The Kitchen Daughter

by Jael McHenry

  When she’s gone I want her here. When she’s here I want her gone. She’s right, I’m difficult, and in many ways. It’s all too overwhelming. I lean against the wall next to the shelves of cookbooks and stare at the door of the oven. The light inside is still on. The oven door is so clean I can see the outline of the bulb. I wonder what the oven door at Amanda’s looks like. I wonder if Amanda has ever even used her oven. At her wedding shower she opened up a box with a big pot in it and said, But the only thing I know how to make is reservations! Everyone laughed, except Ma, and me.

  I could have asked Ma anything. She was right here. But I fell into the old habits, the old patterns, right away. To be fair, so did she. I don’t want to blame her because there shouldn’t be any blame. But it makes me sad, and it makes me resigned. There’s not much point in trying to change, it seems. I really thought there might be.

  Getting up from the floor, I reach for the stove. I turn up the heat under the gravy, stirring, hoping. The smell is faint but unmistakable, rich and porky and smelling like home. It doesn’t bring her back. Nothing brings her back. The gravy cools into a thick sludge. When I was a kid I ate it fast. First I had to be sure there were an equal number of sausage lumps on each piece of biscuit, but then I didn’t pause until it was gone. Today I eat three helpings of it over biscuits, sitting on the floor of the kitchen, hoping in vain with each bite.

  Midnight comes in to nudge against my bare feet, and I let her lick the last of the gravy from my fingers. Stroking her long, soft fur helps me push away the thoughts that are boiling in my head. I can’t be at a boil right now. I just can’t. Amanda is coming back in just a few hours and I have no answers, only questions.

  Ma was on that step stool, in this kitchen, close enough to touch. As long as I can still bring her here, she isn’t gone. I guess this is a good thing and a bad thing. It still feels like they’re about to come back. Maybe they will. That’s impossible, but ghosts are impossible. Lots of things are impossible. And yet they happen.

  Have I succeeded, or failed? I didn’t bring Nonna, but I brought Ma, and her message is almost the same. I know a little more than I did before. Another piece of the puzzle.

  Amanda. Stop Amanda. I don’t know what I’m supposed to stop her from doing, but I know where to start.

  The house. Right now, Angelica doesn’t scare me. Right now nothing does. Right now nothing could hurt more than having my mother’s ghost appear in our kitchen, immediately size up the situation, and ask how my sister is doing. So now is the time for me to do things that would normally make me run, desperate for the solace of the closet floor.

  Angelica’s number is still on the refrigerator, right where Amanda stuck it with a magnet a week ago. I dial it. She doesn’t pick up. I don’t leave a message. I decide this isn’t a problem. She’ll probably come by with more unwelcome visitors soon, and I can tell her then.

  In the meantime, I perform a thorough search of the kitchen cabinets. Physically crawling inside a cabinet at twenty-six is not like crawling inside a cabinet when you’re five. For one thing, when you’re five, it’s awesome. For another, when you’re five, you actually fit.

  But Dad tucked his scotch bottle back here to hide it. It’s not out of the question that other things might be hiding. So I kneel down and empty the cabinets of their All-Clad and their Le Creuset and of Grandma Damson’s long-neglected, well-seasoned cast-iron pan. And I thrust my head in, working my shoulders through the narrow gap, to see for myself what’s all the way in the back. I reach an arm and trail my fingers along the seam where the back wall and bottom shelf of the cabinet meet.

  The most interesting thing I find is the crank for the pasta press. Which is good, because now I can make pasta. The happy thought distracts me. I love to make pasta, and it’s been ages. I think there’s some semolina from Talluto’s in the back of the cupboard. I picture the soft, stretchy dough becoming relaxed and slick. Absorbing flour. Long, translucent sheets become piled-up ribbons of tagliatelle. My stomach gurgles. In the tight space the sound is magnified.

  Even from deep inside the wooden box, I can hear the front door open. There are voices, besides. At first I think about staying down. Hiding. But this is unreasonable. I may feel invisible sometimes, but with half of me sticking out in plain sight, I’m not.

