The Secret to Hummingbird Cake

by Celeste Fletcher McHale

  I looked at Jack and Elle and felt the familiar tug on my heart. I loved them both so much. I wondered for the millionth time how I had ever entertained the thought of leaving Jack. Laine had told me time after time after time how much Jack loved me. I know now that it was because she recognized what loving someone from afar looked like. She was, in many ways, the wisest person I had ever known. I had been too full of pride and arrogance to see my husband was hurting. All I knew was he wasn’t paying attention to me. Laine always knew it wasn’t another woman. Laine . . .

  “You coming inside, Mommy?” Jack asked. “It’s getting cool out here.”

  “In a few minutes, okay?”

  “Sure, baby.” He kissed me again. “Take your time.” He took Elle inside and left me in the porch swing.

  Sweet Jack. He’d been so good to me since Laine died. We didn’t talk too much about the Lexi drama. I had asked a few questions, but a very few. He answered them truthfully and thoroughly, and I was satisfied. He never asked me anything about Romeo, although I had assured him I would tell him whatever he wanted to know. Mostly we felt an abundance of gratitude. Things could’ve turned out so much different. Laine and Mitch taught us that.

  Jack was unbelievably patient when I ranted and raved about God and his logic. He was always attentive and understanding when I got in these occasional blue moods, like the one I was in today. I think the general consensus was that I needed to take a little something like Prozac until I could get past the first few months. But I knew it wasn’t depression. It wasn’t even sadness. I knew Laine was happy where she was and that part didn’t sadden me at all. It was more like I was on a quest for an answer. Why did Laine die? What possible good could come from it? Would I ever make peace with it? I needed resolution. I needed it to make sense. But the more I groped for an answer, the more the answer eluded me. So frustrating.

  I gazed across the street at her house and pictured her in the yard, spraying a speck of dirt off her bike, watering flowers, waving to me. I still had a hard time imagining anyone there but her. Mrs. Jeannette had mentioned putting Laine’s house on the market a few weeks ago, and I had become so frantic that Jack bought it. He walked in one evening after work, gave me a kiss, and handed me the deed. The relief had been tremendous, and I had thanked him constantly for days. I still had no idea what we’d do with it, but for now, just owning it was enough.

  Ella Rae and I sometimes walked over and sat in the empty living room. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was certainly an emotional thing. I don’t think a day had passed since Laine died that Ella Rae didn’t sob at least once. I fretted and paced and the questions continued to hound me, but I didn’t cry. In fact, I hadn’t cried since the day of the funeral.

  I laid my head on the pillow of the porch swing. I still went about my life. I loved my baby and my husband and I put one foot in front of the other. I did what I was supposed to do. Yet when people offered condolences, I could hardly stand it.

  Especially the ones who said, “Some things just can’t be explained,” or “God’s timing is perfect.” What the hell did that even mean? I knew they meant well, but in reality I wanted to slap them all. Why say anything to me at all if you’re only going to frustrate me more? Of course, that was wrong too. They were just trying to help.

  I supposed this was just what happened when you were grieving. The mood swings, I mean. Some days, every memory was funny and heartwarming and comforting. Other days, like today, I was mad and discouraged and confused and the memories I clung to were unclear and unfocused. I was horrified that one day they would fade altogether. On days like today, her absence enveloped my world and all that was in it. I hated these days. They usually began with me telling God about all the people in the world who didn’t deserve to take another breath. Pedophiles, serial killers, and people who were mean to animals still walked around laughing and talking and living, yet he took Laine? It made no sense to me. Where was the logic in that? If I lived to be one hundred, I would never understand it and God still wasn’t talking. I started to wonder if he was even there at all. I needed an explanation, something tangible to make her death reasonable. I needed somebody to say to me, “Laine died so global warming would subside,” or “Laine died so there would be peace in the Middle East,” or even, “Laine died so teenagers would no longer suffer from acne.”

  Something. Anything. I had to have some answers, but I had no idea where to start. Church left me even more confused and sad. I couldn’t sit there without thinking of that awful mahogany box that was now covered in dirt. And I certainly couldn’t linger on that thought for long. Mama had sent Reverend Martin over a few times, even though she’d denied doing it, but he’d only made me feel guilty when he said I should never question God. I had toyed with the idea of consulting a medium, but Ella Rae nearly fainted at the thought. Such a Baptist.

  So I mostly just sat in this swing and pondered. I’d even grown to hate the word ponder. Sometimes I looked up at the night sky and asked Laine if she was there. If she was in the paradise she was so certain about. But like God, she didn’t answer.

  Enough. I got up and peered through the window to my living room. Jack and Elle were sitting on the floor playing, and once again, I physically felt my love for both of them. The questions about Laine would still be here tomorrow. I went inside to join my family.

  The next morning was cold and rainy, and I loved snuggling in bed with Jack on days like this. Elle would sleep for twelve straight hours, usually from eight p.m. to eight a.m. Everyone told me what a blessing that was and spoke of horror stories about their children and their sleeping habits. Charlotte Freeman said neither of her kids had ever slept through the night and they were three and four. I couldn’t imagine. Elle’s nocturnal habits left an awful lot of time for her father and me to reconnect and, boy, did we reconnect. Jack was trying his best to reconnect this morning, but I slapped his hand when he slipped it under the covers.

