The Summer Kitchen

by Lisa Wingate

  Chris’s need to sleep late suddenly made sense. He’d been making sure the coast was clear before coming downstairs. “Dad’s at work, I’m sure.”

  “Good.” A look of relief flashed in the mirror.

  “Christopher,” I admonished. “That’s not fair. Your dad has a right to be upset. He’s worried about you.”

  Chris’s lip curled on one side. “Yeah, right. He doesn’t even listen. He just yells. He thinks we should be perfect.” Turning away from the mirror, he blinked hard and pretended to be busy cramming study sheets into a textbook.

  It was hard to argue with him. Rob did maintain an idealized version of the boys in his mind. He pushed them hard, wanted them to be successful at whatever they did—sports, academics, hobbies. I’d convinced myself that since those things were intended to build the boys up, to broaden their possibilities in life, it was okay, but maybe the reality was that pressure to perform, even when it’s directed toward beneficial activities, is still pressure. Maybe Rob had pushed too hard, and maybe I’d let him. Maybe I’d wanted the boys to be perfect, too—a sort of living proof that despite my mother’s predictions for me, I had succeeded in this one, very important area. I had created a normal, healthy family, made a home that was calm, and happy, and steady. I’d achieved something my mother never could. I’d put an end to the family curse.

  “Christopher, your father loves you.”

  A sardonic puff of air passed Chris’s lips. “He doesn’t even know me.” He zipped up his backpack with quick, impatient movements.

  Anything I said next would have seemed ludicrous and manufactured, so I left off the conversation. “Let me get dressed, and I’ll drive you to school.”

  “Thanks,” he answered, then began looking for something. Considering the layer of clothes, schoolwork, and electronic devices on the floor, he wasn’t likely to find it. Finally, he gave up and finished tucking pencils and a calculator into his bag. “Is the cleaning lady coming today?” It was an off-the-wall question.

  “Not until next Monday, why?”

  He shrugged. “No reason.”

  I turned and headed down the hall, thinking that if I was still working at Poppy’s next Monday, I’d have to leave the key out for the cleaning service.

  Chris was waiting in my car when I came downstairs. I was halfway around the vehicle before I realized that he hadn’t gotten behind the wheel. Perhaps he thought I wouldn’t let him. I slid in on the driver’s side and backed out of the garage as if it were normal for me to drive him.

  “I’ll see what I can find out today,” I said as we headed down the street. “About the accident.”

  “Okay,” he answered, his gaze fixed out the window, his knee jittering by the door, his body ready for a quick exit the minute we rolled to a stop. “Dad’s probably right.” His voice was heavy with defeat.

  “Holly was the one who was there.” I wanted to grab Christopher and shake him, tell him not to accept the role of family screwup just because it was an open slot. Jake was the superachiever, the perfect kid, the one we’d chosen from a handful of pictures. Christopher was the one who couldn’t quite measure up, the one who’d been born too early, underweight and pale, a little behind in development, with a lisp that made him cute and funny when he was little, but that Rob worried about even though the pediatrician assured us he’d grow out of it.

  Now, here he was, past the lisp and the developmental worries, yet still, in some ways, willing to accept that he wasn’t good enough.

  Your brother isn’t perfect, I wanted to say. He isn’t perfect, either. He left, didn’t he?

  We arrived at the school and Christopher climbed from the car. His body was hunched under the weight of the backpack as I watched him walk away. What if he leaves, too? What if he finally decides it isn’t worth staying?

  More than anything, I wanted to look into the car wreck and find out it wasn’t Christopher’s fault. If he wasn’t at fault, then this latest crisis would dissipate like a storm that threatened, then faded while still on the horizon. Chris needed absolution. We all needed it. We were drowning. We couldn’t handle one more drop of rain… .