  I inch out of the cabinet, back pockets first, careful not to hit my head. By the time I get up and smooth my hair down, they’re in the living room already. Angelica and two women. I watch them from the doorway to the kitchen. They haven’t seen me yet. The taller woman wears a gray suit like Angelica’s navy one, and shoes so tight I can see her flesh swelling along every seam. The other woman wears all black and waves her hands around. Her fingernails are red and gleaming, perfect long ovals, like Hot Tamales. Amanda’s look like that sometimes. It’s a manicure. I’ve never had one. I wouldn’t want someone’s hands on my hands like that. Picking and scratching and rubbing while I squirm. It couldn’t end well.

  Angelica says, “You can see how high the ceilings are in here, aren’t they great? It just lights up on sunny days.”

  “Lovely,” says the one in tight shoes.

  Angelica points up and shows them the scrollwork along the ceiling, which makes them ooh and aah. It’s enough. More than enough.

  “Excuse me,” I say to the three women.

  “Hi, Ginny,” says Angelica. “Sorry, I thought you were out. We’ll be here just a few minutes.”

  “No,” I say.

  The woman in the suit says, “No?”

  “No?” asks the woman with the red fingernails.

  “No,” I say again.

  No one responds.

  After a moment Angelica says, “This is one of the current owners, ladies.” She sounds so completely like Amanda, down to the way she takes a breath.

  I say, “I’m sorry, this house is not for sale.”

  The one in the suit says, “Did someone beat us to it? Let us make a counteroffer, at least.”

  “It’s not for sale.”

  She says, “Then why did we trek all the way over here?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again.

  Angelica says, “No, no, don’t worry, Jen. It’s just a small misunderstanding.”

  “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing,” I say.

  “Ginny!” says Angelica, her orange juice voice pitching higher, into the grapefruit range. “We can have this conversation later. Just let me finish showing Jennifer and Holly around.”

  “No. Please leave now.”

  The one in the suit says, “Okay, this is too weird. Hol, let’s go.”

  “You have a beautiful home,” says the other one, waving her hand over everything as she follows her friend toward the door.

  Angelica says, “I’ll call you later! So sorry! We’ll clear this up!”

  The door closes and I hear heels clicking against the sidewalk.

  I know I’ve been rude. Knowing it doesn’t change anything. I can’t take this anymore, and some things are more important than being polite. There used to be a rule, but now it doesn’t apply.

  Angelica says, “Ginny, that wasn’t very nice.”

  I mumble all my words out in a rush. “I know. I just want you to stop, okay? No more people. We’re not going to sell. I’m staying.”

  Angelica says, “That’s not what I discussed with Amanda. I was given to understand the two of you wanted to sell, and you’d be moving in with her.”

  “No.”

  She says, “That was the plan.”

  Trying not to sound agitated, I tell her, “The plan has changed.”

  “I’m not sure you can do that,” she says. She is taking care to pause before and after everything. So am I.

  “It’s half my house too,” I say. From the legal perspective, ignoring all others, that’s true.

  Angelica says, “I’m going to have to speak with your sister about this.”

  “I understand.”

  “Why don’t we
call her right now?”

  “She’s busy at home. Brennan has to go back to L.A. Tonight.”

  “I could still—”

  “Don’t bother her,” I say, and with some effort, I raise my eyes to Angelica’s face and stare directly at her eyes. They are brown, and narrow, and not like Amanda’s at all. One one thousand. Two one thousand.

  She looks down.

  “Well. Okay. Anyway. I’ll talk to Amanda.”

  “Okay.”

  I close the door behind her.

  Was I successful? I don’t know. My hands are tingling a little. My stomach feels empty and hollow. At least I’m not in a panic. I can walk from room to room without diving into the closet or losing myself in new iterations of the Continental Cuisine dinner party menu. (If the dessert were ANZAC biscuits or a pavlova, the meat course could be a beef daube, or a carbonnade flamande … there are so many possibilities.)

