Bobby was all for leavin’ her there, out cold. “Serve her right, silly bitch,” he said. “She’ll find her way to bed soon enough.”
Instead, I pulled out a fuzzy ol’ black and orange Giants blanket from a stash of beddin’ I had tossed behind the couch at some desperate point durin’ that eternal wet winter. I tucked the fuzzy coverlet under my sister’s bare feet and arms and gently slid a pillow under her head, turnin’ her face to the side so as she was able to breathe right.
As I lay in bed that night I thought it through. I’d never considered my self-centered sister the type to keep things bottled in. I was as guilty as she. Granted, Maggie had made the first move in showin’ up. I’d give her that. She had climbed her way out of her crumblin’ ivory castle, exposed herself to my resentment, to Bobby’s impatience and ridicule. It was some sort of start toward me forgivin’ her for bein’ such a no-show.
Surely what Maggie was in need of was to feel wanted, useful. I guess she’d gotten used to bein’ at the top of her game; brainwashed into common corporate goals and all the bullshit she swears she is done with. As for me, insomnia creepin’ in as it does most nights, my mind was fair to racin’. What I did not need was for my sister to see me as the tragic figure she kinda wanted me to be. It dawned on me, the one who needed Maggie most was not in any shape or form myself, it was my baby girl, my Mia. They had no beef with each other and I figured that would prove a whole lot less complicated than the mother-daughter deal whether I liked it or not.
I’d made it this far with my struggles. If what Maggie had said was even halfway true, it was all my doin’, whatever the mess Mia was in. I was the one who let her go without so much as a word. I’d failed her, like my sister had failed me. Hell. We’d all let each other down in our own fucked-up McCleery way.
I’d blinded myself and now I was startin’ to see the light. I tossed and turned and settled into a restin’ position on my front, one arm bent under the pillow for extra support. Shit had to change.
Next mornin’, I woke her with gentle nudge and a mug of hot tea. A flurry of fallen leaves from the storm the night before was whippin’ against the grimy window behind the couch. As I had tossed and turned in bed in the early hours, unable to sleep, I’d gotten to thinkin’ back to when we were kids. We’d gotten by with barely as much as a toy or trinket, Maggie and me, we knew nothin’ different. It was the way it was out here, same for all us kids in isolated outposts up along the coast. What we’d had was the freedom of imagination, roamin’ around the countryside, free as birds without any supervision. And in the darker months, the idiot box as the old man called it, was our golden portal to an alternate reality.
“Remember when we sat here and watched TV like it was goin’ out of fashion?” I asked Maggie, as she propped herself up against a couple of cushions, huddled up in her blanket like a kid again, crossin’ her legs up under the covers, sippin’ at her tea. Pretty much all we knew of the world outside of dairy ranchin’ we’d gleaned from our favorite television shows — endless episodes of Happy Days, The Waltons, droolin’ over David Cassidy in The Partridge Family.
“Cagney and Lacey, remember them? Ha! The Bionic Woman?” Maggie recalled. “It’s a little sad how the best nostalgia for you and me comes in a box-shaped package, Bridg’.”
When my own daughter hit her teenage years, I was barely around in the evenin’s to see what it was that she was gleanin’ from the box. At the same time, Mia had taken to hangin’ out with the wrong crowd, the travelin’ types, lean, hungry, feral-lookin’ kids from who knows where, those that stopped off and camped along the coast in bigger numbers come July and August.
I warned her hangin’ out at the beach after dark was gonna lead to trouble. All sorts pass through our remote community. I was convinced I’d made damn sure the kid was wary of strangers, to steer well clear of the extra dubious characters out there. In truth, I had no idea the extent of what she’d gotten herself into.
