How to Bake a Perfect Life Page 23

  No. I didn’t. I have never loved any man, not really. It’s my failing and my protection.

  Either way, it turned out that Poppy was right. It was impossible for Dane to be faithful, as his first wife had discovered. One of his lovers—yes, there were evidently several over the years—would not let him go when he gently tried to break it off. She went nuts and showed up at our door, stalked me and him for a month, and generally made a nuisance out of herself. She made it impossible for me, or Dane, or even my family, to sweep it all out of sight and pretend it had never happened.

  The only blessing was that Sofia had already left for college. She was in her first year at a teacher’s college in the western part of the state, a long, long drive that she made only every other month or so, and during the winter snows not even that.

  It helped protect her from the ugliness.

  It also left me completely and utterly alone. I couldn’t face the pitiful, or smirking, or even smug looks that followed me at work, so I turned in my notice. I kicked Dane out of the house.

  And there I sat, most of the autumn, drowning in humiliation and loss. I’d seen uncles fall into bad habits with alcohol, so I didn’t indulge my desire to drink entire bottles of wine, but I developed other self-destructive behaviors. I stayed up all night playing games on the computer. I watched endless movies on cable. Twice, I went out with friends and ended up in a one-night stand, not something I’m proud of.

  The only people from the family I would speak to were Poppy and my grandmother, who was weaving in and out of dementia, so she often forgot that I was getting divorced. Forgot, for that matter, that I had ever been born and mistook me for one of her sisters or daughters.

  It was bread that saved my life. For the second time.

  While I was throwing things out one night, I found my old notebook, Ramona’s Book of Breads. The sight of my hopeful handwriting on the cover, the memory of those dire days in an earlier part of my life—days I had survived, after all—went right through my gut. I sank down on the floor, pulled out of my dervish whirl, to open the cover. And remember.

  Almost without thinking, I carried the book to the kitchen and pulled out those simple magic ingredients. Flour, salt, yeast.

  But nothing had gone on in that kitchen for months. I’d been eating Lean Cuisines and peanut butter crackers almost exclusively. The flour had bugs in it, and the yeast was ten years old.

  I pulled on my jeans, washed my face, and drove to an all-night grocery. With a genuine sense of delight, I bought white bread flour, and whole wheat, and a paper bag of rye. Instead of envelopes of yeast, I bought a brown jarful. Below it was kosher salt, looking so official, and I put that in my basket, too. Something I’d forgotten, something alive, stirred within me. I carried it all back home and dumped it on the counter.

  I baked all night. Stirred yeast into sugar water and watched it grow, then stirred yeast and sugar water into flour and salt and dumped it all on the counter and kneaded it far longer than was required. My hands remembered things my brain had forgotten—the way to turn and fold, the feeling of dough going smooth and clammy below the heels of my palms.

  When morning came, I called Poppy and asked her if she had any of her starters left. “Of course,” she said. “But you could get some from Adelaide today if you want it.”

  “She probably hasn’t refreshed it regularly.”

  “Get some,” she said, “and I’ll teach you to wash it.”

  The starter was salvageable, but just. It had taken on the taste of disuse and the world narrowing in. I gathered the old crock and my grandmother from her house and brought her to mine, and even as I began to work, the mother dough lightened, began to sweeten.

  I divided it into three sections. One I darkened with malt sugar and rye and my own sorrow. One I washed according to Poppy’s instructions, to bring it back to a version of itself that was as close to Bridget’s original as possible. The other I used to bake a loaf of bread that I buried in the backyard at Adelaide’s, to signify the end of this life and the start of the new one.

  It was easier to care for my grandmother in her own home, so I sold my little house and moved in with her, and I continued to cook that whole long winter. My grandmother sat with me, sometimes staring with vacant blue eyes into the far distance, where perhaps she saw to the other side. At times she kneaded with me, her veined hands and crooked fingers still finding comfort in the shaping of loaves.

