Part 27 (2/2)
”Okay. Fine,” Anna said. ”Good.” She carried Greta's suitcase to the door. ”Truly, why not leave this here? I'll wash your clothes. When Friday rolls around, all you have to do is get in the car.”
”I'll be back at the weekend. Maybe as early as Thursday night.”
”Okay. I can only count the days. Stuart comes up Thursdays through Monday. He doesn't have to teach until Tuesday. We're hoping he can find a position here.”
”So, they are back together?” Greta was still on her shoe safari, checking under a pile of newspapers, around the logs at the fireplace. ”Oh, well. She would have outgrown them soon anyway.”
”I don't know if they're officially together. They seem like it. I hope so.”
Greta helped Lily into her coat, then put her own on. ”Okay, we need to be off.”
Anna felt as though she might be ill. ”Come back as soon as you can. I mean, as soon as it's convenient. And drive very slowly. The roads are slick.” She wrapped her arms around Greta. ”You're a good friend.”
”Everything is going to be all right. You're going to find your way through this.”
”I keep thinking...,” Anna started. ”I mean, I can't figure out what to do now. What am I supposed to do? I can't remember how I filled my days before. Before my girl came along.”
Greta started to cry, and Anna pulled her closer. ”I'm going to help you get through this,” Greta said.
”I don't want the life I had before Flynn. It was empty.”
”It'll get easier in time,” Greta said.
”And I don't want the life I have now.”
”I know,” Greta said. ”But one day you will. Something will come into it to make it the life you want.” Greta looked down at Lily.
Anna kissed Greta, then Lily, goodbye.
She found Jack in the kitchen rolling out pie dough, music blaring. Every surface in the kitchen was covered with baked goods and baking paraphernalia. Anna counted four different kinds of chocolate cakes. She turned the music off, and Jack looked up.
”I have never in my life been interested in cooking. But baking is something different entirely. I'm surprised you don't bake, Anna, as scientific as you are. There is pure scientific precision in the marriage of ingredients. And, here's something you didn't know, I bet.” He tipped a bowl toward her, a winter wonderland of beaten egg whites.
”Nice,” Anna said.
”The secret is the copper. Copper interacts with the protein in the egg whites, and acts as a stabilizing agent. You don't get this volume in stainless steel.”
”What's all this for?” Anna asked, sitting. The light was getting dusky. She poured herself a brandy, though it was a little early for c.o.c.ktails.
”Is that Grand Marnier?” Jack asked.
He cut one of the cakes, and handed her a slice. ”Almond cherry galette. A northern Italian recipe originally, but stolen and adapted by the French.”
Anna took a bit. ”It's very good,” Anna said. ”Are we having company?”
”Company has been dropping in and out continuously. You have to have something to serve. You should see what people call desserts. Lime green Jell-O with tiny marshmallows. I had to intervene.” He measured out two cups of heavy cream and poured it into a bowl of batter.
”Isn't this a bit excessive?” Anna said. ”And, you know in this town....” She read from the recipe he was working from: ”Pear and chocolate polenta-crusted tarts with creme Anglais. Well. Pearls before swine and all that.”
”This is therapeutic. It helps.”
Anna supposed that it would. You measured the ingredients, followed the recipe exactly, and the outcome was guaranteed. ”I have my eye on that chocolate raspberry number there,” Anna said.
Jack sliced her a generous piece. ”My masterpiece so far, my Sistine Chapel.” He waited as she took a bite. ”Yes?”
”Magnificent,” Anna said.
He beamed at her, switched the radio back on. Anna watched Jack work. Years ago, a daughter of a friend of hers and Hugh's came back from Rwanda with film footage of the war. One part showed a young American volunteer sweeping up a hut, shaking out and hanging up clothes while the bodies of the home's six inhabitants were piled in the middle of the floor. Jack's abstracted expression, as he measured and sifted and stirred, as though there was nothing in the world that mattered as much as this, reminded Anna of the woman's face in the video.