  Shouldn’t use the word normal. There’s no such thing, I remind myself. A line from the Normal Book: Normal is a setting on the dishwasher. But still, for once, I wonder if that’s how I’m feeling, right now. Not happy, not sad. Just … normal?

  I put the black-and-white pictures of Evangeline under the carpet in my closet again. I can’t think about her right now. I can’t make sense of what Ma told me. The only thing I can do is look for a recipe Dad wrote so that I can see him and ask him these questions. I pull book after book from the shelves of the library, leafing through them, sliding them back in place. Nothing else turns up. Not a single thing.

  I go back to the kitchen, but I think I’ve finally looked everywhere. Nothing else behind the glass doors of the cookbook cabinets. Nothing among the pots and pans. Nothing in the junk drawer. An unbent wire hanger swept from side to side reveals nothing lodged under the fridge. My father has never written anything resembling a recipe on anything resembling a piece of paper. It’s torture to know that whatever this is, a gift or a curse or both, his is the ghost I will never be able to see.

  Dinner is a bowl of cereal, under milk just beginning to go sour. It’s the last of a carton and I don’t feel like opening a new one.

  I’m not surprised when my phone rings. I’m only surprised it took so long.

  “Ginny,” says Amanda. “Come on.”

  “I tried to tell you,” I say, bracing myself against the back of the chair, setting my spoon down in what’s left of the milk.

  “Regardless, that was really mean of you. Angelica was all worked up.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be mean.”

  “Well, being mean is something that we sometimes do without trying. That’s what I tell the girls.”

  “Did Brennan make his plane?”

  “Yes, we got him out of here on time, barely. He’s still in the air, he’ll call when he lands. Don’t try to change the subject. I’m angry with you.”

  “Be angry, that’s fine,” I say. “As long as you’re listening to me.”

  She’s silent for a minute, then she says, “Okay, Ginny, I’m listening.”

  “I don’t want to sell the house. I told you that.”

  “And you don’t see why we need to?”

  “We don’t need to.”

  “Okay, I need to. And maybe you think that’s selfish. But I can’t take care of two houses. And you don’t know the first thing about it.”

  “I can learn.”

  “We don’t know for sure. It would be so much easier—” She breaks off. There’s a howl in the background. Her voice shouting “Is everything all right?” is so loud I take the phone away from my ear.

  She says, “This is actually the worst possible time to talk about this. I have to go.”

  “Okay. Let’s not talk about it. But while we’re not talking about it, don’t let Angelica show the house.”

  She says sharply, “Look, I don’t have time to fight with you right now.”

  “I’m not fighting. I’m just saying.” I feel strong. I make my points clearly. “Let’s just simplify. You’re right. There’s too much going on. Let’s just let that one thing go, for now. Okay?”

  She says, “Well.”

  “Just for a week,” I say. “You can just put it on pause for a week.”

  She says, “Okay.”

  I say, “I’ll see the three of you in the morning then, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Good night, Amanda,” I say, and that’s that.

  That night, on my way to bed, I stop and look out my parents’ window. While my attention was elsewhere, it snowed. The world stands blanketed outside, so thoroughly snowed over that the streetlight’s glare bounces off the snow and back up through the window. I sit on the window seat, lean back against the yellow cushions, and look out at the world.

  Even with the shades the light is unusual. Not as bright as full day. Like it’s perpetually the undisturbed half hour before sunrise. Only because the light is never-changing, it’s hard to tell if the sun will ever come up.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Butternut Squash Soup

  I wake up on the window seat, sunrise shining right into my eyes. I haven’t fallen asleep here before. For a moment I worry Ma will yell at me but then it all comes back into my head. All the truth. So I reposition my sore neck on a better pillow, and I try to make sense of everything.

  What happened in the past. Dad wanted Ma to forgive him. Dad took twenty-nine pictures of Evangeline. Evangeline loved and lost someone named Doc. But Ma thinks none of this is important, or if it is important, only Dad can talk to me about it. But I can’t get him, because he didn’t leave me any recipes. Dead end.

