Cooking as Fast as I Can

by Cat Cora

  The meetings did help to a degree. But my marriage wasn’t suddenly repaired because I passed up a glass of pinot.

  During those desperate days I also tried to find some healing and strength by spending time enjoying my boys. But I was their anchor, not the other way around.

  I tried everything. If someone had told me to go to the beach nude and play bongos while praying to the ocean god, I would have done it.

  I did do it, sort of.

  A yogi friend, Rachel, suggested a visit to her father might be in order. He was a medical doctor in town, also a shaman who practiced some form of African divination that involved “bone readings” in a yurt in his yard. It was legit, insofar as these things are; a tribe in Nigeria that practiced this particular form of healing had ordained him.

  I crawled inside the yurt and sat cross-legged in front of a low table. He fetched a velvet bag and withdrew a handful of bones, which he tossed across the table, then gazed at, drumming his chin. He murmured that he saw an intruder. “There is someone or something in your life who is a danger to you. Something disrupting your marriage and your life.”

  I nodded, wondered how crazy he thought I would be if I said I knew exactly what he meant: hot yoga.

  In 2011, I opened a new restaurant, Cat Cora’s Kitchen, at the San Francisco International Airport. I’d flown eight hundred million miles over the past fifteen years, and every time I marched through the terminal in some far-flung airport I always thought the same thing: why does airport food have to be so god-awful? It’s not as if an airport is the international space station and transporting good meat and produce required the brightest minds at NASA.

  I’d spent so many frantic, excited, depressed, sad, joyful moments in airports, so I understood in my bones that people in transit needed a reprieve, a rest from the lunatic demands of air travel. My idea was to offer upscale comfort food in a restful environment. I put lobster mac ’n’ cheese, classic American grilled cheese and tomato soup, and flank steak tacos with charred pineapple salsa on the menu, and an ouzotini on the drinks list. I made sure the bartenders poured real drinks, and had the designers install outlets under the bar, so people could charge up their electronics.

  That fall, Jennifer and I had decided we should go to Jackson for Christmas. Earlier in the year my dad had been diagnosed with bladder cancer. He survived his surgery and treatment and had been declared cancer free, but it was clear his best years were behind him, and there was every possibility this would be his last winter holiday.

  As Christmas approached, Jennifer said she just didn’t want to leave her yoga practice. The argument that ensued was not our worst, in part because the moment I was about to start throwing things, Thatcher toddled out, complaining of a sore throat. The next day the doctor diagnosed strep. Most likely we could have found a way to make the trip, but by then Jennifer had worn me down. Two days before Christmas I called my parents to break the news that we couldn’t make it. They were crushed. My mom, steely, practical, and always understanding, cried. It was, indeed, my dad’s last Christmas. Even now I prefer not to dwell upon that, for fear of unearthing the resentment I know is buried there.

  twenty-one

  My dad was the world’s best retiree. After thirty-five years devoted to teaching world history to tenth graders in the Jackson, Mississippi, school system, he said, “No more.” They must have given him a plaque and a send-off dinner, but if so I never heard about it. He was the classic Man Who Never Looked Back.

  In retirement he would get up at 9:00 a.m. and drink a cup of coffee, eat a toasted bagel heavy with cream cheese, and read the paper. Next: shit, shower, shave. That took two hours. Then he would meet a friend for lunch. One of his students grew up to become principal of the high school, and they’d often go to Scottie’s restaurant, now no longer in business. He developed a routine with the waitress. She’d say, “How were those chicken and dumplings?” And he’d say, “Real good. But next time trip the chicken so some meat falls off.”

  He’d mosey home, settle into his recliner, and read his book. Heat up the leftover coffee from the morning’s pot and wait for dinner, wondering in particular what was for dessert. As he got on in years, he developed type 2 diabetes, and my mom begged him to watch his calories and exercise. I had a few come-to-Jesus conversations with him about cutting out the hand pies, but he just smiled, indulging me. “I’ve already outlived all the men in my family,” he said.