”Where is Marvin?” Anna asked, then repeated over the loud music. She reached for the volume k.n.o.b on the radio. ”Jack, where is Marvin?”
”He went to find the dog for you. He left this morning after you did. Somebody gave him a lead on a sighting.”
”Oh, well. He can try. I appreciate that he's trying.”
Jack turned on the mixer-the old KitchenAid that had been her mother-in-law's. She watched the paddle blades working, remembered the last time she herself used it: the trip she and Hugh made up here on his weekend off, the weekend they conceived their daughter. Anna made a piecrust for the raspberries they'd picked earlier. Everything about that day was still vivid. The hot July sun, the rocky path leading to the raspberry patch, the fronds of fiddlehead ferns brus.h.i.+ng her legs as she walked past. Later, she and Hugh went for a swim, then made love on the sand. The whole weekend was sun-ripened and charged, full of promise and clear light. The girl had started in her then, was already splitting the husks of cells and dividing as she mixed the dough for the crust, the size of a raspberry seed by the time, days later, the last slice of pie had been eaten. That afternoon connected to this one, all part of a chain. Her daughter, her granddaughter, Jack, Marvin, Stuart and Greta-all of them linked to her and to each other.
”I'm going upstairs,” Anna said.
Jack turned to her, raised an eyebrow. ”What, dear?”
”I said, I'll be upstairs.” She took her gla.s.s and the bottle of Grand Marnier.
It was too early to start reading magazines, too early to get tipsy. She stripped the beds in the guestroom, held Lily's sheets up to her face and inhaled.
Anna gathered the bedding and tidied up the room. Greta was thorough; there wasn't so much as a stray sock lying about. She felt a flash of anger. Why wouldn't Greta leave some of Lily's things here? What harm would it do anybody to leave a few clothes? Anna threw the sheets into the washer, then opened the door to Flynn's room. The blinds were closed. The scent of her granddaughter was everywhere, as if she had just stepped out. Anna turned the light on, looked around. Flynn was messy, just like Poppy had been. Her bed was unmade as usual, clothes spilled out of opened rawers, CDs scattered over the floor. Flynn's overalls were on the bed. Anna fastened the buckles and snaps. Such a slight and delicately made girl, more fine-boned than both Anna and Poppy. Anna sat, held Flynn's pillow to her face. On the night table was the Tinkerbell lamp that had been Poppy's. Flynn's junky treasures cluttered the surface. Two miniature starfish, sea gla.s.s, pebbles, the figures from the old nativity set that Flynn remade into Gladys Knight and the Pips. Anna checked the drawers. The Diary of Beatrix Potter and a book about Celtic dancing. But she didn't want to do this now, didn't want to rummage around the girl's things for what she both hoped and dreaded she'd find.
It was when she stood to go that she noticed Lily's little shoe, the one Greta had been searching for, on the other pillow. Jack must have been in here. Jack must have come across it downstairs and thought it was one of Flynn's. She put it back on the pillow. Greta could afford to buy Lily new shoes.
Anna went in to run a bath. Only six-thirty, which was a problem, since she was nearly at the bottom of the stack of magazines, down to the trashy weekly tabloids. Marvin or Jack would have to run out later for a fresh stash.
She was just about to step in the tub when she heard a commotion coming from the living room beneath her, the crash and shatter of gla.s.s. Was that Violet's voice? Anna walked to the head of the stairs. Violet smiled up at her. ”Good evening,” she said.
”Hi, Violet.”
”Anna?” Marvin called from the living room.
”Over here,” she said.
”I have someone who's anxious to see you.” Marvin turned the corner, and there was the dog, who bounded up the steps, clumsy and stumbling in his haste. He threw his weight against her, ears back and tongue lolling, smiling in the way only a dog can. Anna wrapped her arms around him, buried her face in his filthy fur. ”Hi, Baby. Hi, Baby,” she repeated over and over, until she could believe he was really back. ”Where did you find him?”
Marvin sat on the step beside her. ”Violet and I found him.”
Anna looked over at Marvin, saw how pale he was. ”Are you okay?”
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