by Jen Nails
Nobody knew how to answer that one. I wondered how many times Auntie Gina had tried. She did again today:
“James is having a hard time.”
“Me too,” said Mom. Auntie Gina took Mom’s hand.
“Steffy,” said Auntie Gina, “you and Nina go and tell Helen that the bars are almost ready and ask if it’s okay to share with everyone, okay?”
As me and Nina walked back down hallway D, I thought about how baking with Mom was something that was only in stories about me that Auntie Gina told. Like how some of the Grandpa Falcon memories were only in pictures. And how the time we spent actually living with Jean Sawyer for a little while was something that I knew happened, but I was too little to really remember. It must have been a big deal for her to have these two kids actually live with her in her house, and I couldn’t even tell one thing about it.
Later, when me and Nina were lifting Jeannie Beannie’s Lemon Bars out of the pan with spatulas, I thought about how Jean Sawyer may have known me better than I ever realized. How all the things that she might have remembered about me were now gone with her. How selfish and mean it was for me to think of her like that now that she had died. How I wished I had talked to her more when she was alive; how I wished I had not been so shy.
Keep Cooking, Hot Stuff
We brought the lemon bars to the family party (what else do you call it—there’s food and laughter and people hugging) after Jean Sawyer’s funeral. It was weird to think of Jean Sawyer having a mom and a dad and brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, and it made me feel nervous and out of place there, to think that she was closer to all of them than she was to me. But she was still my Jean Sawyer, who baked better than me, who saw us every Sunday, who knew me from when I was a baby.
Jean Sawyer’s mom and dad sat in wheelchairs side by side holding hands, and you could just tell those were two of the best people in the world. Someone got everyone’s attention, and her dad told us all how grateful they were that we came and celebrated Jeannie. How they knew she was resting peacefully and that they could let her go.
After the speech, when everyone at the party was talking again and there was even lots of laughter, I saw Dad go up and kneel by Jean’s parents and talk to them a lot. I got this tight feeling in my chest, thinking, should I go talk to them too? No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t know what to say. And then somehow, something was telling me just go, just go, and then I was going over there and kneeling down, just like I saw my dad do.
“Hi there, missy,” said Jean’s dad.
“Hi,” I said. “We made lemon bars in honor of Jean.”
“Yes, I saw that. Thank you,” said Jean’s mom.
“We . . . loved Jean,” I said.
The dad nodded and put his hand on my head, and said, “Just keep cooking, hot stuff.”
I was thinking about what church says about how if you were good, you get to go to heaven when you die. But Lisa says there is no heaven. She says you come back to Earth as a puppy or another person and have another life. I don’t think I’d like that, being a puppy. Lisa says that even though you die, you keep getting to come back to live more and more. I sent off a little message to wherever Jean Sawyer was and told her hi. I pretended like she said hi back. I had never known anyone who’d died before, and I decided that in my version of dying, you could talk to the person and they could hear you. I only wished they could talk back.
That night I was pulling the covers up over me and lying down when this crashing, staticky sound came from my dresser. The lunar-talkie.
“Oh my gosh,” I said out loud, and bounded off my bed.
“. . . No, I didn’t think you would have,” said Dad’s voice. Then a sound like shhhhhhhhh . . . and then silence. And then another shhhhhhhhh noise. Then more talking. It was Carol.
“But you’re not the first person to say something like that.”
“It’s all of it hitting you, you know?” Dad said. “I’d betrayed everyone. I’d missed holidays, birthdays, funerals—my uncle died, and I didn’t even know it.”
Shhhhhhhhh.
“. . . up everything. And that morning,” he said, “it was so quiet. There were no waves.”
Shhhhhhhhh. More of that static. And then nothing. Darn it. It sounded like it even switched off somehow. I pressed and pressed On, and nothing. There was that same speeding-up feeling in me from when I got the idea to bring polenta to Mom. My motor was running and I flew downstairs in my T-shirt and sweats as fast as I could. The kitchen was totally dark and I left the lights off, and I climbed as carefully as I could up onto the counter by the sink. Dad had cracked the kitchen window and there was a breeze coming in, making the curtains billow out into my face a little bit.
From out front I heard Carol coughing. Then two clicks of her cigarette lighter.
“In the actual sand,” Dad said. “I don’t know about the night before. But there I was, stretched out in Santa Monica. It hits you in the morning, always. You come crashing down. I’d made bad choices, I’d betrayed everyone in my life who cared anything about me. I’d stood in front of the world and screwed up.”
“Yes, sir,” said Carol, “I know those mornings.”
I was so close to them I could hear the crackle of her cigarette while I guessed she was taking a big breathe-in on it, and then she blew out the smoke.
“It was so quiet,” Dad said. “It didn’t seem normal the ocean could be that quiet. Minimal waves. Nobody else as far as I could see. I thought about it. I’d get in and wade out farther and farther and farther and just . . . go down. . . .”
I was lying on the counter on my stomach, holding myself up by my elbows, leaning in so close to the window, and then my elbow slid out from under me and I banged my chin right on the faucet.
A blast of pain shot right up my whole jaw. “Uhhh,” I said.