I set about organizin’ the kitchen for the mornin’s Bake-Off. If Maggie was gonna insist on forcin’ any more sisterly bondin’, I figured I’d show her how it is I go about makin’ up a batch of my cannabutter, base substance of the bulk of my edible concoctions. I tend on makin’ a supply once every week to last me a full seven days of cookin’. I heated up the stove to 240 °F in readiness to activate my weed stash for maximum potency and placed the plant material on a bakin’ sheet to heat through in the oven ‘til it was nice and dry and suitably crumbly. After, I placed a pot of water on the stovetop to boil, addin’ in sticks of organic butter. I don’t ever skimp on quality. I set to sprinklin’ in the newly activated weed from the oven and left my concoction to simmer on the back burner for a couple of hours.
“The secret to cookin’ with cannabis, is fat,” I explained. “Look, see,” I said, motionin’ with a wooden spoon. “When the top of the concoction turns from watery to thick and glossy, it’s ready for strainin’ through a double layer of cheesecloth.” I demonstrated tyin’ string around the glass storage bowls I keep ‘specially for this purpose.
“And that’s all there is to it?” Maggie asked.
“No, not exactly,” I replied. “You have to let it cool for an hour, before you place it in the refrigerator. At this stage, we wait for the butter to rise to the top of the liquid to solidify before we get to runnin’ a knife across the top to scrape off the actual cannabutter. All the good stuff’s in there,” I explained, maintainin’ my patience as best I was able, not bein’ accustomed to an audience, especially one that consists of my sister.
“How do you keep your baked goods from tastin’ too much of weed?” Maggie asked, her interest piqued.
“Now that’s a challenge even for the most experienced of cooks,” I answered, scrapin’ the last of a batch of cannabutter from the previous week’s stock. “It may not have felt like it, the way you were last night, Maggie, but truth is, I use smaller doses than most other edible makers in the market.”
Most people overeat with edibles at first, though Maggie had consumed only what I’d served her. “To be honest, I never expected it to hit you as hard as it did,” I confessed.
“Now you tell me! I feel fine,” she replied, her face breakin’ into a smile. “Did I make a fool of myself?”
“It knocked you out, for sure,” I admitted. “You’ll figure out your tolerance level soon enough; never pegged you as a lightweight.”
“At least when it comes to weed,” Maggie laughed. “Give me a bottle of wine, no problem.”
The kitchen is generally chilly first thing, though the heat of the stove soon warms it through. I slid Maggie’s old battery operated boom box, the size of a frickin’ carry-on out from under the countertop. Both radio and double cassette heads were in good workin’ order, despite its age and the hours I’ve spent tunin’ in for the mornin’ news and the playlists that keep me company in my kitchen. I tuned into KZST for a steady stream of songs to take the edge off the friction that remained between us. Heck, tension was hangin’ in the air like a plume of smoke from a pile of burned toast. “Every Breath You Take,” the Police, Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia”, Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name.” One after another . . . it was the best way to clear the air between us.
Maggie pawed through a stack of old tapes I pushed over for her to have a look through. They were stacked in an old Tupperware box: Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, that time frame. The kitchen windows were all steamed up and we found ourselves engulfed in a comfortin’ cloud of flour, the crackin’ of eggshells and the soft and unmistakable scent of vanilla essence, a pleasin’ concoction of which was makin’ it hard for me to go on bein’ too grumpy with her. Maggie cranked open a window, stickin’ her head out into the mornin’ air and inhalin’ the damp breeze like she’d been deprived of vital oxygen all these years. I guess she’d all but forgotten what good, honest, clean air tastes like livin’ in the City so long.
I took in the tape cassettes afresh. Back in the ‘80s I’d signed u
p for a mail order music club that ripped me and millions more kids off good and proper, reelin’ us in with the too good to be true offer of eleven albums on vinyl or cassettes for a single penny. Once this deal of the century panned, suckered teenagers the length and breadth of the country found themselves on the hook for a small mountain of records and tapes of music they’d never even heard of. Like most of ‘em, I was way too naive to mail back the tapes I had zero interest in, along with the necessary return form.
My folks went totally nuts when the bills started comin’ in the mail at the end of each month. We can laugh about it now, but it was way out of hand at the time, a notorious, negative billin’ option scam entrappin’ ignorant youngsters such as myself who never had the wherewithal to read the fine print. Eventually, the Feds stepped in and made it harder for companies to rip off kids this way. When I think of it though, there’s a whole trainload of new ways to be ripped off today.
