Life Without a Recipe

by Diana Abu-Jaber

  Aya didn’t turn. Mrs. Mahmoudy had been her housekeeper for sixty years, and they no longer needed to look at each other. She sipped her coffee, took a bite, and said, with a trace of a smile, “The crunch is the mother-in-law.”

  When you’re a bit innocent of the world, many things are unexpected. What’s supposed to keep you safe is what makes you afraid. The thing you can’t have is the thing you want the most. It takes forever just to get to the beginning. No matter how many times I write down the instructions, I forget it all, just as faithfully, and need to study it again. Art and pastry and memory and risk: The days arrange themselves into stories, which are themselves just moments, mere moments.

  A moment to look up, to the window above the desk. I see my husband and my daughter outside on the lawn.

  Throw out the sugar, turn the art toward the walls, switch off the screens.

  Scott swings Grace up onto his shoulders and they’re off to explore. She lifts her fingers and strums the palm fronds, the neighbor’s dogs bound at their heels; my daughter calls to them, wanting them to jump higher, knowing they’ll never reach her there, up on such high shoulders. I watch them go. Someone should see about dinner. I should get back to my writing. But I want to run after them.

  I think I will.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d especially like to thank:

  Andrea Gollin; Joy Harris; Alane Salierno Mason; Marie Pantojan; Lorraine Mercer; Hagop Kantarjian; Carey McKearnan; Adrienne and Frank Curson; Thomas Wolf; Whitney Otto and John Riley.

  for listening, reading, holding my hand, and not letting me off the hook,

  And my family:

  for living it with me

  and Scott:

  for making it possible.

  also by Diana Abu-Jaber

  FICTION

  Arabian Jazz: A Novel

  Crescent: A Novel

  Origin: A Novel

  Birds of Paradise: A Novel

  NONFICTION

  The Language of Baklava:

  A Memoir

  Copyright © 2016 by Diana Abu-Jaber

  All rights reserved

  First Edition

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from

  this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,

  500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact

  W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830

  Book design by Fearn Cutler de Vicq

  Production manager: Anna Oler

  ISBN 978-0-393-24909-5

  ISBN 978-0-393-24910-1 (e-book)

  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

  www.wwnorton.com

  W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.

  Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT