How to Bake a Perfect Life Read online

  Impossible not to reach out and put my hands in it. “Wow, Katie, it looks terrific. Can I take a picture to upload to Sofia and your dad?”

  She poses, inclining her head and smiling directly at me. I snap a couple of shots with the phone and tuck it in my pocket. “Lily will be thrilled.”

  And when she arrives to drive us over to the restaurant, she makes as much of a fuss as I did. Katie is wearing a lime-green tank and jeans, with pretty sandals on her feet, and with the haircut and her height, she looks about sixteen. Still coltish and gamine with that angled face and elfin eyes, but much older. “You look gorgeous,” my mother says. “Did Ramona go with you?”

  “No,” she says. “I decided I wanted to surprise you guys, so I went to that place down by the grocery store.”

  So independent, I think, and I’m proud of her for it. “I love how you think for yourself.”

  “Thanks.”

  Nosh is a downtown eatery that serves small plates, and my mother loves it. We order a selection of plates to share, vegetables and meat dishes and even the duck, which my mother insists upon. I’m trying to keep my mind on the celebration instead of the doom hanging over me. In the back of my mind, I wonder what’s happening with Sofia, what the unease I feel might be.

  As for the bakery, I keep playing with possibilities, but not one is realistic thus far. The one thing I know I will not let stand this time is Stephanie’s refusal to help me. This has to end, although I’m not sure how.

  We toast Katie discreetly, celebrating what we call her special day without saying any more. She’s glowing with good health—amazing what a couple of months of good food and fresh air can do for a child.

  Midway into the meal, Lily says, “Have you heard from Sofia?”

  I have a mouthful of food, which gives me a chance to think about my response. “Yes,” I say, and drink a sip of water. “She texted me this afternoon.” I pause, glance at Katie. “She didn’t say a lot. Just that she had some false labor today and things were really overwhelming.”

  “I hate her being there all alone.” My mother delicately nibbles a spear of endive. “When are Poppy and Nancy going to get there?”

  “They aren’t. I thought I told you. Sofia didn’t want to deal with their eccentricities.”

  “I don’t think they’re eccentric,” Katie said.

  “Maybe a little,” I say.

  Lily snorts. “I love my sister, but she’s been a hippie since the day she was born. That’s not what Sofia needs right now.”

  “You sent me to live with her.”

  “Sofia’s pregnant,” Lily says dismissively.

  “So was I, as you may recall.”

  Katie looks between our faces. “You lived with Nancy and Poppy?”

  “Only Poppy. That was when they met, the summer I was pregnant with Sofia. Nancy was the midwife who came in to deliver her.”

  “And that was when they fell in love? Cool.”

  This is the thing I like best about this generation of children, all those Sofia’s age and younger—they don’t even think about mixed-race or same-sex relationships. Or any variation therein. Love is love. “It was. They’ve been really happy together.”

  Maybe sensing the tension at the table, Katie asks, “When were you pregnant with her?”

  “I was fifteen.”

  “Why did you get pregnant? Didn’t you use a condom?”

  I chuckle. “No. I should have. But they weren’t as easy to get then, and we didn’t talk about it so openly.”

  She gives a shrug and stabs an asparagus spear. “That seems kinda dumb.”

  For some reason, it makes me feel acutely emotional. Never full of regret, because how can I regret the single most perfect gift in my life? But I have a sense of time shifting, offering a glimpse of a different life. Another me.

  And I think of Jonah kissing me. I think about Sofia sitting at the bakery counter, rubbing her hand over her belly just before the phone call came. I think of never meeting Katie. “Things happen for a reason.”

  Katie looks at me, her eyes too old for her face. “Not everything.”

  “No, I don’t believe that, either,” Lily says. “People make choices. That makes up a life. Choices. Decisions.”

  “There’s some fate involved, Mom. You have to admit.”

  She shakes her head firmly. “No.”

  I let it go.

