A Katherine Reay Collection

by Katherine Reay

  “You do?” I said it like the kid who wanted that lollipop. “I must see this garden.”

  “Let’s go.” He flicked his finger conspiratorially toward Jane’s back gate. “She’ll be fixing that website for at least an hour.”

  We cut through the hedgerow again and soon found ourselves on Madison Street. Another block and we turned into his driveway. It was a shingled Craftsman house like Jane’s, but it was dark green with white trim. It was so neat and perfect and masculine and Nick. Inside, it felt the same. There was a bright patterned area rug in the living room, with brown leather furniture that looked worn and soft. The rest of the downstairs had cream walls and hardwood floors that shone. Bookshelves lined the walls around the windows. There was very little clutter, but tons of personality and warmth.

  I smiled, and he looked at me, questioning. “I love your house.”

  “Come on. I’ll show you the garden.”

  Outside it was still misting, and everything looked fresh and vibrant. I stood perfectly still, absorbing Nick’s backyard. It was small, and a full third was divided into raised beds full of neat rows of plants and herbs. He had small patches of grass between them, and bushes lined the back and side fences. But not just any bushes—roses, rosemary, wild strawberries, lavender, and fennel.

  “This is amazing.”

  “I thought you might like it. I started it when Matt was two. Messing around out here is a good stress reliever for me, and he loves it. I don’t know where I’d be without this haven.”

  “When will it all bloom?”

  “Some is starting now. You can see new growth over here. All the herbs are filling out. And there . . .” He pointed to a tree nearby. “That’s my apple tree. It’s just starting to bud.”

  “I love it.” I stood there absorbing the chaos creatively formed, cultivated, and maintained. To me, gardens represented a perfect and active creative experience—and I suddenly understood why Jane didn’t have one. It would be another area in which she would need to impose order from chaos, and it would always defy her. I let the insight settle over me, not as a point of contention but of understanding.

  “There isn’t much to take right now, but there will be soon.” Nick looked around, assessing his sanctuary.

  The mist picked up, and we turned back to his surprisingly well-equipped kitchen—a Vitamix, Santoku knives, a La Pavoni espresso maker, a marble mortar and pestle . . . I walked over to it and lifted the wood pestle. Good weight. The wood was ground smooth, well used.

  “This is an impressive kitchen. It would seem you cook.”

  “I’ve learned to, but not like you do.”

  “I like this.” I held up the pestle. “Jane doesn’t have one of these.”

  “I make a chicken rub that would knock your socks off.”

  “Will you make it for me?”

  “Now that you’re here for another couple weeks, I might.”

  “Okay then.” I glanced away, embarrassed as I realized what my question implied.

  Nick’s eyes drifted above my head. “I’ve got a client call in about a half hour.”

  I twisted around and looked at his clock. “It’s late. I gotta go too.”

  “It’s raining. I’ll drive you.”

  “I’d rather walk.”

  “Take an umbrella?”

  “And let everyone know I’m a visitor? I don’t think so.”

  “A baseball cap?”

  I stopped. “That I’ll accept.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Nick dashed up the stairs. I moved into the living room and migrated toward his bookshelves.

  The bottom shelves were full of kid books. I smiled at a whole series of early readers based around Thomas the Tank Engine and Star Wars. There were others I recognized as well: Beatrix Potter, the Magic Tree House series, and Where the Wild Things Are. My eyes traveled up to Nick’s choices. Lots of American history books: Steven Ambrose, David McCullough, and John Meacham. Tom Clancy, Erik Larson, and Hemingway. Tons of Hemingway. The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Moveable Feast, The Old Man and the Sea.

  I smiled, recalling his chicken rub. I would bet money it had a Spanish flair. I was so absorbed his tap on my shoulder startled me.

  “You like Hemingway?” he asked softly above my ear.

  “I do. I once had an English teacher who put him on the other end of the spectrum to Jane Austen and said you couldn’t like both. I don’t think that’s true.”

  “So it’s not just your sister who likes Jane Austen?”

