“Oh, all kinds,” Nina answered. “Apricot, cherry, chocolate…”
“Pineapple, raspberry and cream cheese, or just plain cream cheese.”
Celia raised her eyebrow toward Jane. “I think you’ve got some creative license.”
Jane brightened. “Sounds like it! I like the idea of raspberry and cream cheese. I think it would be nice with a black tea.”
Celia leaned forward. “I think so too.”
The sisters sat there, smiling and contented. They looked more relaxed together than I’d seen them since their arrival in Austin. I could see the ease between them and understood Jane’s distress when it was gone. For both their sakes, I was glad to see them happy.
Jane yawned. “I’m beat, and I slept badly at the hospital, on account of being in a hospital. I’m going upstairs to take a nap.”
I sat up, alert, and Dash did likewise. I didn’t like it. If she took a nap, I wouldn’t be able to keep watch. But Dash…
“Want to take Dash with you?” I offered, giving his neck a pat and hoping my voice sounded casual.
Jane met my gaze with a mischievous smile. “So he can alert you if I’ve stopped breathing or fallen in a well?”
“Is there a well upstairs?” I asked innocently. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“There is a water feature,” Charlie said with a wince. “But I don’t think it’ll cause any problems.”
“I don’t think so either,” Jane said brightly. “But I’m happy to steal Dash away.”
Hearing his name, he ambled up and walked toward her to get his ears scratched. “You want to be stolen away,” she cooed at him. “Don’t you?”
Dash’s tail swished hopefully.
“Go on, you,” I told him, and he followed her up the stairs.
Raspberry Cream Cheese Kolache
Dough
2 ¾ cups whole milk
3 packets (21 grams) active dry yeast
½ cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
3 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons orange zest, grated
7–9 cups flour (more or less)
Egg wash
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon milk or water
Cream cheese filling
24 ounces (3 8-ounce packages) cream cheese, room temperature
½ cup sugar, plus more to taste
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 ½ cups fresh raspberries
Heat the milk on the stove in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently. Once the milk has begun to bubble at the edges and starts to steam, remove it from the heat and allow to cool.
Prepare a large mixing bowl for the dough as it rises; wipe the sides down with olive or vegetable oil, and set aside.
In a glass measuring cup or bowl, stir the warm water and yeast together. Sprinkle the 1 teaspoon of sugar over the top, and set aside in a warm spot to bloom.
In a stand mixer, cream together the sugar and butter on high speed for 3–5 minutes, or until pale and fluffy. Lower the speed to medium, and add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing until the yolks are well incorporated. Add the salt and orange zest. Scrape down the sides as necessary.
Add the yeasted water and 1 cup of the flour, and stir by hand with a wooden spoon until incorporated. Making sure the milk is cooled to 110 degrees or lower (if you touch it and it’s body temperature, you’re just fine), add it and stir gently. Add the flour, a cup at a time, and stir. Continue to add as much flour as you can handle while stirring with a wooden spoon.
Turn dough out onto a floured surface, and knead in enough of the remaining flour until the dough feels moderately soft. Continue to knead for five minutes, until the dough feels smooth and elastic.
Place the dough into the prepared bowl, and turn the dough to get a light coat of oil all over. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a tea towel, and allow to rise until the dough has doubled in size, about 1 to 1 ½ hours.
Punch the dough down, knead it a few times and return it to the bowl. Cover, and allow to rise another 1 to 1 ½ hours, or until it’s doubled in size again.
While the dough rises, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla. Separately stir together the beaten egg and milk/water for the egg wash. Chill the filling and egg wash until ready to use. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Once the dough has finished rising, preheat the oven to 375°F. Punch the dough down a second time, and divide the dough into egg-sized portions. Place them, 6–8 to a baking sheet, and let the balls of dough rise for 1–3 minutes. Shape each kolache, poking a hole into the middle and stretching it to form a significant well in the middle. Brush the kolache all over with the egg wash, and then spoon 1 tablespoon of the filling into the well. Repeat until each one is filled.
Bake the kolache in batches until golden brown, about 10–15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool on a wire rack. Place 3–4 raspberries into the cream cheese center of each kolache. Kolache are best enjoyed warm.
Serves 30.
Note: Feel free to mix up the toppings! Any kind of berry will work up top, or bake them with apple pie filling (bake 1–3 minutes longer) or chopped chocolate in the center (bake 1–3 minutes less).
32
Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.
—BILL WATTERSON
Jane
I woke up feeling like there was an elephant on my chest. In the past, that expression had always sounded particularly hyperbolic. Why an elephant? Why not “a small child” or “a large dog,” or even “a horse”? Why go straight to elephant? I’d posed the question to Celia, once, and she’d just laughed at me.
But now—a giant immovable weight on my chest; I could barely breathe.
I could barely breathe.
Awareness crawled in. If I couldn’t breathe, something was terribly wrong. I tried to sit up, but—elephant. Never again would I make fun of the people claiming the presence of pachyderms on their person. While trying to adjust my body, my hand hit something warm and solid.
Dash.
“Dash,” I told him, hating how hoarse and out of breath I sounded. “Get help.”
I could see the instant that Dash as a companion ended and Dash as a service dog began. His eyes flew open, and he sprang up in a tangle of long Great Dane limbs. He went for the door, and pawed at it—if it had been one of the long-handled ones, like the ones at the casita, he would have opened it in a heartbeat. But they were round, cut glass affairs—stylish, but impossible for a dog without opposable thumbs.
Dash whined, shook himself, ears flapping. And then he leaped against the door, throwing all hundred-plus pounds at it, and barked.
He barked until help came—Celia and Margot and Nina, but Callum first with panic in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Callum asked, kneeling beside my bed.
“Chest. Hurts.” I rasped. “Hard to breathe.”
“You’re going back to the hospital,” Callum said, in the voice that I assumed he had used in the past to order troops. “Now.”
I nodded.
Celia pressed a hand to my forehead. “You’re burning up, Jane.”
If I thought about it, I was also freezing cold and my limbs ached. All that paled in comparison to how difficult it felt to fill my lungs with oxygen.
Callum reached behind me and helped me to sit up. “Nina’s calling an ambulance. They’ll get you hooked up to oxygen again. Margot, can you find Jane’s purse?”
Margot’s thin voice answered in the affirmative.
“Perfect. Put her phone and charger into it, okay?” He turned back to me. “You’re going to be okay.”
I tried to look up into his eyes, but he was busy helping to ease my feet back into the shoes I’d kicked off.
“Dash is a good dog,” I rasped.
> He looked up then. “Yes, he is.”
“Thank you for sending him upstairs with me.”
His gaze shuttered, though he brushed my hair from my face. “You’re going to be okay.”
And that’s when I realized exactly how dim I’d been. He’d sent Dash with me for this reason—and I’d made fun of him for it. But he’d worried about me, and he’d turned out to be right.
Too right.
“You’ll be fine,” Nina said. “But Charlie?” Nina addressed her younger daughter, who gaped from the doorway. “Best you and Pierce take Bowie home. If this is pneumonia, you don’t want him catching it.”
“Pneumonia?” Charlie’s eyes were wide. “Oh. Yes. We’ll do that.”
My eyes squeezed shut. My own stupidity may have endangered Nina’s grandson.
Celia sat next to me, wrapping her arm around me. I shut my eyes and shut out the world until the paramedics arrived at the house for the second time.
Celia rode with me in the ambulance again. The EMTs had fitted an oxygen mask over my face; I couldn’t speak. Not that there would be much I’d be motivated to say. Little more than “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over.
At the hospital, they wouldn’t let me fall asleep, even though it was all I wanted in the world. Well, I would have accepted a time machine. But I had to answer questions and rate my pain and be poked and prodded all over again. Another X-ray, this one showing pneumonia in both lungs.
Once they had me back in a hospital bed, IV antibiotics pumping into my system, I finally managed to close my eyes and shut out the world and the mess I’d made, if only for a little while.
33
Texas will again lift its head and stand among the nations. It ought to do so, for no country upon the globe can compare with it in natural advantages.
—SAM HOUSTON
Callum
While Nina took Margot with her to find something for dinner, Celia and I waited while the doctors ran tests on Jane. The risk of sepsis was mentioned; there was nothing to do but wait and pray.
If my leg didn’t ache so badly, I would have paced as well. That the EMTs had to put her on a stretcher and carry her out again filled me with shame. I should have been able to do it. But I couldn’t.
It was an irrational shame, but I felt it just the same.
I couldn’t pace, so I tapped. I leaned forward, leaned back, and fiddled with my fingers until Celia rested a hand on mine.
“Thank you for waiting with me,” Celia said.
“You don’t have to thank me.” I’d long grown tired of being thanked so often. “I wish I could do more.” I looked at Celia and took a deep breath. “The truth is, I’m in love with Jane.”
Celia gave a sweet smile. “I know.”
I coughed, low in my throat, and looked away. “Everyone knows.”
“That may be true. Not Jane, though.” She leaned back in her chair. “I think you’d be good together.”
“I’m going to talk to her. When she’s better.” I shook my head. “I’m— I can’t— I wish there was something I could do. Something I could get, someone I could bring. Something that would make it better.”
“Take her a cup of real tea when she’s awake next,” Celia advised. “That’ll go a long way.” She sighed. “I should call my father.”
“Where does he live?” Ian hadn’t said much, only that he wasn’t so much a fan of their father. For Ian, that constituted harsh rebuke.
“He’s in Montenegro, I think. It’s complicated. We don’t speak often; we’re not close.”
It didn’t take much prodding; a few questions, and Celia explained their father’s past, and how it had affected the three sisters. Knowing their history, Jane began to make more sense. I hadn’t thought it possible, but it made me admire her that much more.
“You’ve been through a lot together,” I said, when the story finished at the present date. “A lot of families would have scattered after something like that.” Mine certainly would have. “Margot is lucky to have you.”
“We’ve always been close. The last few months have been hard, but after last night, I felt like we were on the road back. We were good today.”
The panic in her voice sent my own despair spiraling. But I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I wasn’t in charge.
“I’m hopeful,” I said after a long moment. “I think you’ll be good tomorrow too.”
We waited for hours, going long stretches without word. The fever was high, they said, and though they were pumping her full of antibiotics, she had yet to show significant improvement.
“Right now,” the nurse had said, “what she needs is time and rest. Until the fever is under control and her lungs clear up, she’s in critical condition.”
Nina came and went, finding food, finding coffee—finding better coffee—and tracking down the gift shop. Everywhere she went she took Margot, who trailed after her like a lost puppy.
They’d been by recently and shared food, but Nina announced that Jane needed flowers for her room, and that she and Margot would visit a florist shop or two to find something satisfactory.
Someone who didn’t know might have thought Nina shallow, but I knew better. I knew she was keeping Margot busy and out from underfoot. Celia wouldn’t leave the hospital, but that kind of waiting would have been too much for Margot. Instead, Nina created an endless series of tasks and errands, like a never-ending scavenger hunt as the sky darkened.
Celia hugged her arms to herself as she sat on her upholstered waiting-room bench. “I need to figure out what to do about Margot.”
“I’d be happy to put her and Nina up in a hotel,” I told her. “You too, if you’d go.”
“I won’t. Can’t.”
“You could rest for a little while, come back.”
“But what if…while I was gone…”
“I would call you right away. But I understand.”
I understood because I knew I wasn’t going anywhere either.
“You’re right, a hotel for Nina and Margot is probably the most practical.” She gave me a grateful smile. “Thank you.”
I shook my head. “Don’t thank me anymore. I’ve been thanked enough for three lifetimes.”
She arched a fine blond eyebrow. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
I chuckled. It reminded me of something Jane would say. Did Jane realize how similar she and her sister could be?
Twelve hours. That’s how long it took for Jane’s fever to break, for the hospital to adjust her antibiotics until one of them began to obliterate the infection in her lungs.
When we could see her, Celia and Margot rushed in, each one taking a hand. Nina and I followed.
“I’m okay,” Jane croaked. Her skin was still waxy, her color somehow too pale and too high at the same time.
I wanted to hold her hand to reassure myself of her presence, but it wasn’t my place.
“You weren’t okay!” Margot grasped her sister’s arm, hours of pent-up feelings written all over her face.
“Shh.” Jane squeezed her hand. “I’m here. I’m okay. I’m pumped so full of antibiotics I won’t poop for a year.”
Nina hooted; Celia suppressed a smile.
Margot’s eyes widened. “Callum’s right over there,” she whispered.
Jane gave a resigned nod. “He’s a grown-up. I’m sure he’s heard about such things.”
Margot gave a shocked giggle, and I realized that Jane had managed to get her sister to laugh, rather than cry.
Celia spoke then. “Nina’s here too. She and Callum have taken very good care of us. All three of us.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “I’m baking you both cakes,” she told us, her voice straining to reach a higher volume. “Cakes for life, at this rate. Be prepared. Buy a treadmill.”
While her tone was upbeat, I also heard the undercurrent of emotion underneath.
“One cake is plenty,” I told her. “We’re just happy you’re on
the mend.”
“Speak for yourself, Beckett!” Nina pressed a hand to her chest. “I’ve tasted Miss Jane’s kitchen handicrafts, and I’m not a strong enough woman to try to change her mind. All joking aside, though,” she said more seriously, “we’re very blessed to have you healing, dear. Also, I like chocolate.”
“Chocolate you shall have,” Jane promised. “Once I can stand up without falling over.”
“Take your time, my dear. Rest up.”
The nurse came in then. “I agree with the ‘rest up’ part,” she said. “I think Miss Woodward needs to start that rest about now.”
Margot looked mutinous, and Celia didn’t look like she planned on being cooperative, either.
But Jane yawned and nodded. “I still feel terrible,” she said. “I’m sorry, guys. I’ll be better company tomorrow.”
“We’re staying at the hotel next door,” Nina said. “And I think this time Celia and Beckett should come back with us.”
“You should,” Jane said, pulling Celia’s hand close. “Get some sleep.”
“And a shower,” Margot muttered under her breath.
“Come back tomorrow,” Jane said. “And if you bring me real breakfast food, I’ll love you forever.”
I made a mental note of that.
She squeezed her sisters’ hands good-bye, and they in turn kissed her cheek and forehead. “My forehead’s gross,” Jane protested. “I can’t wait until I can get a real shower. I feel like the lake is still coming out of my pores.”
Nina patted her shoulder, and Jane thanked her yet again.
I nodded to her before I followed the others.
“Thank you,” Jane said. “Thanks for watching over Celia.”
“It’s my pleasure,” I said. What I didn’t say was how much I wished I could stay and watch over her.
But Margot did have a point. I knew I needed a shower and a change of clothes.
Jane of Austin Page 26