How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [7]
Then she was arrested for meth and it all added up. I worried even then that meth addicts don’t get over it. They just don’t. One of my girlfriends works in the emergency room at Penrose, and she says meth short-circuits something.
Anyway. Poor Katie. I feel so bad for her.
Ugh. We’ve been flying for five hours already and won’t land for another four. My mother made me my favorite sandwiches, cucumber and hummus on her excellent sourdough, and it is heartening to eat bread she made. I have a whole loaf in my bag, which the security people thought was very funny, but you know, being pregnant on a nine-hour flight is really not a big happy joy. My legs are all jumpy and I think it irritates the guy next to me that I keep tapping them, but I can’t help it. My back is killing me from sitting, and every hour I walk up and down the aisles to keep my ankles from swelling. I have to pee so often it’s embarrassing. One old lady with hands like cool silk reached for me as I waited in line for the restroom. “How are you doing on this long trip, Mother? Is there anything I can do for you?” It brought tears to my eyes.
How oh how oh how, am I going to do this?
Ramona
Katie is due to arrive at ten-thirty this morning. There is no baking to keep me busy, since customers will not be able to make it to the front door. Henry’s crew arrives at eight on the dot—prompted, no doubt, by Cat’s influence—and once I see that they seem to be able to do their work just fine without my constant, hovering supervision from the porch, I head into the bakery to start some bread. It’s the only thing that can soothe me this morning.
My brother Ryan sends a text at ten forty-five.
The Eagle has landed. Be there in 20.
I stop to run upstairs, change my blouse, and put a little lipstick on. As I lean in to the mirror to make sure there is no color bleeding into the lip line, I’m startled to see my grandmother’s eyes staring back at me. All these years I thought I looked like my mother, but lately it is my grandmother’s face that keeps surprising me in the reflection.
I’m nervous. It’s been a long time since I’ve mothered a child. Will I remember how?
Downstairs, the bell over the front door rings. I rush down to the bakery, coming around the corner just as Katie comes through the door, eyes too big for her face. She is very thin. Every inch of her thirteen-year-old body screams resistance—elbows crossed, hair in her face, shoulders hunched over to protect her torso. She looks as if she’s been crying, or perhaps only sleeping hard: eyes swollen, red-rimmed. I come forward with a smile I hope will reassure her. The old wooden floor squeaks under my feet. The girl looks alarmed.
“Don’t worry. It’s old but sound.” I catch my hands together to keep from reaching out. This one is a cat, and a cat needs coaxing. “I’m Ramona Gallagher. You must be Katie.”
“I thought Sofia’s mom was going to take care of me.”
“Right. That’s me.”
She scowls.
“I was pretty young when she was born.”
A nod. Her hair is a crazy tangle of curls, a naturally streaky mass of brown with copper and gold woven through. It’s too long, unkempt. My mother always says you can tell a child who is well cared for by looking at her hair and skin. Katie’s olive skin is dry, and she isn’t pretty, not yet. When she grows into the too-long limbs, she will have the grace of a swallow. Her eyes are the same light green as her father’s, and it gives me a pang, thinking of him injured, far away.
Katie has a book in her hand, a backpack slung over her shoulders, and hostility in her gaze. “I don’t want to live here,” she announces. “My mom will be getting out of jail pretty soon and then she can come get me.