They stopped talking.
There was a kind of electric current going in my chest, and I flopped down from the counter and ran as fast as I could back upstairs, into my room, closed the door, and threw the covers over me. My heart was pounding in my ears and my my chin was throbbing.
What if they’d heard? Maybe they’d think I had just gone down for water or something. I waited a few seconds. No Dad footsteps coming upstairs. Another few seconds. Nothing. I started breathing more normally. I pressed on my chin and it ached.
What did he do after he thought about going down in the water? I didn’t want to know but I did want to know. I lay there in bed for a long, long time holding on to Wiley and staring at the shadows on my wall, wondering what Dad and Carol were saying right then.
Just Lemon Water
When I got down to the kitchen again that night, I knew I wouldn’t eat. Even though I thought I’d heard Dad come up to bed after a while, I peeked out the front window anyway just to check if they might still be there. The porch light was off and there was no one outside.
There were so many dark things weighing on me, and I knew a middle-of-the-night snack wouldn’t do anything to help. Still, I had to do something, so I got out a lemon left over from the lemon bars to just squeeze into a glass of water. I couldn’t stop thinking about Dad on the beach, about Jean, and about Mom.
If Mom had died in that accident, she wouldn’t get to be on Earth. She wouldn’t get to play games and read the newspaper and do those puzzles. Maybe she would be in heaven, or maybe she would be somebody else or a dog. She wouldn’t get to play the piano for Helen. She wouldn’t get to see me and Nina or eat what we brought her that she used to make us.
But if she had died in that accident, maybe she would remember me from wherever she was. And maybe she could hear me when I talked to her. And I could let her go.
It’s Time for Chicken Parmesan
There was something that had to happen. I didn’t know what would happen when it happened, but it had to happen. Maybe it was Jean Sawyer’s dying that did it. Maybe it gave all of us that feeling of how everything is only for a little while and you kind of ha
ve to do things that you mean to do “someday” right now, because there may not even be a “someday.”
Nina had said something to me about it before I could say it to her. Maybe Dad read our minds a little bit and got nervous or something, because the day after the funeral and family party he came home from work and went right upstairs with a McDonald’s bag. The next night we cornered him with chicken Parmesan that he wolfed down just like we thought he would.
Dinner went like this:
Nina said, “Dad, we have to talk to you.”
He put down his fork and looked at the table.
“Well,” she said, “you should know that Mom asked . . . if you were dead.”
My sister, my brave, brave sister was being nice when she said it. Turns out we didn’t even have to ask it. Dad smoothed his hair back from his forehead and nodded and said, “It’s time, I know.” And we knew what he knew. We knew it was time. He was coming home early, he was going to work every day, we hadn’t smelled beer breath on him in a while. There were no stashes in the fridge. At all.
It had to be time.
How to Make Cinnamon Rolls
Lisa said sometimes a thing just pulls you toward it. Like her with stars and me with cooking and Nina with dance. Sometimes you gravitate to a thing, Lisa said. Like you almost can’t help that you’re there doing it—it just had to happen.
Or not happen.
We parked the Honda and we were standing outside the Place and Dad was wiping his hands on his jeans about four thousand times and smoothing his hair back and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Me and Nina walked past him, and he just stood back for a second.
Then you wouldn’t believe it, but he said, “I can’t do it. Not right now. I can’t.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Nina. “You said you were coming in. You’re coming in.”
“I know I said it,” he said. “But I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know I would get this feeling . . . ,” he said. He sat down, right there on the sidewalk in front the Place. I was looking around to see if anyone was watching.
“I have this pain,” he said, holding his chest.
“Just get up, Dad,” Nina said. “Oh my God.”
Dad sat there on the curb with his head between his knees. He was breathing loudly. It was this mess with us sweating and crying and Nina yelling outside. Helen came out and shooed me and Nina in through the doors. “Girls,” she said, “she still needs to see you.”
We got ourselves together as we walked down the hall. Mom wore a purple dress, and her hair was curled. She tilted her head to look past us. Their wedding picture was all wrinkled in her hands, and the wedding photo album was next to her on the couch.
“Hi, Mom. It’s your girls, Steffy and Nina,” said Nina.
“Where’s James?” she asked. “I wore the grape jelly dress.”
Nina and I looked at each other.
“I don’t know where he is, Mom,” I said. I hugged her hard and kissed her cheek, and then I had to go into the bathroom because I was holding back a sob.
“You look pretty,” Nina was saying in a clear voice as I made my way down the hall.
In the bathroom stall, I pulled way too much toilet paper off the roll, wadded it up, and dabbed my eyes with it. Thank goodness there was no one else in the bathroom right then. I came out and saw myself in the mirror. I thought about how Jean Sawyer had made my mom laugh that day, and in my head I asked her if she could help me somehow do that again today. I wiped my face some more and then went back down hallway D.
“But is he coming?” Mom was saying. Nina looked at me as I sat down.
“Mom,” I said, “I love you.”
“I love you,” she said. I put my arms around her on the couch and took the wedding album out of her hands and she let me, but she kept the one picture of them in her lap.