  After a few minutes my mother says, “That child can’t be alone any longer. I’m going to go to Texas.”

  “When?” Katie asks, looking stricken. “We have the flower show next week.”

  “Hon, there will be another flower show. Your dad is really in bad shape, and Sofia is too pregnant to be handling that all alone.”

  “But we’ve been planning it for a whole month. I put it on my calendar with a big star and everything.”

  I reach across the table to put my hand on hers. She yanks it away violently, almost knocking over a glass of water.

  “Get a hold of yourself, young lady,” my mother says coldly, and I remember being led down the street in Castle Rock, hysterical.

  “Mom, she’s disappointed.”

  “You made a promise,” Katie says, her voice gaining volume, “and now you’re breaking it.”

  “Lower your voice.”

  I hold up a hand between them. “Hey, everybody, this is supposed to be fun. Let’s eat and not get tangled up in anything else right now, okay?”

  “I don’t see why you can’t wait for a few more days.”

  My mother puts down her fork. I can see she’s trying to rectify the situation, but she says exactly the wrong thing. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

  “Oh,” Katie says dangerously. “Understand how adults never do what they say they will? Ever?” She stands up, blinking back tears, then flings her napkin on the table and hurries out of the room. I see other diners giving her looks of disapproval, and I want to slap each and every one of them soundly. I want to tell them they have no idea what she’s been through, how strong and brave she is.

  “What is wrong with that girl?” Lily says.

  “Mom, she’s thirteen, her whole life has been turned upside down, and she’s hormonal as hell. Not everyone is as icy as you are.”

  She glares at me. “What is that supposed to mean? Control is not the same as icy, Ramona. That’s what you, with all your dramas, never seemed to understand.”

  I force myself to take a long breath and reach for her hand. “I’m sorry. It’s been a very emotional day.” I pause to steady my voice. “Please go to Texas. I’m half crazy with worry over Sofia, and I cannot go. I can’t leave the bakery right now.”

  “Oh, Ramona,” she says, and grasps my hand. “I’m happy to do it. Now, go find Katie and tell her I’m sorry. See if you can smooth it over and bring her back to the table.”

  But Katie returns on her own, with dignity in her stiff shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I was being ungrateful. I don’t know what is wrong with me lately.”

  “It’s all right, sweetie,” I say. “Let’s order dessert, what do you say?”

  Sofia’s Journal

  JULY 8, 20—

  3:00 A.M.

  I am so tired you would think I’d fall over in a dead sleep, but I’ve been tossing and turning for hours. Every time I close my eyes, I hear Oscar screaming again. He sent me away, but I stayed close by. It seems only fair to bear witness to everything he is going through.

  They had to do what they call debriding the burns today. Which means pretty much scrubbing all those raw wounds. It’s the worst thing I can think of, and however I might imagine it, from the sounds he was making, it was so much worse.

  And for the first time today, I saw his face. His beautiful, beautiful face, which is now ruined beyond recognition. His nose is burned off, which gives a monsterish look to his face, and I’m crying as I write that because I never want him to know how horrifying it was to see that this first time. I will get used to it, a
nd I love him for himself, not his face, not his body, or anything external. I love his fierce, kind spirit, his need to take care of everything and everyone. He’s the original father of the world, watching out for animals and children and his men. If there was no war, he would be a fireman or a cop or something like that; it’s just his personality to take care of things, to shoulder the hard line of the law.

  I keep thinking, though, of the first time we met, in a bookstore coffee shop by the Citadel. I’d bought some new picture books for my classroom—my very first class of my own!—and he was there supposedly to meet a woman. I noticed him right away. He was wearing his uniform, which gets some women all excited, although you get used to it, growing up in a military town.

  But there was Oscar, well over six feet tall, with those pretty green eyes and curly hair and cheekbones like a cat. I noticed him, all right. And when he caught me sneaking a peek at him over my shoulder, he winked. The way he smiled, showing those big, strong, white teeth, made you know he was the kind of person who would always be in charge of everything. He’d never be at a loss.

