How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [99]
And, although I should not, I find myself baking special things for him, discovering his pleasure in dark malty rolls with caraway seeds, in sourdough so sharp it needs butter just to be chewable. He likes lemon bars dusted with powdered sugar, and chai tea made with honey and fresh spices.
On Wednesdays and Sundays, he invites Katie and me over to his place for supper. She is enchanted by him, by the stacks of books in his library, the clean elegance of his furnishings, his collection of photos of cherry blossoms in Japan, taken by his ex-wife. Katie looks at them for a long time. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” she comments gravely. “How could I see it?”
“In the springtime,” I say. “I’ll take you down to Pueblo and you can see the crab apples blooming.”
For a long time, she looks at me. “I’m sure,” she says, glancing away, “that I’ll be living with my mother by then.”
It stings oddly. “If that’s what you want.”
She narrows her eyes. “Of course I do. Who wouldn’t want to live with their own mother if they can?”
“I know. But I don’t want you to get your hopes up, Katie. Your mom has a long road ahead of her.”
“I can help her.”
“That’s not your job, sweetheart. Your job is to devote yourself to your own life. To flowers, and staying healthy, and—”
She stands up, haughty and still too thin, partly because she’s growing about a half inch a week. “I can do both.” With dignity she says, “Thanks for supper, Jonah. I’m going to walk home now.”
“Katie! You don’t have to go. I’m—”
She gives me a cold, hard stare. “This is none of your business. And you can’t be my mother, understand? I don’t need another mother.” She lets the screen door slam behind her.
For a long moment I stare at the blank place of her leaving, feeling oddly embarrassed. Jonah puts his hand on my shoulder. “Let her go. She’ll be all right.”
“When I was her age,” I say, “I really loved my mother, but she drove me crazy.”
“I was a mama’s boy. Not in the sissy way you hear it, but I wanted to please her. When she needed something, it was always me she asked.” He gives a chuckle. “She still does, come to think of it.”
“So she’s alive.”
“Yes. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to come back to Colorado. My brother and his wife and all his kids are still up in Castle Rock and my mom lives in Boulder in a really nice apartment house for seniors.”
“How old is she?”
“Eighty-three and still out on cruises every winter.”
I laugh. “That will be my mom.”
He leaves me alone, heading for the kitchen to collect the dishes. I imagine him as a boy, fetching groceries or pulling weeds to please his mother, and it pierces me in some way I don’t want to examine. I watch him, the singular grace in his long back, the smooth efficiency of his movements in the kitchen. His hair is wavy and has grown too long in the back, capturing light on each bend. It is thick and inviting hair, and I’d like to touch it. Something I’ve been pushing down hard rises to the surface, whispering, insistent.
He looks up, as if he feels my gaze, and before I can look away, he smiles. “What are you thinking, Ramona?”
There is something haunting and wistful on the stereo. “What is playing, Jonah?”
“This one is mine. Do you like it?”
I touch my chest, close my eyes, feeling that yearning rise higher and higher, pushing through my limbs. “Yes. It’s like you.”
He closes the door and comes around the counter, draws one of my hands to him, puts it on his shoulder. “How is it like me?”
“A little haunted. Deep. Gentle.”
“Is that how you think of me?”
“That’s some of it.” I close my eyes again, hearing the essence of him. “The picture is your face that day we were in the car on the way home from the truck stop, do you remember?”
He nods. “It was raining.”
I look up at him, touch his mouth with my finger. “I was so in love with you. I wanted to kiss you so badly.”
He recaptures my hand, presses his mouth to the center of my palm. “I remember that your hair was damp, and you were wearing