  Poppy arrived one Sunday evening, alone, and found us in the kitchen. She halted at the doorway. In her hands were two Bell jars of starter—one pale and smooth, the other brown and full of holes. She stared at her mother without moving for a long time, long enough that I wondered if she would turn around and leave. The only time I could remember them speaking was the day everyone came to Poppy’s farm when I was pregnant. I still didn’t know why, but I could guess it had to do with Poppy being gay, with Adelaide’s fearsome unhappiness as a mother, or both.

  Adelaide was having one of her lost days. I’d given her a chunk of dough to press and fold, and it occupied her for hours. Like me, she seemed soothed by the smell of yeast and baking crust, and she loved the classical music I played. We often worked side by side in that kitchen for hours and hours without even speaking.

  “Grandma, look who’s here,” I said.

  She turned. “Hello, Poppy,” she said, with the surprising perfect clarity that could sometimes arrive. “Are you going to bake with us?”

  My aunt, as mighty as any woman I had ever known, crumpled. She carried the jars to the table, put them down, and bent to hug her mother from behind. “I love you, Mom. I hope you know that.”

  Adelaide closed her eyes. “You wouldn’t have been keeping my starter alive all these years if you didn’t, would you?” She curled a hand around Poppy’s arm and pressed her cheek into her daughter’s.

  They rocked back and forth for a long moment, and Adelaide said, “Will you tell Lily that I’m sorry?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “But it doesn’t matter.”

  “I ruined her dress. Never could get the stain out.”

  “I know.” Poppy straightened and went out to the backyard. When she came back, we baked rolls with each of the mother doughs and tasted them all side by side.

  Sofia’s Journal

  SAN ANTONIO

  JUNE 10, 20—

  I’ve just come from the most depressing hour of my life. I sat with Mica Reed, one of the other wives, while she cried. Her husband didn’t make it. He’s been here longer than Oscar, but he was much more seriously injured, with burned lungs, which I think was the main problem, and a lot of internal injuries. It was always a very slim hope that he would make it, but he’s been hanging on for so long you know that’s what he was trying to do. Live. He never regained consciousness, so the mind was willing but the flesh was too wrecked.

  What I hated was that, the whole time I was sitting with her, all I was thinking about was how bad Ralph’s wounds were in comparison to Oscar’s, making this mental list that was just horrible. Head to head, lungs to lungs, skin to skin, missing limbs to broken bones to lost digits.

  You think, going into this, that you know how it will be if your husband (or wife) gets injured or killed. It happens all around you, so you start to get that it really could happen, but the only way to stand it is to keep believing in some strange protection that’s going to take care of your person. Keep HIM safe, above all others.

  And there are all those crazy stories about soldiers who survive three deployments, then come back and get into a car wreck or a bar fight or get cancer and die at home. The truth is, any of us can die at any moment, but who can live with that, ever?

  Oscar is alive. He isn’t talking to me still, but he’s alive, and he’s actually getting a little better. I see the faces of the nurses and doctors. They’re not as grim. They smile at me now, and not with pity like they were before.

  Tonight I went back in there after sitting with Mica, and I told h
im that Ralph died, that he left behind five kids and a wife who can’t stop crying. That he tried to stay alive but he couldn’t get through it. I told him that his children are waiting for him to stop feeling so damned sorry for himself and get well.

  Oscar just stared through his mummy bandages at the ceiling. Never even said a word back to me.

  I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should leave him here, go home and let him work it out, whether he’s going to live or not.

  But I can’t, not yet.

  Not yet.

  Ramona

  I am lying awake, doom heavy in my gut, when my cell phone rings. Snatching it off the side table, I answer, “Sofia?”

  A man’s voice says, “It’s Jonah. Did I wake you?”

  “No.” Sitting up, I peer at the clock. One a.m. “Is everything all right?”

  “I’m outside.”

  I think of walls falling down, letting all the good and all the bad come rushing in. “I’ll be down in five minutes.”

  “Thank you.”