  “No,” I said, laughing, “she’ll be awake in five minutes!”

  “All I need is three,” he said, nuzzling my neck.

  “Then, hell no.” I laughed again and scooted away from him. As if on cue, Elle began moving in her bed beside us. “See?” I said.

  “I’m gonna have to have a talk with this girl,” Jack said and leaned over me to pick her up.

  “About guys like you,” I said. “Ugh . . . you’re squashing me.”

  “Good morning, little one,” he said to Elle as she rubbed her sleepy eyes and smiled.

  She squealed appropriately and flailed her legs.

  Jack got up and changed her diaper, then got back in bed, depositing Elle between us. She laughed and cooed and smiled and then demanded her breakfast. She was such a happy baby. I loved mornings like this. My blue moods never made an appearance during these moments.

  “Are you going to work?” I asked, hoping he’d say no.

  “Nah,” he answered. “Not much going on, and it’s cold and rainy and I’d rather spend today here.”

  “Yay!” I said to Elle. “Daddy’s hanging with us today!”

  Jack began rubbing my thigh. “How much longer until she takes a nap?” he asked and winked at me.

  “You are awful!” I accused, but his hand sure felt good on my thigh. I bit my lip. “After lunch.”

  A knock on the front door interrupted our fun. “I’ll go,” Jack said.

  Elle had finished nursing, and I was buttoning my shirt when Jack came back into the bedroom with a huge box in his arms and a strange expression on his face.

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s addressed to you and Ella Rae . . . from Laine.”

  I stared at him. “What
do you mean?”

  He put the box on the chaise and gestured toward it. “See for yourself.”

  I picked Elle up and walked over to look. Jack was right. It was addressed to Ella Rae and me, at my street number. It was Laine’s impeccable handwriting. The return address read, Laine E. Landry, Heaven. I continued to stare at it, but I didn’t touch it.

  “What is this?”

  Jack put his arm around me. “I don’t know, sweetheart,” he said. “The UPS man brought it, not the Archangel Michael. Are you all right?”

  I didn’t answer and just continued to look at the box with curiosity. Of course I knew the Archangel Michael didn’t bring it, just as I knew it hadn’t come from heaven as the return address suggested. But where had it come from? And where had it been? Who had sent it? What was in it?

  Jack took Elle from me. “Listen,” he said, “Elle’s already had breakfast. We have three or four hours of cushion. I’ll get her dressed and take her out to the Farm with me. Why don’t you call Ella Rae and open the box together?”

  I shook my head and sat on the chaise beside the box. “Okay,” I said. I reached for the phone and called Ella Rae. She promised to arrive in fifteen minutes.

  Jack and Elle hadn’t been gone long when Ella Rae busted through the front door. “Where is it?”

  I pointed to the box. “There.”

  She folded her arms and stood beside it, inspecting it without touching. “What’s in it?

  “I don’t know, Ella Rae,” I said. “I obviously haven’t opened it.”

  “You have no clue what’s inside it?”

  “Do you see an X-ray machine?”

  “You are such a smart ass,” she said.

  “And you’re a dumb ass,” I said. “You see the box is still taped shut.”

  She poked at the box with a pen from Jack’s desk.

  I stared at her wondering once again what it was like to live in her world. “Laine ain’t in the box, Rae,” I said.

  “Yes, I know,” she said. “Open it.”

  “You open it.”

  “It’s addressed to you.”

  “It’s addressed to both of us.”

  “But it’s got your street number on it,” she explained. “She must’ve wanted you to open it. If she’d wanted me to open it, then it would’ve had my street number on it, but the UPS man doesn’t come to my part of town until after lunch. Especially on rainy days . . . but sometimes he comes around noon if—”

  “Oh, shut up, Ella Rae,” I said as our conversation took a familiar turn to the ridiculous. “Go get me a knife from the kitchen.”

  She ran out of the bedroom and was back a few seconds later with the largest knife in my house.

  I took it from her. “We aren’t skinning a hog, Rae,” I said.

  “It was the first one I saw.”

  We stood in front of the box and looked at each other for a moment.

  “This is so stupid,” I said finally. “I don’t know what we think is in there.” I began cutting the tape from the top as Ella Rae peered over to get the first look. When I pulled the top apart, at least six or seven spring snakes flew out of it in every direction. We screamed in unison and jumped up and down.

  I picked up one of the snakes and flung it across the room in a fit of hysterical laughter.

  “Almost gave me a heart attack!” I said, my hand on my chest. My heart beat wildly.

  “Why did she do that?” Ella Rae said. “If she wasn’t dead, I’d kill her!”

  Inside the box was a big white sheet of poster board. She’d written, “Gotcha! LOL! LOL! LOL!” in big purple letters with smiley faces all over.