  By noon, my head was pounding and I felt like I was losing my mind. I’d spent hours navigating automated answering systems and playing voice-mail tag between the Plano Police Department, a towing service whose driver couldn’t pick up the car until after lunch, and the insurance company. I still wasn’t close to getting an accurate picture of Chris’s accident. The other parties involved had contacted our insurance company, complaining of injuries. I told the agent of Holly’s suspicions, and he seemed interested, but would only promise that the company would open an investigation. I asked him if he thought we should contact our lawyer, and he said that if Christopher were his son he probably would.

  My cell phone started ringing as I was standing in the parking lot of the steak house, watching the tow truck driver load Chris’s car. “Wheeew! That’s messed up,” the driver had said when he looked at the front wheel, hanging at a forty-five-degree angle like a broken arm. “Insurance company’ll probably total this thing.”

  I didn’t want to think about that possibility. That was Jake’s first car. Rob had insisted on getting Jake a new one for college and passing the older car down to Chris, at least until Chris’s tendency toward fender benders decreased.

  When I answered the phone, Chris was on the other end. “We’re out early today because of finals and teacher training,” he informed me.

  I checked my watch. How could it possibly be twelve thirty already? “Hang around school for a little while, all right?” I said. “The driver is just putting the car on his tow truck.”

  There was a pause during which I sensed Chris working up to something. “A few of the guys are going over to the weight room to lift, and then Coach Powell needs help cleaning up the field house.” I clued into the fact that this was what he’d had in mind all along. He wasn’t calling for a ride; he was calling to test the waters—to see if he could get away with going somewhere other than home. “Coach can drop me off after. He goes right by our house.”

  “Christopher …” I could imagine what Rob would say if I let Chris hang out with his friends the day after he’d been in a car accident.

  “I know,” he muttered, saving me the trouble of composing the remainder of my reasons for no. “I’ll wait out front. How long am I grounded?”

  “I’m not sure, Chris. We’ll have to see what we find out about the wreck. Let’s just go home and relax. You don’t need to be lifting weights or moving stuff out of the field house today anyway.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” He sighed, as if I’d handed out a prison sentence in making him come home. Not so long ago, our house was the place all the kids hung out. The rec room was always full of Jake’s and Chris’s friends. Now Chris never brought anyone over, but chose to go somewhere else. “Can we pick up a sandwich on the way? I’m starved. I didn’t get lunch because I had to go do some extra credit to bring up my physics grade, and …”

  I barely heard the rest of Chris’s remark about a failed test and extra credit to get a passing semester grade. My mind was stuck on … pick up a sandwich? I didn’t get lunch… .

  The sandwiches. I’d promised to bring another bag of sandwiches to the apartment complex today… .

  “Chris, just wait out front. I’m on my way.” Exchanging a check for the towing bill, I waved good-bye to the driver and hurried back to my car.

  When I turned the corner in front of the school, Christopher was sitting on the retaining wall with his backpack at his feet. His elbows were braced on his knees, and he was staring at the ground, his body sagging forward. From a distance, he looked like the first-grade boy who’d had his color changed on the teacher’s behavior chart and was dreading having to come home. I wanted to do now what I occasionally did back then—just forget to check the behavior chart. If Rob mentioned it later, I’d say, “Oh, I imagine he did okay today. I didn’t think to ask him, but I c
an usually tell.”

  Maybe I’d made the wrong decision, all those times, but it seemed that Rob set the bar so high; I didn’t want Chris to give up, thinking that, no matter how hard he tried, he’d never make it over.

  Seeing Chris now, I felt his despair. I wanted to ignore the behavior chart and take him out for an ice cream cone, then smooth things over with his father later.

  Chris looked up when I pulled to the curb. His chest rose and lowered with resignation as he slid to his feet, then snagged his backpack. The body language said he’d given up the fight. He was ready to go home, sit in his room, and take whatever punishment came, because he probably deserved it.