“How did you get out of that whole mess with the mail order music scam, Bridget?” Maggie asked, readin’ my mind.
“Mom wrote them a threatenin’ letter to stop sendin’ me any more seein’ as I was under age.” How could I forget? In short, I’d racked up a big ol’ cassette tape collection comprisin’ of all manner of random shit and I was still hundreds of dollars in debt by the time it was over.
“I owed that racket money for years,” I recalled. “It was the internet that finally put the mail order clubs out of business.” It was a relief for sure when I heard that the company I still owed money to finally tanked a few years back.
“Wow, to think, I was in junior high when you started that lark,” Maggie remarked. “I still remember you playing me Starship for the first time — ‘We Built This City’, remember? Dire Straights — ‘Money for Nothing’ . . . oh God, yes, Madonna — ‘Crazy For You’ . . . ” She flipped open the plastic cases of a dozen or more tapes, porin’ over their faded inserts, eventually settlin’ on Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell”.
I set about tyin’ small, brown cardboard luggage tags with dosage content and other vital info carefully handwritten, onto each package with lengths of twine. In my book, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” demands bein’ played on full blast. Bobby used to like helpin’ me with the labels, the two of us sittin’ at the kitchen table at it, a couple nights each week. I was still awaitin’ the sticky labels I’s arranged for havin’ printed up.
“Part of my small profit,” I felt the sudden need to better inform my sister, “I’ve been donatin’ to a local nonprofit. It’s one that puts money into the hands of women like me who struggle to pay their cancer treatment bills.”
Maggie swallowed, as well she frickin’ should. She knew full well I had lived paycheck to paycheck my whole damn life while she’d been livin’ it up like money was goin’ out of fashion.
“Any profit that remains, I put back into my business,” I was proud to say. I felt a rare flush in my cheeks at the same time a blessed break in the endless goddamn rain carried the welcome sound of birdsong through the open window.
“I don’t think I can take much more of this weather, Bridget,” Maggie said. “It gives me the blues on blues.”
“Hey, no more complainin’,” I shot back. “We were in a real bad shape for the serious lack of water before this wet winter brought us some relief.” The rains had come in answer to a million or more prayers sent on up to heaven or who knows where from all over the state of California. A multi-year drought was finally over, at least for the time bein’.
I was still feelin’ stabs of fresh annoyance in her presence, I couldn’t help myself, yet, it slowly dawned on me, standin’ there at the same countertop where Mom used to feed us her St. Paddy’s Day corned beef and cabbage, at least we still had in common our connection to the land, to good, honest food, the basics of survivin’ this crazy thing called life.
We were, we are, the McCleerys, together again, good and bad and all that comes between. I boiled some water for tea, scooped a teaspoon or two of a favorite aromatic herbal blend into an infuser and hooked it inside the squat little Brown Betty teapot that belonged to our grandmother. How many pots of tea have brewed in this old pot is anyone’s guess. I poured in boilin’ water and waited a couple minutes to remove the infuser, stirrin’ a teaspoon of cannabutter into the steamin’ hot tea.
Its potent aroma calmed my nerves, bringin’ back memories of the backyard herbal concoctions Maggie and me had so much fun mixin’ up back when we were kids.
“Tea?” I asked, tryin’ to be nice, still. “Did you sleep well, all things considered?”
“Like a baby, in truth,” Maggie replied. “Best sleep I’ve had in months”. She asked about my clients.
“The folk I work with are what those in the business describe as the ‘cannasseurs’ — savvy enough consumers to know what works for them and what doesn’t.”
“And what if someone makes a mistake? Or you do?” Maggie asked.
“Fortunately, it’s not that easy to ingest a lethal dose of cannabis,” I explained.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Maggie laughed.
“Body size and weight are not always an indication of a person’s tolerance level,” I explained. “The most important thing to be aware of is that it may take as many as several hours to kick in. I make sure to tell a new client to take small doses to start out with and wait it out before ingestin’ any more. That’s where most newbies go wrong, scarfin’ it all down and freakin’ out when it hits.”
