The Kitchen Daughter

by Jael McHenry

  “Where are we going?”

  “We are going to cook.”

  “At your house?” I know she lives nearby, though I don’t really know where.

  “No, at the temple.”

  I start to tense up. “With other people?”

  “A few. You do not need to worry. There will be no loud noises. They will not bother you or touch you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I have known these women all a long time,” says Gert. “They are good women.”

  “Did you know them in Cuba?”

  “No, no,” she says. “The people I knew then, I feel them sometimes, but they are not here.”

  It sounds like she’s talking about ghosts. I play it safe. “Sometimes I feel like my parents are still here,” I say.

  “They are,” she says. “In a way, they are always with you.”

  “Good.”

  I picture it literally, all my people behind me and all her people behind her. Walking with me are my parents, their parents, their parents’ parents, one after another after another stretching off into the dark. We walk under a tree with a few last leaves still clinging to its branches. All the other trees on the block are completely bare.

  Gert says, “Ginny, are you all right?”

  “I’m all right.”

  She says, “Sometimes, when the dead are with you, it is not so good.”

  I think of Evangeline. “Are you afraid they’ll hurt you?”

  “Some. The dead are good and bad, just like the living. My husband, he died ten years ago, he is still with me, and the same as ever he was.”

  “It sounds like you miss him.”

  “I hate him,” she says, “same as ever I did.”

  “But—” I try to process it. “How could you hate your husband?”

  Pulling her jacket tighter at the throat, Gert says, “It is hard to talk about. We married very young, so I could leave Cuba. By the time I knew I hated Umberto it was too late. A woman alone in America with two young sons.”

  “Two? David has a brother?” I know Gert better than I know almost anyone else in the world and I never even asked her about her children. I don’t know her family or her thoughts or where she lives. I don’t know her at all. No one to blame for that but me.

  “Had,” says Gert. “He died. David does not even remember him. It is better that way, I think.”

  We walk in a matching rhythm, our strides the same length. I watch our feet strike the sidewalk in unison.

  Gert says, “After David was born one of my brothers moved to the States also. Then his wife could look after the boys. And I started to clean houses, and started to have money. To learn the language. Once I thought I could live on my own, I tried to leave Umberto, but he would not let me.”

  “How could he stop you?”

  “You do not understand,” she says. “You are a very lucky girl. You are smart and you have money. You have a real home. When I was your age I had none of these things.”

  “I don’t have money.”

  “You do. Your parents did, and they left it to you and Amanda. You may not have it in your hands, but you have it, still.”

  “Oh.”

  “For me, it was hard. I gave up and stayed. But … things changed. Tomas died. When I tried to leave again, your mother helped me. She gave us money, so David and I could stay somewhere else.”

  “And Umberto let you go?”

  “For a while, no,” she says. “For a while after he found out where we were living, he came every night and pounded on the door. I counted the nights until twenty, then I stopped counting. I waited, and prayed, and after many nights, Umberto found a woman he liked better. And then he let me go.”

  “So you got what you wanted.”

  “That is the truth,” says Gert, “but there was much pain along the way. And still sometimes I hear him.”

  This is my chance to ask her about ghosts. But I can’t ask straight out. “You—hear him? His voice? Like he’s there in the room?”

  “No,” she says. “But the pounding, the sound of a fist on the door, that is enough.”

  I tell the truth. “Gert, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say nothing. I will always owe your family,” she says. “Without your mother, I would be nowhere. My son would be nowhere. We owe that to her. That your father healed David’s hand many years later, that is also more than we can repay, but your mother, she saved our lives. I am always paying that debt to her.”

  My stomach feels like there’s a fist in it and I know it’s not the sriracha. “But Ma’s gone now.”

  “She is. There is much grief in the world. I am sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too.”

  “You and I, we both know much grief,” she says. “But is life. When grief comes it is good that people have each other.”

