How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [144]
For a long, utterly quiet second, the air is charged. Finally my mother says, “What?”
“Adelaide told me, that lady who comes to pick the flowers.”
A shiver runs down my spine. “Are you sure it was Adelaide?”
“Yeah. She’s the one who taught me that rhyme:
One for the cutworm
One for the crow
One to rot and one to grow.”
I think of the flowers in the front of the house, the bachelor’s buttons and daisies. “Did she tell you how to plant the front yard?”
“Yeah, and she was right. It looks good.” Katie glances between my mother and me. “She told me it was okay, that Ramona said it was all right.”
“Honey, are you sure her name was Adelaide?” Lily asks.
The mood is so odd, Jonah takes my hand.
“Well, it’s not exactly a name I’d make up. She’s always forgetting to put her tooth in.”
“Her bridge?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She picks up a tortilla and rolls it into a tube. “She’s the one who told me about your mom beating you when you were fifteen and that you felt bad the summer Ramona got pregnant and—”
“Stop,” my mother says, and stands up. Her face is pure white. “This is a terrible joke.”
“Mom,” I say, and take her hand. “Sit down.”
Katie looks stricken. “What did I do?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Everything Adelaide told you is true.” I keep a hand on my mother’s shoulder, not letting her fly away.
“Well, I think I should say the last thing,” Katie says, “which is that she said that your mom was always sorry and never found a way to make it better.”
My mother’s hand is visibly shaking as she reaches for Katie. In a voice that I know means she is struggling for control, she says only, “Well, the next time you see her, you tell her that I forgave my mother a long time ago.”
Katie frowns. “What is wrong with you guys?”
“Nothing, sweetie. Thanks for the report.” I rub my hands together. “Now, isn’t it time for presents?”
Jonah stands. “I’ll be right back.”
When he heads for the car, my mother leans in. “He really grew into his looks, didn’t he? But such a shame about that hand.”
“Mom!”
She straightens. “It’s true.”
When he returns, Jonah is carrying a guitar. As he lopes across the grass, I am fifteen again, and he is a little too old for me, his long brown hair loose on his shoulders and my young heart full to overflowing. The two Jonahs meld as he sits down in front of me and meets my gaze. “I wrote this in the summer of 1985,” he says, “and it’s called ‘Ramona.’ ”
He begins to play. It is Spanish guitar, mournful and joyful all at once, full of the contradictions of life, of love. I see the colors of that summer winding around the notes, the gray of the clouds, the promise of our connection, and I smell bread.
And whatever else happens, whatever else I might know later, I know that even if soul mates don’t exist, this one time the heavens or the Fates or whoever is in charge has made an exception.
When he stops playing and raises his head, vulnerable and shy and waiting, I stand up and kiss him with all of that on my mouth. What’s one more hostage to fortune, after all? “I love you,” I whisper so quietly only he can hear. He hugs me so hard I think it might break my ribs.
“I love you, too.”
Behind us, Katie cheers and claps, and my mother, who I suspect is wiping away tears, joins her a split second later.
STEP FIVE
The best smell is bread, the best savour salt, the best love that of children.
—GRAHAM GREENE
Katie
SEPTEMBER
She’s wearing a dress for maybe the third time in her entire life. She likes the way it swings around her legs as she cuts dahlias from the garden. Her father is coming home today, and Katie is moving in with him, Sofia, and her little brother, Marcus, who is the cutest baby she’s ever, ever seen. Katie is glad, but she’s also going to miss living here over the bakery, with all the smells of bread, and the garden, and her bedroom overlooking the back and the mountains. Ramona says the room is hers forever now, and she can come stay whenever she