How Sweet It Is - Alice J. Wisler [47]
I have one more question. “Jonas?”
“Yep.”
“Is it hard to forgive people?”
His lips draw together as he squints his eyes. “Forgiveness helps us,” he tells me. “Heals the bad feelings so that they don’t make us mean.”
I don’t speak for a minute, and he looks uncomfortable. His feet shuffle and he shifts from side to side. When I do talk, all I can say is, “Jonas, that was very good.”
————
That night the owl doesn’t wake me, but a memory does. I am standing in the elevator headed to the first floor of the hospital. Sally is bringing the car to the entrance, and I am going home. The elevator door opens and a couple enters with a baby wrapped in a pink blanket. The man holds the bundle, all warm and soft. Neither he nor the woman takes their eyes off their baby. I assume they are going home, too.
I have just spent five days in the hospital because my fiancé crashed his car. He never visited me during my stay, and through the grapevine I learned he has been dating someone else. My future has crashed and evaporated like a puff of smoke. I think it’s uncanny that for a brief time in space, this couple and I share the same elevator, getting off at the first floor—to start new lives. Their happiness, my shock and sorrow, all combined in that tiny square, until the doors let us out, and then we share nothing anymore.
twenty-three
When Jonas delivers the brochures to me four days later, I am astounded. I’m on my deck, looking for the tree the owl cries from. I wonder why I’m so doggedly determined to find and see the owl, the creature whose call I have grown to accept and expect each night.
Impulsively, I hug Jonas.
Sheepishly, he says, “You are happy, Deirdre.”
The color brochures are beautiful. They are even on a beige card stock, not just regular twenty-pound computer paper. The photo of the ice cream cake looks clear and tempting.
“How much do I owe you?” I ask. Come to think of it, I have offered him nothing for checking my pipes. Is Aunt Regena Lorraine paying his bill? She told me to hand over any utility bills I get for the cabin because she pays them from a fund my Grandpa set up. Whenever he traveled, she paid his bills for him.
“Zero,” replies Jonas. He presses his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“No, Jonas. I have to pay you.”
“The guy at Custom Print owed me money.”
“He did? Why?”
“I fixed a leak in his kitchen.” Then he laughs, and drawing attention to where he cut his head in my bathroom, he says, “I almost hit my head on a pipe at Custom Print!”
I’m glad to see that his wound from the other day has disappeared. If only all cuts could leave our bodies so quickly and without a trace.
“Let me pay you.”
“No.” He shoves his hands deeper into his jeans pockets and shakes his head. “Zero.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Well, you will have to.”
A moment later he enters my kitchen and bellows, “Got any cake to eat?”
————
I do three loads of laundry after Jonas leaves. As my clothes spin in the dryer, I admire the fancy lettering, the vivid colors, the texture of the card stock, and the way the photo of the chocolate ice cream cake entices. Chef B would not think the cake is regal enough for the intricate decorating I do, but Jeannie was clever in suggesting this cake be the one for the front of the brochure. This cake speaks of people’s everyday lives—brownies and chocolate chip cookies. Not tiers of frosted cake layered with unpronounceable orange filling.
I feel a bit foolish for thinking that Jonas wouldn’t get the job done. I’m sure I’m not the first one to doubt his capabilities. Before he left in his truck, I thanked him again. He just smiled and said I should start making cakes.
Giovanni barks as my aunt knocks on the door. I yell for her to come on in, which she and the dog do. Today my aunt has on a bright yellow dress with two big pockets below the waist. But she is not feeling bright today and immediately upon seeing me at the dining room table, cries, “I’m sorry, Deena.”
“For what?”
“You’ll have to excuse me for coming in here so often. I know you don’t need your old aunt