How Sweet It Is - Alice J. Wisler [34]
Standing, I leave the sunny deck to head inside. The accident was three-and-a-half months ago. Surely—surely—it will leave my mind one day.
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That evening when the owl calls in the nearby tree and I awake, I remember the envelope with my name on it and the letter inside. Searching in the bookcase, I find it again. I sit outside on the canvas chair and read it again. This time a different part jumps out at me. Sometimes I have wondered why we have to face so much sorrow in this world. Our sorrows often multiply, our disappointments increase, and our hearts are heavy. Perhaps this life is not the one we would have chosen.
I would have chosen Lucas to be faithful and loyal and to love me forever. I would have made him see only me in my teal dress.
I scan the recipe for Grandpa’s peanut soup printed at the end of the letter and think that it sounds worth trying. I jot down the ingredients I’ll need to purchase from Ingle’s. Slipping the memo paper into the pocket of my bathrobe, I look forward to making something my grandfather enjoyed. It will certainly taste better than my own tears. If all the tears I’ve cried since the accident were piped chocolate roses, I would be as round as Hector by now.
When I write in the journal, I start with a few lines about growing up on the farm—how pigs are my favorite animals, how exciting it is to watch new piglets squeal into the world. Even my mother, who once hoped to marry a big-name lawyer and take vacations to the south of France, isn’t able to conceal her awe when these births take place on the hay-strewn barn floor. In spite of what she tells Andrea and me about her once-upon-a-longings, we know she is married to the wisest and sweetest man in the world. His profession as a farmer only makes him humble.
My mind wanders to what kind of childhood the children who come to The Center for the after-school program have had—and are having—but I push the topic as far away as my mind will let me.
No, Grandpa, this is not the life I would have chosen.
seventeen
Sally and I sit on the deck, grilling trout and catfish as the sun vanishes behind the edge of the mountain closest to the cabin. Sally is a good fisherwoman; she brought two rods, bait, and tackle, and we spent this morning fishing in Deep Creek.
Perhaps she had heard the sorrow in my voice when I told her that my hope to drive to Tifton to visit Dad and Mom and spend four or five days on the farm was not going to be realized.
Whatever the cause, Sally didn’t hesitate. She hopped in her Honda Civic and made the winding trip of 152 miles to Bryson City. She left another doctor in charge of all her fuzzyfurred, wet-nosed clients.
“School is out June eighth here, but they want me to teach all summer,” I told her as I stood in my kitchen with my cell phone clutched in one hand and stirring buttercream frosting with the other. “Summer school. It starts on Monday.”
“They really want these kids to learn to cook, don’t they?” Sally sipped from her cup of coffee. I could hear the slurp over the phone. Starbucks Mocha Latte. Two percent milk, a dash of cinnamon. Sally’s favorite.
While I longed for my own cup of Starbucks, I said, “They want to keep them occupied and off the streets.”
“Well, that’s important, I guess.”
“Miriam says that the summer program also has this guy named Robert teaching drama and art. I’m sure the kids will like that.”
Just art, drama, and basketball would be enough to keep their minds and hands busy, wouldn’t it? Are the cooking classes really necessary? When I asked Miriam about it, she said, “Cooking helps them learn about measuring, and ingredients, and how to use them in recipes, but it also teaches children to follow directions in order to obtain a satisfactory result.” She shuffled her tennis shoes, reciting the words, and I wondered which cookbook produced this wisdom.
I squeeze some lemon juice on the skins of the fish fillets and tell Sally that I think the money they pay me at The Center comes from some kind of account Grandpa