  Gert turns left and stops at a large, squared-off building with a six-pointed star above its huge front door. “And now let us put our own grief away. We are here.”

  As we come into the temple, I don’t know what to expect. I’m surprised to see it reminds me of church. Ma would take us from time to time, bribing us not to tell Dad. Amanda was bought off with chocolate, me with a book. But from what I remember, the sanctuary Ma loved is much like the room Gert walks me into. A high ceiling, long straight pews, tall windows to let in all the light. I remember in the church there were faces in the stained glass windows, but here, there are only colors and shapes. At the front of the room there is a squared shape in the darkness, but we don’t get close enough to see what it is. Gert quickly moves out of the large open room and into a long, lowceilinged hall, and I follow.

  I trust Gert. If she says it’ll be okay, it’ll be okay. But I cue up the onions in my mind—white rings in the pan waiting for the heat to melt and sweeten them—just in case.

  The air starts out cool, but gets warmer as we cross toward the far end of the hall. We are entering the kitchen. There are plates across all the counters, with food piled and stacked and spread out in different sections. Sheet pans of asparagus. Blocks of cheese. Three bowls each contain a white, smooth pile of eggs like river stones.

  The food is so transfixing it takes me a while to notice the people.

  There are three women in the kitchen, all in dark clothes. The tallest one has white hair. There are two with reddish hair and cleft chins, one older than the other, stooping slightly.

  “Hello,” murmurs the white-haired woman, but no one introduces herself. This suits me fine. Gert tells me how to hard-boil the eggs. Start from cold water, add a pinch of baking soda, bring them up to a boil. Turn the heat off. Time them out, precisely twelve minutes. Rinse in cold water, gently, carefully. I do two batches in small pans before Gert notices and puts the rest of them into a larger pot. She jots it down on a scrap of paper, I put it into action. Cold water, baking soda, up to a boil, turn it off, twelve minutes sitting. Rinse. Separate from the shell.

  When I’m done with that, Gert gives me the task of picking through several pounds of dried lentils, checking for bad beans or small stones. The work suits my skills. If there is a stone I’ll find it. I wonder, from her years of observation, just how much Gert knows about me.

  Peeling carrots next to me while I pick through lentils, Gert explains.

  “This is temple burial society. Chevra kadisha.” It’s odd to hear this Yiddish term from Gert. Usually her voice has a more Cuban lilt to it, but I remind myself that before she was Cuban she was Romanian, and Jewish since birth, so Yiddish is as much a part of her as anything. Just because I’ve never heard it, it’s silly to think it hasn’t always been there.

  I find a black lentil among the brown ones and set it aside, to be safe. I ask her, “Burial? You … bury people?”

  “No, no. Are many different ways to help. Some wash the body. Some perform tasks so secret we cannot discuss.”

  I look around the busy kitchen. “And some cook.”

  “Yes. We arrange meals. We decide
who will cook when. Mostly after deaths, which is the saddest, but also when families have trouble or sickness. After funeral families are not to cook for themselves. It must be done by others. The community.”

  I consider this idea while I search the lentils for things that don’t belong. Love without words. To show it by doing, not by saying. Like Amanda does for her family by taking care of them, including me, even if I don’t like the way she tries to do it. Like David does for Elena, in his way, even though it’s too late.

  We work in silence. When I’m done with the lentils there are other tasks, folding napkins, washing fruit. Mostly Gert hands me things, and tells me in a few words what to do. At one point when I bobble a dish and two strawberries drop to the floor, the young redheaded woman hands me a roll of paper towels. When everything’s done, we load trays and bowls into trunks and backseats, and drive to a house. The sun is low in the sky, so I leave a quick message on Amanda’s voice mail saying I’m not sure when I’ll be home, so have dinner without me. Gert doesn’t say much during the ride, but everything she says counts.

