“I’m just going to write him a letter,” Shira said. She blew out the candles she’d lit for her ritual, then opened the tin she’d purchased and started packing cookies inside.
Elaine sat down across from Shira as Shira got out the stationary. “Dear Asshole,” Elaine suggested as an opener.
Shira laughed. “Dear David,” she said as she wrote. “These cookies are for you and for Lecie.”
“So you know they can’t be poisoned; you I’d poison in a minute, but never Lecie,” Elaine said.
Shira ignored her. “I hope you enjoy them,” she continued.
“I hope you choke yourself to death on them—but only while Lecie is off at school, so she won’t be traumatized by seeing you turn blue, and can’t call 911 until it’s too late.”
“You’re not helping,” Shira said.
“Sure I am. You’re smiling already.”
Shira sighed exaggeratedly and finished the letter. She packaged it up neatly and drove it to the post office.
The package came back unopened from Texas, with “REFUSED. RETURN TO SENDER” written with a fat red marker across the front. Shira stared at the package, despondent.
“He’s on to you,” Elaine said.
Shira tried to smile; Elaine had meant it as a joke, even if she was right.
***
II. The Legend of the Brownies
CALL THE QUARTERS, then get out your broom. Not to ride on tonight—to clean. The guardian ad litem is coming again. Tell yourself there is nothing to fear; the purpose of the guardian ad litem is to look out for the interests of the child, lest they be shoved aside in the battle between the parents. And surely Lecie needs someone to look out for her best interests. As many people as possible.
So it’s very important that the house be clean, so that the guardian ad litem will see that you take good care of your house (and thus of your child); just because you’re a lesbian doesn’t mean you disdain all “feminine” tasks. Like cleaning. Or cooking.
When the floors are swept, the shelves dusted, the rug vacuumed, the windows washed, the Georgia O’Keefe print stored away—preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
Melt in a double boiler:
½ cup butter
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
Cool this mixture, so that it won’t deflate the eggs. Then, in your mixing bowl, beat:
4 eggs
¼ tsp salt
Slowly add:
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Beat with a wire whisk until it’s all frothy, with the egg-sugar mixture sliding like yellow ribbons off the whisk. Set aside your whisk and get out a long-handled wooden spoon. With the spoon, mix in the chocolate and butter, but not so thoroughly that the batter becomes uniform. Then add:
1 cup unbleached flour
Stir again, but not so thoroughly that it’s all uniform. (Though if you get distracted, by a ringing phone, say, and the guardian ad litem wanting directions to your house, because she’s lost on the other side of Des Moines, and doesn’t know how to drive in the snow and she thought everyone in Iowa was supposed to be so nice, so why is everyone honking at her?—well, if it ends up all one color, that’s okay.)
Get out your rubber spatula and scrape all the brownie batter into the greased and floured pan. If Lecie were here, she’d want to lick the bowl, but Elaine is afraid of salmonella. Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes; set the timer, since you’re distracted. Fortunately the guardian ad litem got lost, or she’d have been here before the brownies were cool enough to cut.
Ask the Goddess to stick around a little longer, even though the ritual’s over. You’re going to need Her.
***
“MS. LEAVITT?”
“Yes, that’s me.” Shira clasped the guardian ad litem’s hand warmly. “Come in, Mrs. Mendez. I can’t believe you came up all the way from Texas!” She stepped back from the door to let Mrs. Mendez in. “I’m so sorry to hear you got lost.”
“All these numbered streets,” Mrs. Mendez muttered. She had a deep Texas accent.
“Can I take your coat?” Shira asked.
“Yes, thank you.” Mrs. Mendez slipped it off and Shira hung it up in the closet.
“Won’t you have a seat? Would you like anything to drink?”
“I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.”
“I have a pot ready.”
Mrs. Mendez followed Shira into the kitchen. Her eyes were darting around the house, but she didn’t seem to have spotted anything to complain about. Shira and Elaine’s three days of frenzied cleaning might have actually paid off. “I just made some brownies,” Shira said. “Would you like one?”
“I’d love one,” Mrs. Mendez said.
Shira poured two cups of coffee, and cut two brownies, then brought them in to the dining room. Mrs. Mendez laid out some court documents on the table, then pulled out a yellow legal pad. Shira sat down.
“We were surprised to hear you were coming up from Texas,” Shira said. “Guardian ad litem is a volunteer position, up here.”
“It is in Texas, as well,” Mrs. Mendez said. “But this is an unusual case. The judge asked if I could come up and take a look, so here I am.” She was silent for a moment. “Your—ah—umm—”
“My partner,” Shira supplied.
“Your partner. Is she here? I’d assumed I’d get to meet her, as well.”
“She’ll be home in an hour,” Shira said. “She had an appointment.”
“With whom?” Mrs. Mendez said.
Shira forced herself not to bristle. Guardian ad litems were allowed to ask nosy questions. “She’s a real estate agent. She’s showing someone’s house.”
“Ah,” Mrs. Mendez said.
They sat silently for a moment. Mrs. Mendez took a tentative bite of brownie, washing it down with the coffee. She seemed to approve.
“So,” Mrs. Mendez said. “I understand your partner lives here.”
“Yes,” Shira said.
“You share a . . . bedroom?”
“Yes. I can give you a full tour of the house, if you like.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mrs. Mendez said. “What details of your relationship does your daughter know?”
“Lecie is only six years old,” Shira said. “She knows that Elaine is my best friend and we live together. We think that’s an adequate explanation of the situation, for a six-year-old.”
“Does she know anything about the controversy?”
“I don’t know what she knows now, since David does not return my phone calls. Before David kidnapped her, we did our best to shield her from the things that were being said in court.”
Mrs. Mendez had finished her brownie. “Can I get you another one?” Shira asked.
“Oh, I shouldn’t.”
“Sure you should. You know being out in the cold burns off calories like you wouldn’t believe.”
Mrs. Mendez smiled broadly for the first time. “Well, when you put it that way . . . ”
Shira refilled the guardian ad litem’s coffee cup as well as cutting her a generously sized brownie.
“Do you smoke?” Mrs. Mendez asked when she returned.
“No,” Shira said. “Never have. Neither does Elaine.”
“Drink?”
“No,” Shira said. Wine with dinner didn’t count.
“Do you keep a firearm in the house?”
“No,” Shira said.
“What church do you attend?”
“No church.” Shira pointed to the name on the court documents in front of Mrs. Mendez: Shira Leavitt.
Mrs. Mendez looked confused for a moment, then her face showed relief. “Oh. Of course. You’re Jewish.”
Shira just smiled. She hated to lie—or even imply a lie—about her religion, but the word witch would probably send Mrs. Mendez screaming from the house. Being a lesbian was bad enough.
“Well, that’s fine,” Mrs. Mendez said, and made a note on her legal pad.
Mrs. Mendez shook Elaine’s hand, looking her over. Shira couldn’t imagine that she’d find anything to complain about; Elaine was dressed like a real estate agent. “Pleased to meet you,” Mrs. Mendez said.
Elaine pointed to a pin on Mrs. Mendez’s lapel and asked, “Are you a Girl Scout leader?”
“Why—yes!”
Elaine gave Mrs. Mendez her most engaging smile. “I was a Girl Scout all the way through high school.”
Elaine and Mrs. Mendez spent the next hour reminiscing about the Girl Scouts, while Shira quietly refilled their coffee cups and cut more brownies. Elaine had gone to a Girl Scout summer camp, and even knew some Girl Scouts who’d moved to Texas, though no one Mrs. Mendez knew. By the time they’d finished their next brownies, they were reciting something about “twist me and turn me and show me the elf,” apparently part of some ritual that initiate Girl Scouts went through. Shira refrained from rolling her eyes, though she thought, And people think Wiccans are weird.
By the time Mrs. Mendez left, Elaine was her new best friend. She shook hands warmly with both women, Elaine waved her on her way, and they closed the door.
“Well, that went better than I had expected,” Shira said.
Elaine groaned. “I hate grown-up Girl Scouts. If they do this to us again, I’m going on a long, long trip, okay Shira?”
It had been worth it, though. Shira’s lawyer called a few days later. “I don’t know what you did, but you won her over,” she said. “Lecie’s Texan guardian ad litem is recommending that she be returned to Iowa. ‘Ms. Leavitt and her partner are the nicest ladies you’ve ever met. You’d never know talking they were lesbians, and I believe they provide a fine environment for Lecie.’” Shira could almost hear Mrs. Mendez’s drawl through her lawyer’s clipped speech.
But it didn’t matter. Overruling the recommendations of the guardian ad litem, the Texas judge ruled in favor of David. “Let those Iowans send their National Guard down here to get the child if they want her,” he said. “Till that happens, I’m not ordering her removed from the decent, moral home that her father can provide. The guardian ad litem’s clearly been bewitched, or had her brain frozen while wandering around Iowa. The child stays here.”
***
III. Chicken Soup for the Body
LIGHT SOME CANDLES because the love of your life asked you to, insisted that this wouldn’t ‘count’ if it weren’t a ritual, in between her fitful feverish naps. Skip calling the quarters because you don’t believe in that crap.
Start the laundry, so that she’ll have some clean pajamas to change into, and fresh sheets. Remember that you left the prescription from the pharmacy in the car and run back out to get it. Check the answering machine for messages from the lawyers.
Get out the cookbook. The recipe for chicken soup is, naturally, in the cookbook she wrote herself. In her handwriting that only she can read. With helpful quantities like “some” or “lots” or “a pinch” and ingredients like “whatever looks good.”
Take the chicken out of the refrigerator and put it on a plate, to keep it from dribbling raw chicken juices all over the counter. You can get sick from those, can’t you? Dig around in the cavity until you find the giblets, wrapped up in paper, and throw them away in the garbage where the cats will smell them and tip over the garbage can and drag out all the smelly garbage to get at them. Hold up the chicken by its legs. They look so much more like bodies when they’re all in one piece like this. Arms and legs and—
Stand on the stool to get down the big tall stock pot. Put the chicken in the pot. Retrieve the frozen leftover bones from last week's roast chicken and throw them in the pot, too. Run in cold water to cover, lots and lots, enough to cover the chicken and the bones but not so full that the foam and scum and fat that boil up off the chicken will splash over and start a grease fire. How do you put those out, anyway? You’re not supposed to throw water on them, so what do you do?
Get the fire extinguisher out of the basement. You were supposed to put it up six months ago and didn’t. You can’t put it up now, with your partner trying to sleep upstairs, but you can stash it somewhere handy in case you set the kitchen on fire. Hopefully if you set the kitchen on fire, you’ll be able to put it out yourself, instead of having to evacuate your partner and the cats.
Put the pot on the stove and turn the burner on high.
When it gets close to a boil, turn the heat down. Simmer it, which apparently means something ALMOST but not QUITE like a boil, for a long, long time. Skim the foam off occasionally by scooping it out with a big spoon. The recipe says to strain the stock through cheesecloth but you're not even sure where she keeps the cheesecloth. Almost forget to stick a bowl under the strainer and catch yourself just before your pour all the chicken soup down the sink. Strain the chicken broth into a bowl, put the broth back in the pot, and then pull all the meat off the bones, scorching yourself repeatedly in the process. Dump the chicken back into the water. Swear when the hot water splashes your hand and burns you, and run your hand under cold water. Turn the heat down to medium-low.
Now it’s time for the “some” of “whatever looks good.” She’s made some more notes in the margins, fortunately. Chop up a handful of parsley, and dump that in with the chicken. Cut up two onions, and put those in. Peel a half pound of carrots and chop them into thick rounds, and toss those in. Carefully, so the water doesn’t splash you this time. Three stalks of celery, cut into big thick chunks. Add salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, savory—no, you’re out of savory. Forget the savory. Turn the heat up a little so that it’s simmers again; you want the vegetables to cook.
Damn, the matzoh ball mixture is supposed to chill in the refrigerator; you should have made it back when the chicken was boiling. Get out the matzoh meal. You had to hunt all through the supermarket to find it; it wasn’t in “ethnic” with the chickpeas and the coconut milk, but next to the crackers. Go figure. Get out a little bowl and beat four eggs. Add 1/2 cup water, 1 tsp salt, and a few twists of the pepper mill. You also need 1/3 cup melted shortening, so go melt 1/3 cup shortening in the microwave. Add it to the bowl. Beat everything together. Then beat in 1 cup of matzoh meal, wondering why on earth you have to pay extra for something that’s basically just crushed-up matzoh, when matzoh is just flour and water. So you’re just using flour, right? And people think Girl Scouts have weird customs. Put the matzoh ball mixture in the fridge and go check the laundry.
When you’re done folding, come back. Take out the matzoh ball mixture. Scoop it up in a tablespoon and then push off the misshapen “ball” into the soup with a plop, dodging back so that the boiling water doesn’t get you. Stare in amazement as it bobs up a few moments later, looking something like a matzoh ball. Repeat the process with the rest of the mixture, occasionally trying to pat it into something like a ball shape. It will stick to your fingers.
Turn the heat down to low and simmer until your partner wakes up, and wants dinner. Then take up a bowl on a tray, with a spoon and a cup of tea, and say, “Look—I made you chicken soup, like you make for me when I’m sick.”
***
“MONO?” SHIRA SAID, glaring at the doctor. “Isn’t that what high school students get from kissing each other?”
“Anyone can get mono,” the doctor said. “Especially when they’re under stress.”
“Can’t you give me something for it?” Shira asked.
“It’s not bacterial,” the doctor said. “You’ll get over it in a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?”
“Drink plenty of fluids, get plenty of rest. That last won’t be a problem. You’ll probably want to sleep most of the day. I’ll write a note for your employer.”
“I can’t believe I have mono,” Shira mumbled.
Elaine drove
her home; Shira had felt too miserably feverish to drive herself to the doctor. When Elaine heard the diagnosis, she escorted Shira to bed and told her to stay there. “I’ll deal with the lawyers. And any reporters. You just sleep.”
As if she could sleep, with everything that was going on. Iowa and Texas were still fighting it out; the case had attracted national attention. Shira worried endlessly about the best way to deal with it—should they go ahead and go public, give interviews to the newspapers that called, let them run stories with headlines like “lesbian mom fights for child” and pictures of her and Elaine looking respectable? Or would that only hurt their chances, or worse yet, hurt Lecie? Having a lesbian Mom was weird in Des Moines, but Lecie’s teacher had been gay-friendly and the other parents had mostly just shrugged. That was Iowa for you: even homophobes felt obligated to be polite. But in Texas—word had probably gotten around already that Lecie was the one with the lesbian mother up in Iowa. If Lecie was being persecuted by her classmates, more coverage would only make it worse. And there was nothing Shira could do to protect Lecie, up here. What made her even angrier was that David probably reveled in it when Lecie came home crying. More ammunition: It is bad for a child to have a lesbian mother.
Shira drifted into dreams. Lecie was in jail. “But what did she do?” Shira asked repeatedly. “It’s not what Lecie did,” she was told. “It’s what the sparrows did on her behalf.” Shira was certain it was all her fault, and when David came by in his hot-air balloon, he was more than happy to agree with her. “All your fault. You should have stayed married to me.”
“I’d rather be married to a goat,” she said, and David turned into a goat.
“Baaah,” he said, standing in the basket of the hot-air balloon. “Baaaaaaaaah.”
Shira pulled herself out of sleep as she heard footsteps on the stairs. “Hunh?” she said, pushing herself up on her elbows.
Gift of the Winter King and Other Stories Page 19