  I wiped at the laughter tears and looked back into the box. There was a huge leather-bound book on top. It appeared to be some sort of journal. I took it out of the box carefully and laid it on the bed. Two more just like it were underneath. I opened the first one. I read the inscription aloud. “For Carrigan, with your fiery spirit and huge personality, you took me places I never could have gone without you. When you ask why, and I know you will, pick up this gift. I love you always and I’ll see you again. Laine.”

  I looked at Ella Rae, who was, of course, crying, and handed her the next journal. She opened it, wiped her eyes, and read hers aloud too. “For Ella Rae, with your childlike innocence and mean right hook, you showed me what it was like to love someone so much, you’d fight for them. Literally. When you cry, and I know you will, pick up this gift. I love you and I’ll see you again. Laine.”

  We both began to flip through the pages, filled with pictures from grammar school until our time at the Farm, just months ago. Laine had filled both books with ticket stubs, napkins, notes, matchbooks, a program from a school play, a piece of the uniforms we’d worn when we’d won the state softball championship. Pieces of our lives were scattered across every page, and she’d written something under every memento. We sat on the bed and compared our books, relived moments, laughed, and remembered. I was amazed. The book was huge and it was full.

  “This is what she did in her room all that time,” I said.

  “You’re right,” Ella Rae agreed. “I am sure it is.”

  We both sat in silence on my bed and continued looking at our books, comparing things, laughing at things, marveling in the amount of time Laine had obviously spent putting these together. Trying to guess where the box had come from. Who had sent it, where had it been? We must’ve sat there an hour and a half just remembering. Everything she’d attached to the book had a story with it. When I finally reached the last page, there was Laine’s perfect penmanship again, this time a letter, or a long note, I guess you’d say. This one I read in silence.

  An American writer, Rita Mae Brown wrote, “I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me, but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss.” I know you are struggling with my death. But it’s been six months, and that’s long enough to bang your head against the wall.

  Please don’t even try to deny that. I’ve seen you do it a thousand times when you can’t rationalize something. Not everything makes sense. You go round and round and round until it makes you nuts. Stop! To use a phrase you have always despised, “it is what it is.” I want you to remember me, but I don’t want you to get lost in remembering.

  Feed a stray dog when you get lonesome for me. Check on some of the older ladies in town who have no help when you get lonesome for me. Or better yet, go to church. I bet you haven’t been twice since the funeral. I’m not in the casket, Carrigan, and I’m not at the cemetery . . . I never was. Now, go live, and stop obsessing on this.

  I’m so proud of you, of the mother you are and the wife you have become. (And oh, about Jack . . . I hate to say I told you so . . . but . . . I told you so!) By the way, how’d you like the song at the funeral? Okay, that was a cheap shot, but it was our song. I had to.

  Take care of your family. Take care of Rae and Tommy, and take care of yourself. I love you.

  Always, Laine

  I swept my fingers across the written words. I opened my mouth to read them to Ella Rae and then stopped. I wouldn’t share them yet. I knew I would one day, but not today. Today I wanted to keep them to myself and read them over and over and over. Besides, Ella Rae was reading her own note, and smiling . . . and crying.

  I flipped the book over to the back and was surprised to find something inscribed into the leather. It was a recipe . . . for Hummingbird Cake. I quickly scanned the ingredients, hoping to find the ever elusive spice I was sure she had protected even until her death. But it was all ordinary items. Flour. Sugar. Salt. Pineap
ple. Bananas. But then I saw it, at the bottom of the book, an asterisk. It read, “The secret to Hummingbird Cake is I only made it for people I loved. Perhaps yours tasted the best because I loved you and Ella Rae most of all.”

  In a moment that stunned, I realized that the journal in my lap had done more than give me mementos of our adored Laine and our cherished time together. I felt . . . untroubled . . . maybe for the first time in years. Had God just answered a thousand questions? I was unexpectedly filled with an abundance of gratitude for having known Laine at all. I had been most fortunate to have her in my life—not everyone had a Laine—and so much more. I looked around me, at my home, the pictures of my family, of Jack, of my baby. I looked at Ella Rae sitting beside me quietly thumbing through her own journal. To say God had blessed me would forever be an understatement.

  Laine had been our voice of reason. She’d been our calm during a storm. She’d been our conscience and constant companion . . . and now she’d become our comforter. Memories that had been foggy in my mind were suddenly as real as the journal I was holding, and they flooded my soul like the tears that were finally flowing freely once again from my eyes. It was the sweetest release I had ever felt. I grabbed Ella Rae’s sandpaper hand and kissed it. I could hear Laine’s laughter. I could see her face. I could feel her around us. I realized that day, sitting on my bed with Ella Rae, that even though Laine wasn’t across the street, or sitting beside us, her spirit surrounded us and it always would. Laine lived on every day. She was just somewhere else.

  And the peace and acceptance that had eluded me for months was delivered to me in a box from heaven.

  EPILOGUE

  Some things never change; such is life in a small town.

  Otis is still on the street corner by the post office when I go into town, nursing his ever-present forty-ounce beer. I still have to steer Elle away from Miss Lucy at the ballpark for fear she’ll swat at her. Bethany Wilkes is dressed impeccably every time I see her, even if her clothes are several sizes larger now. I’m guessing that bakery thing worked out after all.