  After he recovered sufficiently from his bout with bladder cancer, my parents made the long trip from Swan Lake Drive to Santa Barbara to visit their grandchildren for Easter, a compensation for missing Christmas. We were relieved and grateful to learn that his oncologist in Jackson had declared Dad cancer free, but a week into their stay, a golf-ball-size tumor popped up on his neck. Jen and I took him to our doctor, who diagnosed the mass in his lymph nodes as malignant. Whether it was a new cancer or a metastasis was unknown, but we were devastated.

  Had this happened today, I’d like to think I would be capable of being present with my grief, but instead I went into full-throttle we-are-going-to-make-the-most-of-every-moment mode.

  My dad seemed happiest when he had two grandsons on each knee. He loved them more than anything. And regardless of how tense things were between Jen and me, and how I felt that no matter how hard I was working, I should be working harder, longer, and faster, our boys were a constant source of joy for me as well, affectionate and entertaining and wonderful to behold.

  Zoran, our oldest, is a Renaissance guy. He plays chess and the piano. He also surfs. He’s a good student and a little soccer star. Of the four boys, in terms of looks and personality, he’s Jennifer’s mini me, sensitive and passionate. He likes people, and during the many plane flights he’s already taken, often strikes up a conversation with his seatmate. Perhaps because he was our first and only child for a few years, Zoran and I have a special, unspoken bond; also, because he and Jennifer are so much alike they squabble, and I’m often the peacekeeper.

  Caje, the second oldest, is a smaller guy with a huge personality, like the proverbial big dog in a small dog’s body. He entertains the rest of us by walking around the house reciting movie lines. It wouldn’t surprise us if he wound up becoming a famous actor. Or a Supreme Court judge. He’s the law-and-justice man in the family. If Caje sees what he perceives as an injustice, he’ll start raising Cain about it. If one of his brothers is getting disciplined and Caje believes it to be unfair, he will stand up for him to the point of getting his own time-out.

  Thatcher is our third born and resembles Zoran to a scary degree (meaning he also looks just like Jen), with the same handsome, well-proportioned features and sly smile. He’s our resident wild man, who hates wearing shoes, shirts, or underwear. He was ahead of the crowd in developing his small motor skills, and he’s good with his hands, a Lego-assembling genius. He’s also got a big vocabulary, and for this reason is hugely entertaining. He uses his big words to try to reason and negotiate.

  Nash, the baby of the family, is only three months younger, and Thatcher relates to him as if he were his twin. If he sees Nash is sad about something he’ll try to cheer him up by saying, “But look at it this way!” or, “But look, this is why it’s going to be so cool!”

  Maybe it’s always the role of the youngest, but Nash is a rascal. He’s fantastically athletic, took to scooter riding, bike riding, and even surfing like he was born to it. He’s the kind of boy who will be attracted to cliff diving as a profession. Like Zoran, he’s a whiz at soccer, but he also possesses a huge imagination, and loves to play at sword fighting. (All the boys share a passion for this, and I had to get up to speed on the many types of fake blades.) We keep a well-stocked costume drawer, and some days, when Nash has disappeared into his world, he’ll change costumes five times a day.

  It was late April when my parents arrived in California to see their beloved grandchildren. I was coming apart. I’d stopped seeing Robin for therapy about six months after I began at Postin
o and hadn’t seen anyone else since. I started seeing a new therapist, Judith. She was soft-spoken and very calm, with reddish-brown hair and a maternal quality to which I responded. As is usually the case with very good therapists, I didn’t know much about her. Once she told me she loved to swim. We focused on issues stemming from my childhood abuse, which had been stirred up with the birth of my own children. I was beginning to exhibit signs of PTSD. Nightmares set in the house in Texarkana. Flashbacks to that day in the bathroom, seeing my dad poke his head through the door with that look of disgust, the likes of which I’d never seen before or since.

  As our children grew, and Zoran and Caje, the two older boys, were starting to venture out in the world, going to preschool and play dates, I became obsessed with the idea that someone out there was abusing them. I’d begun to suffer panic attacks where I’d break into a sweat and start shaking and crying.