  Then, what’s happening now. I’m not supposed to let Amanda do something. Both Ma and Nonna say so. Is it the house, or something else? I’ve stalled her on the house at least. That’s something. Maybe during the week’s reprieve I will figure something else out. I don’t know how, but it’s possible.

  I HAVE TIME to shower and put different clothes on before the doorbell rings. I go down to answer it, thinking Amanda probably has her hands full. But then I see the grocery bags, and I realize it wasn’t Amanda who rang the doorbell, it was David.

  I open the door, and he is unhooking his bike from the No Parking sign. Last night’s snow is beginning to melt, so there is slush on the ground and his shoes look wet and muddy. He already has his helmet on his head. It is white and webbed and reminds me of tripe.

  I come out onto the marble stairs under the portico and call down, “Thank you.”

  “Oh, sure, you’re welcome!” he calls back. Then he turns his attention back to his bike again, turns the key in the lock.

  He is rushing to get away. I think about why that might be. “She’s not here,” I say.

  He turns the key back the other way, leans the bike against the signpost again, and takes the steps in three long strides. “So what is the deal with your sister?” he says, his muddy voice stretching out all the low vowels. “When she came into the kitchen and saw me there? I thought she was going to punch me in the throat.”

  “She’s protective.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “My mother was too.”

  “But … you’re a full-grown adult. Aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. But—” I try to find the right way to express it. I settle on, “I’ve never been out on my own.”

  “It’s overrated,” says David, waving his hand as if a fly were bothering him. “I live on my own now. In a basement. It sucks.”

  “But you lived with your wife first.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “That didn’t suck.”

  He says, “Well, some days it did, but most of that was just surface stuff. You know, fights about who left dishes in the sink, or arguing over money. Stupid things. Somebody came home later than they should have and didn’t call. Misunderstandings, suspicions, things we argued about that we didn’t need to, if we’d tried to stop ourselves. Nothing that seems important now. Nothing that mattered.”

  He thrusts
a wallet at me, open to a picture of a woman who’s beautiful in a way I’ve never seen. Her face isn’t a feminine face. It’s all strength and angles, no give, no curves.

  “We met in Peru,” he says. “Mountain biking. Traversing the Cordillera Blanca. It was like we’d known each other forever, from the day we met. Something about her.”

  “Love at first sight?” I’ve always wondered about that.

  “Something like that, I guess,” he says, his voice all black coffee and baking chocolate now, dark but pleasing. “We just fell so hard so fast, and I stayed there longer than I was supposed to, and I spent all my days and nights convincing her that when I came back to the States, she had to come with me.”

  The end of the story is obvious. I know how it turned out. It still sounds romantic. “And she did.”

  “And she did. And it was wonderful, it was everything I wanted. Even on the days when I was furious with her, or she was furious with me. I couldn’t imagine living without her. Then one day I had to.”

  I close his wallet and hold it out for him to take. His hand brushes mine and I flinch away, hard.

  “About that,” he says.

  “About what?”

  “You,” says David. “I told you something very personal about me. Now I think it’s only fair you tell me something about you. What’s with that? Not wanting to be touched? Or is it just me, you’re scared of me?”

  “No,” I say. “It’s not just you. I … I don’t like to be touched.”

  “At all?”

  “Well, no, I guess. Some touch is okay.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like my parents hugging me, or Amanda, if it’s family, people I trust, it’s different. And your mom does this thing.” I demonstrate, reaching out, pressing my palm against his forehead. “That’s okay.”

  “So just strangers? Touching you?”

  “Well, that, and some other things.” I count them off on my fingers for him. “I don’t like loud noises, like sirens, they make me jump. Textures can bug me too. I’ve cut the tags out of all my clothes since I was a kid, because I could always feel them and I couldn’t think about anything else if I was always thinking about how my tags itched.” Even thinking about it makes me twitch a little, feeling an unpleasant itch on my neck, even though I know there’s no tag there.