What We Keep - Elizabeth Berg [38]
“Recipes, I’ll bet,” my father had said the first night she went out without him. He was standing at the window with his hands in his pockets, watching her walk away.
“What about recipes?” I’d asked. Sharla and I were right beside him. “Nothing,” he’d said. “I was just … nothing.”
My mother stood. “I’m going to go get my sweater. I’ll be down in a little while to get your letters.”
The promise of imminent release spurred me into action. I quickly wrote a paragraph about the last four dinners I could remember, describing in some detail the delicate suspension of fruit cocktail in the cherry Jell-O that had served as a salad last night. I liked Jasmine’s idea of a salad much better: one afternoon I’d found her sitting down to a Caesar salad for lunch. I’d never heard of that, and I told her so.
“Really?” she’d said. And then she’d shown me how she had rubbed the cut edge of a clove of garlic over the inside of the big wooden bowl that was on her table. She described for me all the ingredients that went into the dressing as though she were reciting a love poem to someone in the dark. She picked up a large narrow leaf of lettuce, pale green, which she ate with her fingers; then she sucked them off. She shared the salad with me, encouraged me to eat it the same way. I did, though it embarrassed me. But it was delicious, the residue of that dressing licked from my own salty flesh.
My mother came back to the table, sat down to wait. I ended my letter with a wish that my grandparents would come and visit for a long time—mainly so that then I would not have to write to them. I licked the envelope, stamped it, and handed it to my mother. I could hardly wait to live in my own house, where I would never write one letter to anyone, ever.
“Sharla?” my mother said. “Are you finished?”
Sharla folded her letter—two pages, front and back!— put it in an envelope, and handed it to my mother. I hated the teacher’s-pet look on her face, I hated it when she got this way. She folded her hands and rested them on top of the table. Below it, I assumed her feet were lined up exactly even with each other.
“What did you write about?” I asked. Four pages!
“What I want for Christmas.”
“It’s August!”
“So?”
“Isn’t that cheating?” I asked my mother.
“It’s fine.” She smiled at Sharla. “I assume, however, that you talked about other things, as well. Such as Grandma and Grandpa, I assume you asked about them.”
Sharla nodded gravely.
My mother nodded, too. Then, “I’ll be right back,” she said.
“You cheated,” I told Sharla, as soon as I heard the door close behind my mother.
“I did not.”
“Huh. Anybody can write about what they want for Christmas.”
“You’re just mad because you didn’t think of it.”
This was true. Therefore I changed the subject. “Who else did Mom write to?” It had occurred to me that the letter she would not show me had something to do with my birthday. It wasn’t far away, and I was beginning to think everything that happened, more or less, had something to do with it. I had yet to make a formal list of things that I wanted, but my mother might be sending away for some wonderful surprise. Last time she had done that, I’d gotten a monogrammed towel set, which I loved so much I wouldn’t use it.
“She wrote to Jasmine,” Sharla said, and yawned, stretching her arms up high over her head. “I saw when she addressed the envelope.”
“Why? She lives next door!”
Sharla shrugged. “She’s not here now. Maybe Mom had something to tell her.”
“She’ll be back in a couple days!”
“I know.” She stood. “I’m going to make a cake for Dad. Want to help?”
I stood, too, pushed my chair in. “Yeah. For Mom and Dad, you mean.”
“No. Just for Dad.”
I stopped, stared at her. “Why not Mom, too?”
“Do you want to help or not?”
“Yeah. Dibs on the frosting part.”
“Half. You can frost the bottom half.”
“Can I break the egg?” I asked, when we were in the kitchen.
Sharla opened the refrigerator, handed me an egg. We worked in silence.