  There’s no telling what might trigger an attack. One time, one of the little guys was having a bad morning. When I left the house he was sobbing uncontrollably because he didn’t like the shorts or socks or something he was wearing. A typical morning, nothing alarming.

  But later that day I was driving and suddenly the image of him sobbing in anguish arose in my mind, and before I could remind myself that he’d been having a fit over some wardrobe issue, I connected his pain to my fear of someone hurting him, then hurting any of the boys. The terror bloomed in my mind until I started crying. My heart was pounding so hard, my hands shaking so badly, I was forced to pull over.

  During the first or second session with Judith, I mentioned that my parents were going to be in town. She knew I had some unresolved issues with them, how after the abuse had been discovered, it was never spoken of again. She wondered whether they would want to come in for a session.

  Since the babies had been born and Jennifer and I hit the skids, I’d called my mom sometimes several times a week, crying, complaining, and asking her advice. From hotel rooms in Chicago, Dallas, Nashville, New York, Seattle, Atlanta, and New Orleans I would call her from my fetal position atop the six-hundred-thread-count duvet. She was fully up to speed on my despairing, self-medicating, minibar-raiding ways; on Jennifer’s newfound devotion to yoga and head shaving. She knew about the exhausting arguments, the brutal silence and lazy, contemptuous sniping. She’d listened for hours. And she’d forgiven us for skipping Christmas because she possessed more empathy than a monastery full of monks.

  When I asked her if she and Dad were up to joining me in therapy she said yes without a moment’s hesitation. She knew that I’d never fully processed the abuse, that so much of my anxiety, my fierce determination to prove myself long after there was nothing left to prove, was born of that trauma. She felt, I think, some guilt. I wasn’t the only one who had lived with it for forty years.

  My mom and dad sat together on the couch in Judith’s office. The room was bright in the afternoon sun, and I noticed, really noticed, maybe for the first time, how they’d aged. I smiled to myself, remembering when I returned from my internships in France, now a little over fifteen years ago, and I’d thought a little graying at the temples and bad posture signified the beginning of old age. They were in their seventies now. My mom was still strong and hardy, with a thick head of cropped, gray-turning-white hair and a confident, white-toothed smile. My dad was stooped, softer, more vulnerable. He’d survived his cancer but it had taken a lot out of him.

  Judith thanked them for coming, but her primary role was as witness. We cried easily, all of us. My mom, prepared as always, fished a packet of Kleenex from her purse. They reminded me of a few things: I hadn’t known how old AH was, or how aghast and ashamed his parents had been. I told them that it had happened more than once. My dad struggled to explain his own actions, and the sheer effort he made broke my heart.

  “I was just shocked,” he said, searching for words. “I didn’t know what to do. Obviously, I handled it badly.”

  He was an honest, old-fashioned gentleman, a modest man. He hadn’t abandoned me. He was just stunned, and human, and victim of his own temperament, as we all are.

  After we learned that his cancer had returned, something curious happened. Out of the blue, as though summoned by the universe to try to make amends, AH, having heard of my dad’s plight, turned up on their doorstep at Swan Lake Drive. My mom offered him some coffee and they sat at the kitchen table with the floral tablecloth. He was a man in his fifties now, with a wife or ex-wife, I can’t remember, a whole life lived. He said he was there to check on my dad, but my parents weren’t having any polite southern time-passing chitchat.

  They threw down. Reported on the therapy session, told him what a blow to our family his beastly behavior had been, how my life—even though it looked so good from the outside—had been scarred by his abuse. They didn’t mince words.

  This middle-aged man, who had probably all but forgotten his crimes, apologized so hard he broke a sweat. Claimed he was full of shame and regret. My mom reminded him he easily could have served time.

  It didn’t matter to me what excuses he had. What touched me and partially healed me was that my parents, without any urging on my part, had called him to task. This couldn’t have been easy for them. They are not the kind of people who enjoy confrontations, but they loved me enough to try to make it right.

