How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [126]
When the dough is finished, I put it in an oiled bowl, cover it with a damp flour-sack towel, and make a pot of coffee. My dilemma ping-pongs back and forth across my brain. Tell her. Don’t tell her. Tell her. Don’t tell her.
Ticktock, ticktock.
Herself comes down just before five a.m. “Can I help you with anything?” she asks, all meek and mild.
“No, thank you.”
She leans on the counter. “What is that?”
“Oatmeal and whole wheat with sunflower seeds.”
“Oh.” She chews on her inner cheek. “I had a bad dream about my dad.”
A ripple of unease disturbs the calm in the room. “What kind of dream?”
“That he died. That he didn’t want to live.”
Tell her. Don’t tell her.
I shape the loaves carefully, rolling them into country rounds, my eyes on the flour. “Mmm.”
“I’m kind of scared to see him,” she says. She’s rolling onto the outsides of her feet, then coming back to the soles, back to the outsides. Over and over. One hand is gripped around the other wrist. “I used to be really scared of this guy who was badly burned when I was little.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say. “Tell me about him. How old were you?”
She shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe five or six or something. He came to the grocery store by our house. He had all this pink skin that was like muscles on the outside of his body, you know?”
The visual is acute, and I nod. For a minute I stop shaping the loaves.
“He didn’t have any hair on the top of his head—no eyebrows, nothing—and he wore sunglasses all the time, so I think his eyes must have been bad. But the worst part was that he didn’t have a nose. It was gross.” She pauses. “I thought he was a monster. I cried whenever I saw him. What if my dad looks like that?”
I take a breath and give her the only possible answer. “You’ll know what to do.”
She folds her left hand into her right, and her feet come to the floor. “I’m going to plant my flowers.”
Maybe I’ll tell her over dinner.
Or tomorrow morning.
• • •
At midday, I’m rearranging the walk-ins when Katie bounces into the kitchen. “Your dad is here.”
“My dad?”
“Yeah.” She turns and points. “I brought him back.”
I’m up to my elbows in bleach and rubber gloves, and I blow a lock of hair off my face. Sure enough, there’s my father, dressed in his workday uniform of black suit with white shirt. No tie in the heat of the day. He looks good. “Hey,” I say warily. “What’s up?”
“Came by to talk to you. Got a minute?”
“Sure.” I strip off my gloves. “You want something to drink? I can have Katie get us some tea from upstairs.”
“That would be good. Thanks.”
I give Katie a glance. “Will you?”
“ ’Course.”
He looks around. He’s never been here, because he was sulking. “You did all this design?”
“I had help, but mostly it’s my idea, yeah.”
He points to the oven yawning on the wall. “Wood-burning, huh?”
I nod.
“Smart.” He nods, too, looking around, and I can read the approval on his face. “Great kitchen, kid. Looks good.”
“Thanks.” I point to the backyard. “Let’s go outside, huh?”
In the years since my divorce, my father and I haven’t had much reason to have long conversations. I see him at family gatherings—at Christmas and birthdays and that kind of thing—and we exchange the usual pleasantries, but that’s about as far as it ever goes. When I was a child, he was the classic patriarch and not particularly chatty, so this is not a big change.
But it’s weird that he’s here. “So, Dad. What’s up?”
He wiggles his nose, a habit born from allergies as a child. “I’ve got an offer here for you, Ramona.”
“What? An offer for—”
“Let me finish. Ryan told me that you have trouble.”
“Oh, great.” He was the one I thought I could trust. “He had no right to—”
“Ramona. Please.”
I take a breath. Nod.
“A lot of small businesses, especially restaurants and food service, have failed. You have resources in the family, and you don’t have to be one of them.” He takes out a manila envelope. “I’ve put together an offer. Take your time, look at it later. Maybe