The Recipe Box

by Viola Shipman

  “Why didn’t you?” Sam asked.

  “I’d been trying to convince myself that this wasn’t good enough for me,” he said. “That staying would be a cop-out. But one Sunday afternoon, I watched your grandmother teaching your mom a recipe in the kitchen, and I started crying.”

  “Dad,” Sam started softly, reaching out for his hand.

  “It was such a simple moment but such an important and beautiful one,” he said. “Willo was teaching your mom how to make ice cream sandwiches with her favorite cookies. And watching them, I had to ask myself what I really wanted in my life. What was I missing? What was I seeking? Love? Adventure? Affirmation? Challenging career? I had all of those things. And that’s when I realized I hadn’t been asking the right question of myself.”

  “Which was?” Sam asked.

  “What would be my biggest regret in my life if I were to die tomorrow?”

  “And what was that?” she asked.

  “Leaving,” he said.

  Sixteen

  Summer 1988

  Gordon’s beloved La-Z-Boy was rocking violently. He was watching the Detroit Tigers pummel the Boston Red Sox, putting an end to Boston’s twenty-four-game home winning streak at Fenway Park, and he kept jumping out of his chair with each run the Tigers scored. Every time he stood, their Jack Russell, Peachy, would jump onto the chair—riding it as if he were on a surfboard—waiting for it to slow and then curling up into the warm seat that had been vacated.

  “Honey, you’re going to have a heart attack,” Willo said. “Calm down.”

  Peachy jumped back off as Gordon sat back down in his corduroy rocker. He took off his Detroit ball cap and waved off his wife as if she were a bothersome mosquito. “I never thought they’d lose at home again,” he said. “Tigers did it.” He stopped and put his cap back on, adjusting it just so on his tanned, balding head.

  “Mind bringing me a beer to celebrate?” he asked Willo.

  “What did you celebrate with the first two beers?” she asked.

  The windows were open in their farmhouse, and a warm summer breeze was tossing the curtains around. Willo looked at her husband, who had returned his focus to the game, and smiled.

  “Been a hot summer,” she said, thinking of how hard her husband had toiled in the muggy weather. “You deserve it.”

  She returned with an ice-cold beer for him and a Vernors for herself.

  “Cheers to the Tigers,” she said, nodding at the TV, clinking her husband’s beer with her own ginger ale.

  Gordon caught his wife’s eye and stared intently at her, nodding at her. “Back atcha,” he said, his voice suddenly emotional.

  Willo leaned in, pulled off her husband’s ball cap, and gave him a peck on top of the head. “I think I’ll bake something while you finish watching the game,” she said, replacing his cap.

  “How about some ice cream sandwiches?” she asked. “Made with your favorite cookies.”

  “Your secret maple spice chocolate chip–cherry chunk cookies?” he asked. “I won’t fight you on that.” Gordon laughed and rubbed his tummy.

  Gary watched his in-laws in silence from the staircase in the foyer. He had made it halfway downstairs from the bedroom he and Deana had shared in their house since they graduated college and recently married, but the sweet scene had compelled him to stop and watch. Peachy—constantly on the prowl for unwanted varmints and visitors in the orchard and at home—suddenly scampered into the foyer and caught Gary sitting there. Peachy’s wiry body stiffened, and he hunched his back to bark.

  “Peachy!” Gary said in a hushed yet forceful whisper. “No bark!”

  Peachy stared at Gary, as if to say, You’re the visitor now, and again hunched his back.

  “You wanna cookie?” Gary whispered in a singsong voice, offering the dog a fake treat. “C’mere.”

  Peachy scampered up the steps and stood in front of Gary, his tail wagging uncontrollably. But when Gary offered nothing, the dog barked his disapproval, and Gary jumped.

  “Peachy!” Gordon called from the living room. “What is it? You get ’im.”

  Peachy went running to Gordon, and Gary watched the dog jump onto his father-in-law’s lap and circle round and round for a moment, before curling into a ball and falling immediately asleep.