  Of course, that isn’t true of anyone, right? He couldn’t control Lacey, who cheated on him over and over again until he finally gave up.

  And he sure can’t control this. Which is part of the trouble. He wants to protect me from it all, wants to make me go home so I don’t have to see him this way.

  We fought about it. I stood beside his bed and started singing a kid’s song that drives him nuts, “The Wheels on the Bus.” I don’t know why he hates it, but he does, so I started singing it over and over and over.

  Finally he looked up at me and said, “Why are you doing that?”

  “Because I want you to start acknowledging my presence. I want you to talk to me. If you won’t, I’ll sing. And I can come up with a lot of crazy stupid songs.”

  He stared at me. Hard. And here is what’s true: His eyes are just the same, the most beautiful color of green. Not exactly light green, but like a pool in a forest, still enough that you can see yellow rocks in the depths. Katie has his eyes, and I’m praying and praying that our baby has them, too.

  I touched the very tips of his fingers, where they are unburned. “You can’t give up on us, Oscar. We love you.”

  He kept looking at me, and a million things were moving in those irises, but he still didn’t speak.

  So I started to sing again. He tried to ignore me, closed his eyes as if that would make me go away.

  After about seven rounds, he growled, “Enough!”

  “Talk to me and I’ll stop.”

  “What do you want me to say, Sofia? That everything is going to turn out okay? It would be a lie. My face is gone and I’m crippled and I haven’t got a clue what to do if I’m not a soldier. Maybe I should have considered that before, but I never thought—”

  I stood there, listening.

  He turned his face away and there were no tears, but his voice was raw from not speaking for so long. “I can’t talk yet, Sofia. I just can’t stand it. Don’t ask it.”

  The nurse came in then and apologetically said it was time to take care of the wounds. “It’s pretty grim,” she told me. “You need to wait down the hall.”

  But I could still hear him screaming.

  God, I have to call my mother. I wish she could be here.

  Ramona

  After dinner, Katie heads upstairs and I find myself pacing, restless, hoping Sofia will call. It’s odd that I will have nothing to do for days on end. It’s so strange I don’t even know how to start to fill them. In the warm night, I sit out on the front porch and think about calling Ryan. Or Sarah, who has been slammed with obligations since she returned from India. Maybe she could come over and tell me about her travels.

  Finally I pick up the phone and do what I have been resisting most of the day: I call Jonah.

  “Hello!” he says, and sounds genuinely happy to hear from me. “What are you doing up so late?”

  It’s nine. I laugh. “Well, I don’t have to get up in the morning, so I’m living decadently.”

  “No work tomorrow?”

  My breath gusts out of me. “It’s been a bad day. I was wondering if you might want to come by and sit outside in the backyard with me.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. If you’re not busy or whatever.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I have to finish some business, but I’ll be over right after that.”

  I go to the kitchen and gather things for us—a shawl to put over my shoulders, an old blanket to sit on, and tidbits from the kitchen. An orange and two small pastries that should get eaten, and my phone in case Sofia calls. I wash my hands and face and spritz on a bit of perfume that he has said he likes. Not all men do these days, but I buy unique things from a shop in Manitou sometimes, handmade perfumes with colorful names.

  I wait on the front porch, shawl around my shoulders, and when I see Jonah coming up the walk, everything in me rushes outward to meet him. Physically, I stand and go down the steps toward him. He’s wearing a light-colored shirt, open at the neck, and jeans, and again I feel that little shock: This is Jonah!

  He greets me with a kiss. “Hi.”

  Taking his big hand, I say, “Let’s go to the backyard.”

  I lead the way, walking on the old, crumbling sidewalk between the house and the lilac bushes. Our arms brush the cold leaves.

  We sit down on the glider, and he says, “Do you want to tell me about your day?”