“Steffy made you cinnamon rolls,” said Nina. “The same ones you used to make.”
“She said he’s coming today,” she said, looking toward the lobby. “Helen said.”
“Mom,” I said, “you and your sister, Gina, used to make these when you had leftover pie-crust dough.”
We couldn’t get her to eat or play gin rummy or Uno. While we talked about everything but Dad, she stared forward like she wasn’t in the same room with us. I kept making the picture in my head of Helen walking him in with her arm around him and then Mom and Dad hugging and then all of us hugging, my family. All the pieces of my family all together and the picture blurred in my brain and it was closer than ever and it made my mouth go dry.
My mom and sister were right there. And my dad was just down hallway D and outside, right in front of the Place. It was like having all the best gnocchi-meal ingredients laid out on the counter: farm fresh eggs, hand-picked potatoes, a loaf of bread still warm from the Harris Teeter, freshly grated Romano cheese. All waiting, all ready. But I wasn’t allowed to put it all together.
Mom kept clutching that picture and I kept telling her that you first shape the leftover pie-crust dough into long, thin strips, then you lay them on a cookie sheet, then you sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, and then you roll them up like snails and bake them. Nina just sat and bit her nails. We got her to try a roll and then she had another and then another.
Nina rubbed Mom’s back and said Denise’s mom was a hair stylist and manicurist and that she could give her a private appointment. Mom said to ask Helen. Everything ended up sort of okay, but that one wedding picture never did leave her fingers. And not once did Mom laugh or even smile.
After we hugged her good-bye, we headed down hallway D. Outside, Auntie Gina was there, talking to Helen, and the red car was gone.
The Cupboard Is Bare
No keys in the dish.
No stash.
Just a damp towel in the bathroom.
Hungry
No duffel bag.
No shoes.
Just an envelope for me in my room. “Autobiography. From Dad.”
Parsley
Auntie Gina was waiting downstairs for me and Nina to grab some stuff so we could come spend the night with her and Harry. I closed my door, careful not to make the knob click loudly into the lock. I was supposed to be hurrying. But I sat on the floor and unfolded the paper.
Dear Steffany,
I was surprised that you asked me to write you this letter. It’s taken me a while to figure out what to say: what I want to say is that you’re my daughter and I love you. But I don’t think that would be fair to you. I don’t think I’ve earned it. But you asked me to write you a letter about what I see in you. What I see in you is a person who’s kinda like me, kinda quiet but once she gets talking about something that she likes, you can’t stop her. And someone who can cook up a mess of Brussels sprouts and egg whites better than her own grandpa could. Someone who helps remind me about the good things in life. I hope that this letter is all right.
Your dad
I looked up from my dad’s letter, and my eyes locked right on the ice cream sundae bank on my dresser. I remembered the five dollars in there that he gave me and Nina on our first day of school. I tossed the letter on the floor and got up and fished out the five dollars. I ripped it. Ripped it and ripped it and ripped it and ripped it into one thousand pieces, until it looked like parsley all over my floor.
Snacks in Bed
We had rooms at Auntie Gina’s, all ready for us for whenever we wanted. It was supposed to be fun spending the night there, like being at a hotel, but all I wanted to do was hide. Tomorrow was Memorial Day, so no school, thank goodness, and then Tuesday the autobiography was due.
I stayed in my “Auntie Gina” room all that Monday off and just lay there. Bare walls and a vacuumy smell. Lots brighter than my room at home because it faced east.
Nina knocked on the door around lunchtime.
“Stef,” she said, “eat.”
She left waffles on a paper plate at the foot of the bed, and they just stayed there while I kind of d
ozed off. Auntie Gina was doing a double shift at the hospital that day, and she kept calling to check in. Harry was also working and would be home later that night. I pretended to be asleep when Nina peeked in to say Gina was on the phone.
Later in the day I started working on the autobiography. Nina kept bringing me snacks. Granola bars and string cheese. Crackers. I just left it all at the foot of the bed with the waffles.
I laid out the four pages of notes of stories Auntie Gina told me and read over what I had for the autobiography so far. Then I sat there for a minute on Auntie Gina’s bed. If I was going to be honest, the thing that Mrs. Ashton had been telling us over and over again all year, then I needed to write something else. I tore all the pages that I had clean in half.
All those stories weren’t really my stories—they were someone else’s memories. I was going to have to start over and write something real. Something that I remembered. And I didn’t care about being last-minute. I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t even care about Chefs of Tomorrow like I used to. Who knew if my dad would come to it anyway?
When the room got a little darker and I had to turn on the lamp, and after Nina had talked on the phone to Auntie Gina again, she came in and made me drink orange juice and it felt good and sweet, and she went down and got me another glass. And then another.
I was kind of starting to get this buzzy headache, and the next time Nina came in, she had toast on a paper plate that she put on my lap.
“Stef.”
“What?”
“Cut it out.”
She lifted up the toast to my mouth. I took it from her. I ate the whole thing.
When she was on the phone with Denise in her room, I went and sprawled out on the couch downstairs with my mom’s cookbook, recipes spilling on the floor, Harry’s laptop nearby, and my English notebook. Starting over meant making a new plan.