  I wish life were so simple, Gary thought.

  He looked down at the letter in his hand, the words blurring in front of his eyes.

  Dear Mr. Nelson:

  Essex Engineering is pleased to offer you the position of assistant project engineer at our company headquarters in San Francisco, California. Mr. Essex, a fellow University of Michigan engineering graduate, feels your education and qualifications would make you …

  Gordon yelled excitedly, and Gary jumped. He watched his father-in-law get back out of his recliner, take a sip of his beer, and then settle back into the rocker, Peachy settling back into his lap once again.

  Do I want life to follow the same routine? Gary thought. The same, never-ending pattern of orchard life—season by season, tied to this place, this house—over and over and over again?

  Gary thought of his own parents, who had worked in the auto industry in Detroit their whole lives, also doing the same thing every single day. Gordon and Willo wanted Gary and Deana to continue their legacy …

  But do we want that? he thought. We haven’t even started our lives, and everyone wants to define them for us.

  Gary nervously turned the letter over in his hands, the paper becoming more and more crinkled. He set it on the step and then looked at his own hands. Since graduating from college, he and Deana had returned home to work on the orchard and live until they figured things out. His hands had gone from smooth to deeply callused, and the daily labor had shifted from mind to body. The orchard was growing—more people were traveling to and discovering the beauty of northern Michigan—but the profits were small, the work monumental.

  Gary turned and looked at the family photos that spanned the staircase wall. Their lives had all been marked by the orchard and Michigan’s seasons: peach blossoms and blizzards, apple picking and pumpkins. Gary’s heart began to race, and he had the urge to run before this small world and home collapsed on top of him.

  “What are you doing?”

  Gary’s panic subsided as soon as he heard his new wife’s voice.

  “I’m making some ice cream sandwiches,” Willo said, her voice reverberating into the hallway. “Want to help?”

  “I’d love to,” Deana said.

  “How’s the guest room?” Willo asked. “Are you and Gary comfortable? I know it’s small. I know it’s not your own home.”

  “Mom, stop,” Deana said. “It’s wonderful. We can never thank you enough.”

  Gary had asked Deana to marry him at halftime of the Michigan–Michigan State game. It might not have sounded romantic to other people, but to true Michiganders this was the equivalent of being proposed to in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris while an orchestra played.

  “You’re more than my son-in-law,” Willo had told Gary over Christmas. “You’re like my son. Never had a boy, so it’s nice to have one around for a change. For some reason, the women in our family can never give birth to a boy. I think it has something to do with our recipe box … I think there was some secret pact made long ago, so we could pass it on forever. You should know, that’s the joke around these parts, by the way: ‘What are the two things you can’t get at Mullins Orchards? A bad pie and a baby boy.’”

  Gary had laughed, but Willo had been serious. “You and Deana will have a girl, I promise,” she said. “But maybe you can break the streak.”

  The two had ended up talking about the future that Christmas, whether he and Deana might move from Michigan and where they might end up, and Gary had shared the list of interviews he had lined up for the spring with Deana and her parents.

  But not this letter, he thought.

  Gary quietly scooted himself up the stairs a few steps, like a reverse Slinky, giving
himself a better angle into the kitchen. He watched Willo and Deana assemble ingredients for the ice cream, fudge, and caramel. They pulled butter from the refrigerator, a mix of chocolate chips and cocoa powder along with flour and white and brown sugar from the pantry, vanilla and maple spice from the spice drawer.

  “And the pièce de résistance?” Willo asked. “Voilà.”

  She held up a bag of cherries the orchard had dried.

  Deana stuck her hand into the bag and popped a few into her mouth. “These taste like heaven,” she said.

  Gary heard the women shuffle around the kitchen, talking and laughing as they mixed ingredients. Their voices drifted up to him, along with the evening sounds of life along the bay and orchard: birds calling, cicadas chirping, frogs moaning, the ball game playing, the dull roar of boats and lawn mowers.