  On July 9, my parents celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary and I was determined to throw them a party they’d never forget. I wanted to have the biggest anniversary party Jackson, Mississippi, had ever seen. I wanted to invite everyone who’d ever been touched by their goodness and grace: my dad’s former students and fellow teachers at Wingfield High, college friends from Millsap, and whatever old pals were still around from his days managing the Shamrock Inn. My mom’s comrades in nursing, her nursing students, and leagues of grateful patients at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, her professors, advisers, and dorm roommates at the University of Alabama when she was there getting her PhD. All the crazy people who used to show up at our house for Thanksgiving. All my brothers and my friends who used to hang out drinking beer in the game room. The neighbors who put up with the Cora kids water-skiing around Swan Lake, flooding their lakeside lawns with our rooster tails. And, of course, their own tribe of close friends. It should tell you a lot that they had more friends, good friends, than anyone I’ve ever known.

  But my dad made it clear, through my mom, that he didn’t want it. He was tired. Or, he knew in his bones it would be his last hurrah, and only wanted to be surrounded by his dearest friends and most cherished family. My mom should have realized something was up when I gave in without a fight.

  I had other plans.

  “Packages will arrive at the house,” I told my mom. “Do not open anything until the party.”

  The day of the party the neighbors called my mom on her cell phone. The local florist had flowers for Spiro and Virginia Lee Cora, and didn’t want to leave them on the front porch in the punishing July heat. I asked the neighbors if they could just take them, and they said they didn’t have enough room for six dozen red roses.

  Six dozen red roses, sent by Oprah. I had asked her for a signed picture for my parents for their fiftieth, and she’d also thought to send the roses. I was stunned with gratitude. I hadn’t known that my mother, my dying father, and I needed such a grand gesture of kindness, but apparently we did, and I will always be grateful to Oprah for knowing just the right thing to do.

  Barbra Streisand was one of my mom’s favorites; she was just as nice as could be when I called her up and asked her to autograph a picture for my parents.

  Steve Azar, a big country singer who hails from my dad’s hometown of Greenville, recorded a special version of my dad’s favorite song, “Ring of Fire,” dedicated to them on their anniversary.

  Duff Goldman, host of Food Network’s Ace of Cakes and also an accomplished illustrator, drew a portrait of my dad and sent it along. Ace of Cakes was one of my dad’s favorite shows (after mine, h
e was always careful to say).

  The Obamas sent a letter wishing them happy anniversary, ending their message with We know how important love is.

  Through the Dream Foundation, a charity based in Santa Barbara that “makes dreams come true” for adults facing life-threatening illnesses, I arranged for a phone conversation between my dad and his favorite orator, Garrison Keillor.

  At the party, I thought they would perish from shock and delight. I admit it was overkill. I couldn’t help myself. I knew I was building some good memories for the hard time to come. I watched my mom squeeze my dad’s hand, put her strong arm around his shoulder, kiss his lips. My dad shook his head, smiled, chuckled, teared up with who knows what emotion. He was still my soft-spoken dad to the end.

  Every last over-the-top impulse? Totally worth it.

  I stayed on in Jackson after my parents’ anniversary party to help my mom, canceling every obligation I could without risking a lawsuit due to breach of contract. For three months, I sat at his bedside. I rubbed his feet and hands with lotion, brought him a heated pillow for his neck where the tumor pressed and caused the most pain. I hired a masseuse to come several times a week. He had lost the taste for his beloved hand pies and could eat only a few bites of Popsicle a day.

  He was very tired at the end and went to sleep most nights with the sunset, when the smell of warm grass was strongest in the neighborhood and the lightning bugs came out. My mom and I didn’t cook much, preferring a local sushi place she’d discovered. Sushi had come to Jackson! Just like Taki had introduced frozen pizza at the Shamrock Inn, all those years ago. As the house got dark my mom would make us a couple of her favorite cocktails, Voodoos, with iced vodka and Crystal Light lemonade.