her from her grandmother. I still fell in love with her all over again every morning as soon as I saw her. I kissed her little pouty baby lips and nuzzled her neck. She smelled so good. How did I ever do something this right?

  I walked to the end of the porch and into the morning sun, careful to shield her eyes from it. It was a beautiful morning, and the sky was a bright and brilliant blue. Elle scrunched her little body up and made those baby grunt sounds I loved so much. It was the middle of May, and the temperatures were still in the lower eighties. I loved this time of year, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before the Louisiana humidity would make it impossible to sit out here with the baby. For the thousandth time in the last few months, I wished I could freeze the moment.