  “The secret is in the cherries and the maple spice,” Willo told her daughter. “It’s such a perfect combination with the chocolate and the ice cream.”

  “Ice cream sandwiches,” Deana said. “Reminds me of being a kid. They are quintessential summer.”

  The sounds of his wife and mother-in-law talking were comforting, like the play-by-play of the baseball game.

  She is right, Gary thought. All of this is quintessential.

  Gary watched the duo skitter around the kitchen, eating as much of the chocolate chips as they put into the batter, talking nonstop as they did, Willo imparting knowledge through old stories, just as she did in the pie pantry.

  When his mother-in-law pulled the old recipe box from the cabinet, Gary remembered once joking that the cabinet was so big he believed the farmhouse had been built around it. Willo opened the recipe box with a key she always wore around her neck and, as if by memory, went directly to an index card, pulling it from the box.

  “Look at the card for these cookies,” Willo said to Deana. “It’s covered with chocolate fingerprints.”

  “It looks like a Dalmatian,” Deana laughed. “Spots everywhere. Now there’s some history.”

  “And some old DNA,” Willo laughed. “And listen to this. I just love your grandmother’s directions. ‘Drop by heaping teaspoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet … and then into your mouth.’ Or this at the bottom of the card: ‘Eat warm cookies immediately with grandchildren.’”

  Gary watched Willo pull another index card from the recipe box.

  “Not only are all of her recipes incredible, but most of them have her own special directions on them. That’s why I love this recipe box so much. It’s like she’s still here, right now, with us.”

  “I believe that,” Deana said. “I can feel her cooking with us.”

  “Oh, and look at this,” Willo said. “One of her friends from church gave her a family gelatin recipe—she used to call them her ‘Sunday salads’ although they didn’t have one leaf of lettuce or anything healthy in them—and at the end it says, ‘Shake until it doesn’t shake anymore … unlike my thighs.’ Another gelatin recipe says, ‘Jiggle ’til it doesn’t wiggle.’”

  The two roared in laughter.

  As the two laughed, Gary’s heart rose into his throat, and he felt as if he might cry. Watching the two share beloved recipes moved Gary and caused him to see his mother-in-law—and his new family—in a new light.

  “Why don’t you add these items to the restaurant?” Deana suddenly said.

  “What do you mean?” Willo asked.

  “Ice cream represents summer,” Deana said. “It should be on the menu at the pie pantry. People would go crazy. You could even package and sell the ice cream and ice cream sandwiches. I mean, what if we developed our own flavors, like apple cider ice cream?”

  “I’ve never thought of that,” Willo said. “Just when you think you’ve thought of it all. How would we do it?”

  “I’ll pull together a model and forecast,” Deana said. “Let’s sit down tomorrow and break down cost, how we would make them, package them, what equipment we’d need, what health codes we’d need to meet.” She stopped. “All of this is why people come here. I know there will be some logistical and business hoops to jump through, but I think it makes sense.”

  This time, Gary’s eyes filled with tears as his business-major wife excitedly shared a new vision about …

  Our business, Gary said to himself.

  “What do you enjoy most about studying business?” Willo asked Deana.

  “Being an entrepreneur,” she said. “What do you enjoy most about running a business?”

  “Same,” Willo said. “I love seeing people smile. I love living off of the land that our family started. I love doing it for ourselves. It’s our company. At the end of every single day, Gordon and I can look at each other and say, ‘We gave it our all.’ What more can you ask?”

  Willo hesitated, and continued. “And at the end of my life, I know I can look back and say I had no regrets. I think that’s the secret to a happy and long life: being able to look back—be it at the very end of a day or at the very end of life—and say, ‘I did it. I don’t regret a darn thing.’ Too many people end their lives wishing they had done this, or done that, and they are filled with regret. I don’t want that for you or Gary. You two need to do what will make you the happiest.”

  Gary watched the two hug.

  “Oh, I think the cookies are ready,” Willo said. “Grab the ice cream.”