  I remembered how it was to be a teenager mired in that sense of defeat, to feel as if, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t do anything right. Everything bad was your fault. Everything you did was substandard and idiotic. Really, at the core of the matter, you were nothing but trouble, and you always had been. I’d tried so hard not to pass that trait on to the boys, yet somehow, here Chris was, surrendering to his own inadequacy, admitting guilt when, in all reality, we didn’t know whether or not he was at fault in the accident. I was only making him come home because Rob would expect it.

  You always do this. The voice in my head was unusually clear and strangely determined today. You always knuckle under. You always give in to what everyone else thinks is right… .

  Chris opened the car door, tossed his backpack onto the floor and slid in, his body folding into the seat in pieces, lean and agile, apparently not suffering much from yesterday’s trauma.

  I kept my foot on the brake, but my mind was revving ahead, my thoughts burning. After situating his legs and his belongings, Christopher gave me an odd look. “Mom?”

  “Chris, I want an honest answer about something.”

  “Okay.” He flashed a worried look in my direction.

  “Do you think the accident was your fault?”

  His head tilted to one side, and he shifted in his seat, as if he were trying to get a better view of me. “What did Mrs. Riley say? Did you find out anything from the insurance company?”

  “I haven’t been able to gather much information yet, but that’s not what I’m asking.” I steeled myself with the thought that I was doing what I believed was right. I was tired of letting other people tell me what I should do, what I should believe, who I should be—as if I didn’t have a brain of my own, as if I weren’t capable of anything beyond making sack lunches, picking out table arrangements for the football banquet, or comparing fabric samples for fund-raiser Tshirts. “Holly wasn’t there, and the police officer wasn’t there. You were. I want to know what you think, what you remember.”

  “You mean, like, now? Right here?” Chris’s gaze darted around the car, out the windows. He watched several boys cross the practice area, heading toward the field house. One of them climbed an old set of monkey bars and hung upside down, goofing around. The corners of Chris’s lips twitched when the kid tumbled off in an ungraceful somersault.

  “Yes, right here. I want to know what you have to say about it.”

  He blinked, seeming surprised to be asked as he studied me for a long moment. “It wasn’t my fault, Mom.” His gaze flickered upward, then he looked away, afraid to invest himself in the idea that his word might actually count for something. “That guy wasn’t close when I turned my blinker on to change lanes. He wasn’t close when I looked in the mirror. He sped up after I started to move over. I think he wanted me to hit him. There’s no way he couldn’t have known I was changing lanes, and the only way he could have ended up there would be to gun it like crazy.”

  I sat for a minute thinking about Chris’s description. It fit with what little I knew about the accident.

  “Can we go home now?” Chris was probably afraid that his friends, still horsing around on the monkey bars, would see him, stuck in the car with his mom.

  “No.” My heart fluttered in my neck, and my stomach filled with turbulence. An instinctive warning, one I’d known as long as I could remember, screamed in my head. In my mother’s house, conflict ended in punishment that was swift, decisive—usually a whipping with whatever weapon she could get her hands on. By the next morning, she couldn’t remember doing it, but I did learn a lesson. The less the waters ripple, the less painful things are. Walk softly and keep your voice low. “No, Christopher, we’re not going home. You head on to the field house, and then catch a ride home with Coach Powell when you’re done. I have some errands to do, and I’ll be back this evening. I’ll bring something for supper.”

  Chris blinked at me, then blinked again, as if I’d spoken the words in a foreign language, and his mind couldn’t translate them into something that made sense. “But Dad …”

  “Dad isn’t here.” I looked straight ahead, wrapping my fingers around the gearshift. “I’m not saying you’re off the hook. I’m just saying there’s no point doing anything until we find out more about the accident. For now, we should go with what you think and what Holly’s impressions were.”

  Opening the door, Chris reached tentatively for the backpack, then pushed it farther into the floorboard. “Well, what if those other guys come back and say—”

  “We’ll cross those bridges when we come to them,” I cut him off. In my mind, I was already heading across town, breaking free, doing something no one would have ever thought I’d do. “If it comes down to your word or theirs, we have no choice but to take yours.”