  “Let me explain to you the house,” Gert says. “Mourners are here, the family. They are sitting shiva. Is the tradition. Family stays home, seven days. Friends and community come to sit shiva with them. Everyone comes. It is mitzvah, a commandment. To console the bereaved.”

  On one level, I can see why this is part of the mourning process. On the other, I am thankful that my family isn’t Jewish. The only thing worse than the funeral day, with too many people paying me too much attention, would have been seven days of the same. At least with Ma and Dad it was over quickly.

  Except that I’m still thinking about it constantly, so it’s not really over, but I shove the thoughts away again. It’s not my grief that matters today.

  The car we are riding in pulls into a long driveway. We carry the food into the house. I follow Gert in, observing, keeping silent.

  The five of us sort things out in the kitchen. The women move in a rhythm. Once in a while, Gert steps out of the rhythm to give me instructions. She speaks clearly but softly, in crisp words. I should keep quiet. I should follow where she goes. She will need me in the kitchen mostly. I should not use any silverware that she does not put into my hand, because kosher homes have one set of utensils for meat and one for milk, and I must not mix them, and I will not know.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Gert says, “I will hand you what you need.”

  “Okay.”

  We get started. Women are carrying bowls back and forth. Gert continues to give me instructions while she and I unpack the food and set it out, for others to carry.

  “We are here because it is the day of the funeral. The family, they do not cook this day. We serve them instead. It is called seudat havra’ah. Meal of consolation.” Gert sets out the last of the bowls of hard-boiled eggs.

  All the food is unpacked and there’s nothing to do with my hands. We shift positions, and I’m next to the doorway, and I see the people we’re here for. The mourners are easy to identify. They’re the ones sitting on long, low benches, separate from everyone, looking straight ahead.

  As other people arrive, I can tell they are looking at me. I wonder why. Not because of my clothes, because they’re not so different from everyone else’s. We are all dressed in dark shades. I look down at their feet and watch the slow-moving shoes. Maybe people are looking at me because I am not looking in their faces. That usually causes trouble when I meet new people. Or maybe my uncertainty is manifest in a way I can’t describe. But there’s something about me that’s off. Not right. Everyone notices it. Except the mourners. The family. They look into nowhere.

  So I watch the family. Looking at them reminds me of my own grief, my own sadness. I would have liked a meal of consolation. I suppose that is what I was trying to do when I accidentally invoked Nonna’s ghost. Reaching into the past to cook the ribollita, something from a happier time. But the result wasn’t at all consoling. Maybe that’s why you’re not supposed to cook your own. Maybe you’re grieving too hard.

  Behind me, Gert says, “Ginny, salt this bowl of lentils, please.”

  I take the bowl she offers and turn away from the main room.

  To distract myself from thoughts of grief, I ask Gert, “So it’s always like this? Eggs, lentils?”

  “Oblong things, just for the meal of consolation. For other meals, any food.”

  “Why?”

  “There is reason.”

  Someone calls to her from the direction of the oven. I start brainstorming oblong foods. Flattish, roundish things. Certain fruits must qualify. I wonder about mango. Kiwi? Papaya?

  Over the next hour, we move back and forth between the kitchen and the main room, filling and replenishing bowls, clearing away things that need clearing. I only make one misstep. Thinking it empty, I reach for a pitcher of water next to the door, but Gert puts her hand on mine. I draw it back quickly.

  “This is for mourners to wash,” she says. “Leave it alone.”

  I stay far away from it the rest of the time.

  There’s one tradition Gert doesn’t need to describe for me. I can see for myself. The members of the family are all wearing torn black ribbons pinned to their clothing. Just a small rip. At first it looks accidental, but everyone on a bench has a ribbon, and a tear in it. It can’t all be accident.

  It preoccupies me until it’s time to leave. It seems such the right expression of grief. I am sad, so in whatever small way I can, I will tear myself apart. They’ve taken what’s on the inside and made it visible. If I thought it wouldn’t be inappropriate I’d do it myself.