  I smiled and conceded, “I do too.” I took a deep breath. “She was my mom’s favorite, absolute favorite, to the point of naming her daughters after Austen’s most famous sisters.”

  I slid The Old Man and the Sea back into its slot. “I put them away after she died, but they don’t hold painful memories for Jane, and she’s got me reading them again. It’s good.”

  I tapped A Moveable Feast. “But I like Hemingway too. Both are very direct in their observations. Austen uses prose differently, but she doesn’t pull any punches either.” I tapped books on the shelf above Hemingway. “You’ve got a lot of Greek literature too.”

  “Ah, there’s my weakness. Great lyric tragedy. Homer’s the best. Have you read The Odyssey or The Iliad?”

  “Never considered it.”

  “You should. ‘The Iliad is great because all life is a battle, the Odyssey because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a riddle.’ ”

  “Whoa. I’ve underestimated you.”

  “Not really. G. K. Chesterton said that. I saw that line after I read those, and I agreed with him—so it stuck.” Nick handed me a hat.

  “Mariners? This symbol always makes me hungry for shrimp cocktail.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that.” He quirked a smile and fitted the hat onto my head, drawing my ponytail through the back. “Perfect.”

  “Thanks.” I ducked and stepped away, embarrassed that I’d noticed how he smelled—soapy, pine and something citrus—and that I’d not only liked it but had even leaned in to catch more of the scent. “And thanks for showing me the garden.” I opened the door.

  “I’m busy the rest of the day, but I can make some cuttings tonight and bring them over tomorrow. Jane might find gardening relaxing.”

  “I’m not sure, but maybe. Digging my hands into ground meat relaxes me. Maybe she could feel the same about dirt.”

  “Again, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that.” As I skipped down his steps, Nick called after me. “Elizabeth?”

  I turned back. He followed me down the steps and paused. “I’m really glad you’re here a little longer.” He leaned down and hesitated mere inches from my face. I held my breath as he brushed his lips with mine, then kissed me again, lingering several heartbeats.

  “Until later . . . ,” he whispered.

  “You said I was just a friend.”

  Nick smiled. “I know, but you don’t feel like one. Or taste like one either. You’re too attractive, remember?”

  I hurried down the walk.

  Chapter 23

  TUESDAY BEGAN MORE SLOWLY. I FOUND MYSELF DWELLING on certain more agreeable Monday moments just to avoid my unease about Taxol. I’d read and reread all Peter’s notes, and as we settled in to our chairs in the Infusion Center, I was the nervous one.

  “Hello?” Jane said. “You’re so distracted today.”

  “I am?”

  “Kate said you forgot breakfast completely.”

  I shook my head. “I started it, but then . . . You’re right.”

  Jane smiled, but then turned her mouth downward at Cecilia’s approach. Moments ago she’d been friendly and light, the Cecilia who drew people to her like a magnet; now her eyes were tight and strained and her movements stiff and compressed.

  I quickly scanned the room and found myself looking straight into Donna’s eyes. Ahh . . .

  Jane whispered, “This should be fun.”

&
nbsp; “Always is.”

  She reached for my hand, and I knew she was nervous too. Taxol wasn’t supposed to be as rough as the Red Devil, but who knew? That seemed to be the only certainty—there were no certainties.

  “Sorry that took so long.” Cecilia threw a glance over to Donna. “She’s irritated today.” She looked at me. “I asked Brian how Tyler fared with your meals. He didn’t like my asking and got loud. It upset a few other patients.”

  “I’m sorry I encouraged you to talk to him at all.”

  “You didn’t make me, and I haven’t reached out to him as I should. I don’t know why. I’ve certainly met tougher.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Donna approaching. I put on a bright face and an even brighter tone and addressed Cecilia, hoping that she’d catch on as I changed the subject.

  “Why all the steroids yesterday? Jane was a nightmare.”

  Cecilia smiled. “It’s in case her heart stops, then we’re ahead of the game. That’s why Taxol takes so long. We go slowly.”