  I tug on my jeans and a sweatshirt, splash water on my face. Staring at my bleary eyes in the mirror, I promise myself that I won’t get too tangled in this. The last thing I need in my life is a man with a yawning wound. There are quite enough wounded people in my world already.

  But, once upon a time, he was so very kind to me that I cannot possibly turn him away now.

  He’s sitting on the front-porch step and turns as I come out the door. In a quiet voice, I say, “Hi. Is everything okay?”

  He stands. He’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and his hair is brushed back from his face as if he’s been running his hands through it. “Yes. I’m not sick or anything. I just thought you might be awake.”

  Tugging the door closed behind me, I sit down on the step and reach for him. “Sit. Tell me.”

  He perches beside me and picks up my hand, places it against his thigh, palm up. “This line here is the one that says we’ve known each other in many lifetimes.”

  His light touch makes me shiver, makes me conscious that I am not wearing anything beneath my sweatshirt. “This line marks the day we met, all those years ago.” He holds up his hand and places his palm against mine. “I know you were worried about my sad story, Ramona. Maybe it seems the timing for us is terrible again, but it isn’t.”

  “It is, though. I’m overwhelmed by my life right now.”

  “Mmm.” He looks at me. “Is that really why?”

  His thumb is moving on my inner wrist, igniting a million nerve cells. It moves higher, through that center line, and I almost think I can see phosphorescence wherever he strokes my skin. “I don’t know.”

  “I think you’re afraid.”

  I let go of a humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, with good reason. I’ve not had good luck in this department.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’ll always have bad luck.” He curls my fingers and covers them with his other hand. “I’ve been writing music for three days. Nonstop, practically. It’s terrible. It’s wonderful.” He pauses, looking into the darkness. “It’s Ethan.”

  “Your son.”

  He nods. “The thing about a sick kid is that they don’t live in the sick part. They’re still growing and making funny faces and learning to talk, all those things. He had his favorite toys and breakfasts and cartoons, you know?”

  “Yes.” Again I think of Sofia at five, her black curls and wicked eyes. “What did he love, Jonah?”

  “Fish. We had a saltwater tank, and it was his joy. He knew the name of every fish and coral in that thing. They’re beautiful, so colorful and peaceful, and it always seemed to me that something like that could heal you.”

  “I believe that.”

  He nods again. Starts to say something and then stops. “I hadn’t written anything since he died. Not one note.”

  “Maybe you needed time to grieve.”

  “It’s been fourteen years, Ramona. The trigger was you.”

  I give him a smile. “Ah, so I’m a muse. That’s cool.”

  “I’ve noticed you do that little joking thing when you’re feeling something strong.”

  I look down.

  He pushes back my sleeve, strokes up and down my inner arm, and an answering swirl of nerves moves up my spine, around my ribs, across the tips of my breasts. I pull away, tuck my arm against my body.

  He chuckles. Scoots close to me. “You like me, Ramona.”

  I bend over my knees, my hair falling down around me like a tent. “I do, but that’s besides the point.”

  “What is the point?”

  His arm comes around my shoulders, and our hips are touching. “I can’t remember.”

  He says, “I came here to kiss you.”

  “I think we shouldn’t.” I close my eyes, trying not to think about it, so of course all I can do is think about it. The taste of him. My wish for the feeling of his hands on me. “It just feels too … big or something. I am so bad at relationships.”

  “Me, too.” His fingers are brushing my hair from my neck, and then his lips fall there, on my nape, which makes me shudder. He feels it. “Sit up,” he says quietly.

  And as if my body belongs to someone else, that’s what I do. I sit up and fall into the crook of his arm, across his lap, and he kisses me. Sweetly at first, full of tenderness. Gentleness. I feel safe here, against his chest, in the dark. His hand is on my face, smoothing over my cheek and chin, my neck.

  Light shimmers in the darkness behind my eyelids. I find myself leaning into him more, curling my hand around his neck, touching his ear. We press closer together, and I am dizzy. I reach beneath his shirt to touch his skin, hot and smooth, and his hand circles my waist below the sweatshirt.

  At last he raises his head. “Do you remember when I kissed you?” he says. “In your aunt Poppy’s garden?”

  “Yes. I thought I would die.”

  “Me, too,” he says. His hand moves to my hair. “I thought about you for years, wondering how you were, what you were doing.”

  In my back pocket, my phone rings, and I sit up, urgently digging it out. “Hello?”

  “Hey, it’s your baker,” Jimmy says. “I’m standing on the other side of the streetlight and don’t want to interrupt anything.”

  I laugh and wave at her. “That’s fine. Come on over.”

  As I hang up, I stand and hold out a hand to Jonah, relieved in a way that this conversation can be finished. I’m feeling aroused and sad and nervous and giddy and need a little time to sort it out. “That was my baker. That’s her, over there.” I point across the street.

  He stands. Bends in and captures my neck and kisses me again. “What happens if you let go, Ramona?”

  I only look at him. Even the thought makes me feel faintly ill.

  He smiles. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Business is good. The Sunday morning openings, combined with juicy crowds of tourists flooding the streets—some of them looking for me specifically, thanks to an arrangement of trades I’ve set up with local motels and hotels—have created enough cash flow that I’m starting to feel as if I really might have a chance to hang on to the bakery.

  Katie is thriving. She loves the job and loves getting money, although she never spends more than a few dollars, and that is nearly always on flowers. I ask what she’s saving for and she shrugs it away. “I don’t know. I just like having it.”

  Which makes sense.

  Sofia so fiercely resisted the aunties coming that I gave in and didn’t push it. She’s now eight months pregnant, and as desperately as I had hoped to be there with her when the baby was born, it’s beginning to look like that will not happen.

  Every week, Lily, Katie, and I gather together a care package to send her, filled with all sorts of whimsical and delicious and funny things—a Gumby doll I find at Goodwill, a collection of Far Side cartoons, pretty magazines, chocolates from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Whatever seems happy and upbeat, to let her know we love her.

  Ther
e is, beneath everything, a dogged sense of things being out of kilter. It feels as if I must keep my guard up, alert to whatever is coming.

  Katie sends her father emails nearly every day, which Sofia reads aloud to him. She brightly assures Katie that it’s helping, although Katie asks me plainly one afternoon why he isn’t writing back to her.

  It isn’t a question I can answer.

  And there is Jonah. He comes to visit sometimes on these soft purple evenings. We sit on the porch. We drink ginger tea with lemons or pale lager poured into my grandmother’s old-fashioned pilsner glasses frosted with gold leaves. Sometimes we play cards or backgammon with Katie or listen to music. For now he respects my limits. He doesn’t try to kiss me.

  He brings me presents. A CD of a cellist named Adam Hurst; a clutch of roses cut from his garden—headily scented flowers in red and pink and white, one with peppermint stripes that smells wildly of oranges; a book of poetry that he reads to me in the darkness with Milo sitting on his lap, tail flicking.

  And, although I should not, I find myself baking special things for him, discovering his pleasure in dark malty rolls with caraway seeds, in sourdough so sharp it needs butter just to be chewable. He likes lemon bars dusted with powdered sugar, and chai tea made with honey and fresh spices.

  On Wednesdays and Sundays, he invites Katie and me over to his place for supper. She is enchanted by him, by the stacks of books in his library, the clean elegance of his furnishings, his collection of photos of cherry blossoms in Japan, taken by his ex-wife. Katie looks at them for a long time. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” she comments gravely. “How could I see it?”

  “In the springtime,” I say. “I’ll take you down to Pueblo and you can see the crab apples blooming.”

  For a long time, she looks at me. “I’m sure,” she says, glancing away, “that I’ll be living with my mother by then.”

  It stings oddly. “If that’s what you want.”

  She narrows her eyes. “Of course I do. Who wouldn’t want to live with their own mother if they can?”