  Someone drives us back to the temple, and Gert and I walk through the chilly evening light back up Spruce Street to my house. At the base of the stairs, Gert says, “Thank you, Ginny. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  She’s walking away and it’s almost too late but I want to know, so I ask, “Why did you take me to another funeral?”

  “It was not the funeral,” she says.

  “It was similar.”

  It’s hard to see her in the dark. We need more streetlights.

  Gert says, “Ginny, you cannot stay in the house.”

  “No! Not you too!” I start to get outraged, try to control myself. “Amanda says I can’t stay, I didn’t think you agreed.”

  “You misunderstand,” she says. “You should live in it. But you shouldn’t stay there all the time. You can do more.”

  She puts her hand on my forehead, gives her blessing, and goes.

  Maybe she’s right.

  I let myself in. On the first floor there are no lights on. I feel Midnight brush against my ankles, so I walk to the kitchen and put some food in her dish. Then I go upstairs to look for the humans. They are all together. Amanda is reading the girls a bedtime story, and when I stand in the doorway she doesn’t look up. But Parker sees me and says, “Aunt Ginny! Mom, can Aunt Ginny read us a story?”

  “How about it?” asks Amanda, and I nod silently.

  We trade places, me at the bedside and Amanda in the doorway, and the girls settle back down. I read in a small puddle of light. Parker is asleep before I even finish the second page, but Shannon watches with tiny open eyes, staring at the ceiling instead of the book. She looks like I feel. When I reach to turn out the light, she doesn’t protest, and says nothing as the room goes dark.

  I climb the stairs to my own room and take up the same unmoving position, arms at my sides, covers up to my chin. Downstairs a grown-up voice murmurs. Amanda must be saying good night to her husband, thousands of miles away. I catch a few stray words. I hear vanish and tomorrow and lay down the law. Somewhere in the house the tags on the cat’s collar jingle, almost too faint to be heard.

  To keep the faces of the mourners from troubling me in my sleep, I lose myself in the feel of sriracha, trying to remember every last note, to wipe everything else away. The burn of the chili heat, sharp but round. The soft, garlicky note in the back. T
he particular feel of the pain, not like a pinprick or a knife cut, but both blunter and sharper, a pencil eraser pressed hard against the soft meat of the tongue like a cattle brand. A taste that is somehow painful and positive. A riddle of chemical compounds, not human emotions. The only kind I know I can solve.

  IN THE MORNING I am thinking about Amanda’s plan for me to live with her family, and whether I should. I’ve been so fixated on staying in the house, not selling the house, it’s hard to shift gears. But would it be so bad?

  But Ma never finished that sentence. It’s very important that you not let Amanda … talk me into leaving the house, maybe? Is Amanda going to hurt someone? Me? Herself? There are too many possibilities, and it paralyzes me.

  Amanda looks up from her laptop at the dining room table and says, “Hey, I was just thinking about you. Do you want some breakfast?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Parker’s still asleep,” she says. “And you know Shannon is wherever your cat is, she’s plain obsessed with that thing. But honestly this is good. We need to talk.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve been putting this off because we’ve both been so upset. But now I don’t think it’s right anymore. I think we just need to face it.”

  “Face what?”

  “Your problem.”

  There’s a soft sound behind me. I glance over at the steps and see Midnight walking down. Her white tail swishes in the air, from right to left and back, dignified, slow. I try not to let the hypnotic movement distract me.

  “I’ve told you, I don’t have a problem.”

  “You think normal people hide in closets during their parents’ funerals? You think normal people mutter down at their shoes instead of looking people in the eye? You think normal people shriek at the top of their lungs when someone just barely grazes their arm in public?”

  “I don’t always do that. I hardly ever do.”

  “But you do sometimes. Mom did the best she could with you, I know. But I think she might have been able to help you more if she knew what you have.”

  “A personality.”

  Amanda says, “Ginny, that’s not cute anymore.”