  Jane’s mouth dropped open. Mine followed.

  Cecilia compressed a smile. “I probably could’ve said that differently.”

  I found my voice. “Honesty works.” Jane still looked like a guppy. “You okay?”

  “Just appreciating the honesty.” She pressed her lips together.

  As Cecilia started to hook up the IV, Jane turned to me and whispered, “I don’t think this is going to be so much fun anymore.”

  I dipped my head to hide my expression, which vacillated between humor and horror, and dug around to find our book. “Me neither.”

  I felt a shadow and looked up to see Brian looming above me. I shot a quick glance to Cecilia and sensed she was pretending that none of us was present as she flushed Jane’s line and started the drug.

  “Hey.” I gestured to the chair next to me. “How was the food?”

  “It was a disaster.” Brian spoke too loudly. Several heads, including Donna’s, turned our direction. “He can’t eat. I shouldn’t have let him get his hopes up.”

  “Really? I’m eating. Nothing was palatable to him?” Jane took up my defense, and I almost hugged her for it.

  “Total waste. I know I asked for more, but don’t bother.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Hey, you said you weren’t going to be here.”

  “I took another couple weeks off. But why? Why couldn’t he eat?”

  “He just doesn’t, so don’t raise his hopes again. Don’t even bother him.” Brian stalked away.

  I turned to Jane, panic rising in me. “I thought I had this figured out. You’ve enjoyed my cooking. Right? What went wrong?” In my mind, Feast slipped further away. Everything slipped away. It was all contingent on my ability to cook, and if I didn’t have that . . .

  Cecilia’s surgical glove clamped the hairs on my arm as she squeezed right above my wrist. “Stop it. You did a good thing. That’s all you can do. You can’t control the outcome or Brian’s behavior.”

  “But—”

  “There aren’t any buts, so stop.”

  I took a few deep breaths and glanced over to Tyler. Brian had left the room, so I gently twisted my arm free and hurried over.

  “I’m sorry about the meals.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Eating’s tough right now, but thank you so much for all the work.”

  I waved away his gratitude. “I want to make you some more meals. On me. You can’t pay me.”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “I need to . . . Please.”

  Tyler turned his book over on his lap and studied me for a moment. I wondered what he saw. “Okay.”

  “Can I ask you some questions?”

  “Anything.”

  “What kind of cancer do you have?” As I asked, I realized it didn’t matter. I only needed to know about how his medications made him feel. And that was what I hadn’t bothered to find out the week before.

  “Progressive chronic lymphocytic leukemia.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t even know what that is. What I really need to know is what you like, what you dislike, what tastes good and feels good, safe, and comfortable.”

  Tyler looked at me, confused.

  “When I started cooking for Jane, I cooked dishes from our childhood. It was all I knew about her, and it crashed and burned. She threw up my first meal and a few after that. Probably like you did. But once I started asking questions and listening to her about what she liked and how she feels right now, I began to get it right. I didn’t do that for you.”

  He nodded to me. “I’ve been on one drug or another for eight months, and I don’t go up and down anymore. I’m just down. I have sores in my mouth, everything tastes like rusted metal, and I’ve been dosed down three times in two months.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m losing weight.” He raised his arm like a weight lifter and flapped his tricep. “I used to have muscles.”

  I immediately thought of proteins and calories. “Can you eat meats, dairy?”

  “Not dairy. My gut is so tight, cheese is probably not best . . . Sorry.” He looked to his lap.

  I waved my hand again. No way were we going to get embarrassed by a little constipation. “What about yogurt, ice cream?”

  “Maybe. I like cold things.”

  “Then the smoothies worked?”

  “Some.”

  “Tell me about vegetables.”

  “I like peas, green beans. I can’t eat broccoli, can’t think about broccoli.” He turned the shade of broccoli.

  “Oh . . . the slaw and the chicken dish. That must have been torture. What about meat?”

  “I like chicken, salmon. Beef tastes good. Never been a pork fan, but I like bacon.”

  I smiled, thinking I’d found a perfect candidate for my bacon ice cream. “Fruits?”