  Chris straightened, his chin tipping upward.

  “Be home for dinner, all right?”

  “Awesome.” Unfolding one leg, he stepped onto the curb, then stopped halfway out of the seat. “Mom?” He waited until I looked at him before he added, “I’m telling the truth.”

  “I know you are, Chris. No heavy lifting today, all right? Just help clean up the field house.”

  Nodding, he climbed out, then closed the door and hurried down the sidewalk. I watched him jog away in an easy, long-legged trot, his shoulders back and his face turned upward as he hollered at his friends. For an instant, he looked like the old happy-go-lucky Christopher I remembered.

  You’re doing the right thing, I told myself. For now, he needs to know you believe in him.

  All the same, as I went home, grabbed a loaf of bread and the last of the peanut butter and jelly, then started across town, my mind cycled over and over the potential arguments with Rob. I role-played them as if we were already there, descending into a disagreement that would eventually end up with a rehashing of what had happened to Poppy, and then who was to blame for Jake’s disappearance. The litany would play like a tape we knew by heart.

  I considered turning around and going home, maybe calling the insurance company again. Driving all the way across town to deliver sandwiches was an unnecessary complication. By the time I got to Poppy’s, it would be after two o’clock. If I stayed long, I’d be stuck in the quagmire of afternoon commuters heading back to Plano. On the opposite side of the highway, all three lanes were still moving at top speed right now. I could get off at the next exit and go back the way I came… .

  I pictured the kids in the Dumpster, and then Cass with Opal clinging to her leg. I remembered Cass tucking the bag of sandwiches close to her body, holding it carefully so as not to smash what was inside. I saw the look on her face when I said I’d be back tomorrow.

  She didn’t believe I would. Maybe I didn’t believe it myself.

  You have ongoing issues of your own, Sandra. It isn’t smart to take on more than you can handle right now… .

  More than you can handle … The mollifying voice whispered a limitation to which I should surrender. It was echoed by my eighth-grade teacher’s voice. Sandra is a lovely girl, but I’m afraid she’ll never be a star in school. She’s going to need some extra help this year in prealgebra. It’s harder for some children than others.

  Certainly, my mother agreed, putting a hand on my shoulder in an outward gesture of affection that felt foreign. Now,
Maryanne. Maryanne’s another matter. She’s always done well… .

  To her credit, Mother hired a tutor to help me after school, and the tutor was good. I still wasn’t Maryanne, but at least I didn’t flunk out of middle school, and Mother didn’t get dragged out to any more parent-teacher conferences.

  The tutor and hard work carried me through high school and into Baylor, albeit not with accolades or academic stardom. Dyslexia, undiagnosed, isn’t easy to overcome.

  A girl like you should be looking for a good match, SandraKaye. What’s the point in a teaching degree anyway? If this boy, Robert, wants you, of course you should say yes. My goodness, you’re lucky he’s asked, considering … A doctor’s wife … Who ever thought you’d be a doctor’s wife … ?

  The voices in my head droned on, and I realized an exit was coming up. One way toward home, the other toward Poppy’s. A habitual surrender or a bold step toward something new?

  It was now or never… .

  Chapter 12

  Cass

  Probably, free sandwiches two days in a row was too much to expect. By two o’clock, I kinda figured no freebies were gonna show up. Maybe the lady didn’t mean it in the first place, or maybe she got to thinking about how the gangbanger wannabes hassled her yesterday, and she was scared to come back.

  The only people that showed up all morning were a couple of Mexican guys in a truck. They picked up the pretty girl with the baby and the little Mexican kid who was sitting on the steps with us. They checked me out real good when they left. After they were gone, the Dial-a-Ride came for the crippled lady. She didn’t look at us kids at all. She came out of her apartment and got in the van, acting like we weren’t there.