“Jeez, Bridget,” Maggie said, her tummy growlin’ and rumblin’ at the mention of food.
“There’s sourdough if you’re hungry, Bobby brings the good, day-old bread back from the roadhouse most nights.”
Maggie sliced and toasted herself two thick wedges and slathered them with a thick layer each of fresh, creamy ricotta cheese from the fridge, another of Bobby’s salvaged delights. I watched her slice a banana onto the ricotta-covered toast and sprinkle it with walnuts and a drizzle of honey on top. “Want some?” she asked.
Despite my feelin’ I oughta go on givin’ her a hard time, I surprised myself by smilin’, as I shook my head. My little sister, lickin’ her fingers like she was six or seven again.
“Go,” I said, after she’d licked them all clean. “Why doncha get yourself down to the beach before it starts in rainin’ heavy? Bobby’ll be back soon, he’s gonna drive me to drop off my delivery.”
“What do you think of this old relic?” Maggie asked, slippin’ her arms into the soft, butter leather sleeves of her favorite high school jacket she’d found upstairs. “It’s almost back in style — and hey, by some miracle, it still fits.”
I was wiped out and yet at the same time, I felt like I was slowly wakin’ up to reality for the first time in months. My mind was racin’ round and around in circles. Where the hell was Mia? Why was Maggie here with me in the kitchen and not my daughter? Everythin’ was out of whack. Mia shoulda been hangin’ out here with her aunt and me, shootin’ the breeze, gettin’ to know her, havin’ my back. Whatever was goin’ on with that girl last summer it had been way too much for me to handle in my state. Maybe you think I must be one hell of a lousy mother, but in my mind, I did it for love, my lettin’ her go.
Chapter 7
Maggie
The way I remember it, Bridget, to her defense, had pre-warned me and therefore, I was a fully consenting guinea pig when it came to my consuming her homemade mac and cheese.
If I was to bum off my sister awhile, I figured I may as well throw caution to the wind and I tucked in, despite my lack of experience with edibles. Ordinarily, I would have been way too uptight and skeptical to partake, but since I was already feeling like I’d veered way off the conveyer belt of normalcy, I figured, why not? I am not about to slide gracefully and unapologetically into my late forties by sitting back and merely thinking about life, what I should be doing and how others may view me. I’m all about grabbing it now, truly living it. What is there to lose other than a little
too much control?
We’d sat down to eat, the three of us, that first night, attempting to ignore the steady dripping of water from the leaking ceiling into an assortment of buckets and bowls that Bridget had positioned for maximum catchment.
“We barely ever ate like this, all together, before I got sick, except for the occasional Monday or Tuesday and holidays, of course,” Bridget confessed, shuffling macaroni around her plate in a disinterested fashion with her fork.
“What did Mia do for dinner?” I asked. “The evenings you both worked?” I shoveled in my full share while my sister hardly ate. No wonder she was brittle.
“We pretty much left her to her own devices during those last years of high school”, Bridget admitted. “I made sure to keep food in for her — a bunch of leftovers from the roadhouse mostly.”
“Mia was old enough to figure it out,” Bobby said. “Kid was more than capable of cookin’ up some pancakes, sausage and eggs, pasta, the basic stuff. Teenagers nowadays are too lazy and spoiled. It was good for her.”
“Mia never did have much of an appetite for homework, Maggie, not like you,” Bridget said. “I made sure to be on her case when her report cards came in, but, truth is, she’d lost interest in her schoolin’ somewhere along the line.”
“So what, you were way too stretched with your own workload to keep an eye out for your daughter?” I shot back.
“Look, don’t turn this on us,” Bobby was quick to jump in. “It’s too bad — the kid’s super smart when she tries.” He shuffled across the kitchen in a pair of plastic sports slides and socks, expertly balancing a pile of dirty dishes. “And when all’s said and done,” he added, “it’s up to her, ain’t it? It’s her future. She has a goddamn roof over her head, here, whenever she needs it, food, heat, hot water.”
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