  “No citrus. Oranges sting.”

  I cringed, realizing that was why only “some” of the smoothies had worked. Mouth sores. Half the smoothies had been packed with citrus and were probably torture.

  I was ashamed that I had never asked these questions, never thought about Tyler as different from Jane. I had treated him like a nameless, faceless person who merely needed to be fed. Cecilia was right—everyone was unique, every experience unique. When would I understand and respect that?

  I noticed his book. “Are you enjoying that? You were reading The Sun Also Rises last time.”

  Tyler shot me a startled look. “I was, but I like this better.” He waved A Farewell to Arms. “I like Hemingway. He’s direct, like math.”

  I chuckled. “I think all guys like Hemingway, but I’ve never heard him compared to math.”

  “I think of almost everything in those terms. I’m a math teacher at Garfield High School. Hemingway doesn’t hide, and he writes at the pace of a Ping-Pong game. Everything runs with a strange, if not dark, sense of quick logic.”

  “You are so right.” I laughed.

  From the corner of my eye I saw Brian coming back. I didn’t want to confront him or instigate another scene. “Thank you for letting me do this. Just like last time, I’ll meet Brian here Thursday. Will you be here?”

  “It’s my weekly appointment.”

  “Great. I mean . . .”

  “I get it. Thanks.”

  By this point Brian stood above me. I darted away. Tyler could explain everything if he chose.

  “We’ve got cooking to do.” I tapped Jane’s leg to get her attention.

  “I thought he didn’t want any more.”

  “Brian doesn’t, but Tyler’s letting me make him more meals. My treat.”

  “Why do you care? Let it go.”

  “I can’t. I feel . . . I feel like if I do this, I can break through—everything. And I need that. I need to help, to do something good.” I looked down at my hands. I was shredding my cuticles again. “You were right. Food is communal. Mom once told me that it was no accident that Jesus’s first miracle was at a wedding. It was a sign that h
e was the Master of the Feast—and all celebrations involve a feast. Some of the best, most thankful moments of our lives involve food—almost all, really.”

  I tapped Emma, resting on Jane’s lap. “You see it in Austen. She only mentions food as a means to bring characters together, reveal aspects of their nature and their moral fiber. Hemingway does the same, though he skews more towards the drinks. Nevertheless, it’s never about the food—it’s about what the food becomes, in the hands of the giver and the recipient.” I pressed my hands together. “I forgot that . . . and I hurt Tyler.”

  Jane stared at me in silence for a long moment before whispering, “How can I help?”

  We spent the next few hours planning Tyler’s meals.

  “You know they drink a ton in that book, but they don’t eat much.” I racked my brain for all Hemingway’s food references in The Sun Also Rises.

  “Maybe it’s not something to focus on.”

  “It is. It’s an aspect of Tyler that he’s focusing on right now. He’s a math teacher who likes clean, direct things. Hemingway reminds him of math. He’s sparse, clean . . . it’s right.”

  “Okay, what else do we have to work with?”

  I shot her a look.

  “Think harder. Every meal he wrote is somewhere in that brain of yours.”

  I smiled. “The Sun Also Rises takes place mostly in Paris and a little in Spain. Tons of wine, Pernod, villagers’ wine . . . but the food is spare like the writing: a suckling pig, a roasted chicken, shrimp, bread and olive oil. Simple food, uncomplicated tastes.”

  I chewed my lip. “That’s it. Let’s stay with simple food. Hemingway loved Spain, so let’s drift toward those flavors, but no spice. And we can make them mix and match like tapas. Tyler will have flexibility.”

  It felt good to collaborate with Jane. We listed fruits and vegetables that we could blend into smoothies. We then listed different flours to give the meals more taste, texture, and nutrients, like the coconut and almond flours I’d used for Jane’s potpies and Peter’s cake. We decided to alter the egg dishes and quiches that I’d been making for her into cleaner, simpler hashes and scrambles. We developed vegetable dishes—poached, roasted, fresh and lightly seasoned.