  Willo continued: “You know it’s fitting we’re making ice cream sandwiches, isn’t it? Each component complements the other, makes it better … complete. Just like us.” She laughed as she began assembling them, putting a big scoop of cold ice cream between two warm cookies. “Ice cream sandwiches are like the teamwork of dessert.”

  We are a good team, Gary thought. We all do make each other better and more complete. His soul suddenly filled with pride at how much Deana’s parents and grandparents—as well as his own—had achieved and at his wife’s vision for the future. They do have a good life.

  Gary scanned the wall of family photos, his eyes locking with the orchard’s ancestors.

  We do have a good life, he said, altering his thought.

  A good life. Maybe it is that simple, Gary thought. Maybe that’s really all there is to life.

  Gary looked at the letter in his hands. As he stared at the job offer, the opportunity for a new life somewhere far from here, his eyes couldn’t help but keep changing the name Essex for Nelson.

  Will I regret staying? Gary wondered.

  “Who wants ice cream sandwiches?” he heard Willo yell.

  No, he realized. I’ll regret leaving.

  Gary reread the letter, one last time, and then he folded it into a tiny square and put it in a secret compartment in his wallet, where it would remain hidden forever.

  “I do,” Gary suddenly yelled, standing and coming down the stairs. “Make it two!”

  Seventeen

  “Live without any regrets, Sam,” Gary said. “That’s the only advice I can give to you. Life goes by so fast—in one blink of God’s eye, as your grandmother likes to say—so make sure you have no regrets. Do what makes you happy.”

  He stopped and pulled out his wallet, whose black leather had been worn nearly clear on both sides. He opened it and pulled from a small compartment the letter he’d received decades ago.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” her father asked.

  “That you need a new wallet,” Sam said, and laughed.

  “I had convinced myself not only that this life wasn’t good enough—this place, this job—but that I wasn’t good enough,” he said. “I was. You are. No matter where you land.”

  He hesitated. “One of the hardest things about being a parent is letting go,” he said. “Doing everything you believe is right, and then trusting you’ve done a good enough job and just … letting go.” Gary looked at his daughter. “One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was kissing you good-bye, right here in this orchard, and letting you go off to college in New York. The hardest thing for your mom and grandm
a was leaving you there, letting you be on your own … letting you be an adult, letting you make your own decisions, letting you soar.” He stopped. “But I didn’t have children to be replicas of myself.”

  He folded the letter and returned it to his wallet. “Parents should be respected but not idolized.”

  “I idolize you, Dad,” Sam said softly. “I always have.”

  “Don’t,” Gary said, looking his daughter directly in the eye. “Parents are human, just like you. We make good decisions and bad ones. We are flawed. But I didn’t have children who only did what I said, or wanted to be like I was. And I will die with regret if I ever felt you or your brother lived only to please your mother and me.” He stopped and watched the workers pick fruit. “We have choices. They often don’t. We’re blessed in so many ways. So, please, I beg you, be who you want to be. Whether it’s here or New York, whether it’s alone or with someone … but don’t let guilt force you into a life you don’t want. I love you, and I’ll always love you no matter what decisions you make, because you’re an amazing person. I just want you to believe that you’re an amazing person.”

  “Dad,” Sam said softly.

  “And one last thing,” he said. “You know I ran cross-country in high school, too. It’s a tough sport, isn’t it?”

  Sam nodded, remembering her days of training, running hills, often running alone.

  “When we run, the only people we have to rely on are ourselves,” Gary said. “When I ran on sunny days, I would often talk to my shadow. My shadow stayed in lockstep with me, never leaving my side. I always believed I’d have to do everything on my own. When I met your mother on a sunny day in college, we took a walk and talked. I remember looking at our shadows as we walked.”

  “I don’t think I’m following, Dad,” Sam said, a quizzical look on her face.

  “I had met my shadow,” he said softly. “I’d met the person I knew would be in lockstep with me the rest of my life. Your shadow is out there, Sam. Maybe it’s this Angelo fellow. Who knows? But it’s hard to keep running a marathon like life, especially when you’re alone.”