  So I pour it out to him, the waking up to dread and my worry over Sofia, and the terse texts followed by nothing, and then the big disaster of the hot-water heater and the fight with my sister who would not help me and the fear of calling my father, who wasn’t in, anyway.

  “Pretty lousy day.”

  I nod. “And I just can’t shake this feeling that something is really wrong somewhere.”

  “I know that feeling.” He takes my hand. “I’ve been thinking of quitting my job.”

  “I thought you came here to do it.”

  “It’s a good organization. I like it, and it feels good to do work like that, but I’ve been asked to submit some possibilities for a score. A friend of mine is pulling it all together, and—” He shrugs. “It seems like it might be worth a try.”

  “Jonah, that’s great news. I’m happy for you.”

  “Thanks.” In his pocket, his phone buzzes, and an expression of weary sadness moves on his mouth. He doesn’t answer.

  “I don’t mind if you answer.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s my ex. She calls nearly every evening. I don’t have the heart to tell her to stop.”

  “Why does she call?”

  “So we can say a prayer for Ethan.” He takes a breath. “It seems to help her.”

  “That’s very generous. Pretty sure I’m not that nice.”

  He glances over his shoulder. “Would you ever want more children?”

  “No.” The word is absolute, and I mean it most sincerely. “I’m going to be a grandmother any second. That will be plenty.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “Do you want another child?”

  “I’ve never considered it. But sometimes lately I think it wouldn’t be so terrible.”

  “You’re older than I am!”

  He laughs, low and deep. “That’s true. But there are a lot of children in the world who just want a place to land, something safe and warm.”

  “Katie was so skinny when she got here that I was horrified.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So you would adopt?”

  He looks at me. “Yeah. I couldn’t—”

  I smile softly. “You won’t love any child less. It doesn’t matter if they belong to your blood.”

  He puts a hand over his chest. “It’s hard to imagine.”

  “I know. But that’s how it is. Life happens to you.”

  “Speaking of that …” He puts his feet down, stopping the glider, then stands up, pulli
ng me gently to my feet. “It’s time.”

  “For?”

  “The natural thing for two lovers to do is to make love.” He pulls me into his body. “I’ve been thinking about you all day, and the day before that and the day before that.”

  And for the first time, it does seem right. It’s not a decision made in the heat of the moment, although when he gathers me close and kisses me, I find myself melding into him, our skins dissolving one into the other. His hands press down the cloth of my dress, moving surely across the landscape of my back, cupping my bottom. I press upward into him, head bending backward to accommodate his tongue. My hands are roving, too. Over his back, down his arms, hands open along the outside of his thighs. I feel the air on the back of my bare legs and realize only as his hands move beneath my skirt that he’s tugged it up. “Is Katie asleep?”

  “Yes,” I say, but the sound is strangled, because he’s sliding those clever fingers between my legs, and I make a noise, then step away. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  He smiles and follows me, and I lead him up the back stairs, through the dark kitchen, and into my bedroom, which is messy because it always is. At least the quilt is pulled up over the pillows and the clothes are mostly piled on one chair. I close the door and reach for him.

  “It’s too dark,” he says.

  “My room is messy.” I think of how tidy his house is, everything in its place, all the clutter stowed. If he even owns any clutter.

  “I don’t care,” he says, laughing. “I want to look at you, not your bedroom.”

  Reluctantly, I turn on a lamp, and I’m even embarrassed by the fact that there is a scarf around the shade, a peachy color I love so much I want to put it everywhere. I turn back to find him looking at me soberly, and he reaches for the buttons of my dress. I start to help him, but he says quietly, “Let me.”

  He takes his time, unbuttoning each button, and then he pushes the light dress off my shoulders and I’m standing in my panties and bra. I kick the dress aside and move toward him. “I used to imagine that you were in my room with me,” I say, unbuttoning his shirt. “That you were lying in my bed and our chests were bare.”