Comfort Me with Apples

by Ruth Reichl

  I heard, vaguely, as if from a great distance, a voice telling us to open the door. I saw Jeffrey reaching over to open it, his voice cracked with fear. And then the long black leather body folded itself into the car next to me, and the gun, cold, metallic, came to rest against my head.

  But what I remember most was Jeffrey trembling and crying, and reaching into his jacket for his wallet. I remember thinking that he shouldn’t do that—they would think he was going for a gun—but wondering even more why he was so scared. I was not afraid.

  I was nothing. I could feel the gun against my head, but my emotions had disappeared. I was like ice. I did not even wonder why they wanted Jeffrey to close the garage door, did not consider what their intentions might be.

  From a great distance I heard Jeffrey say, all his hip bravado gone, that the garage could not be closed from inside. And then I felt myself being pulled out of the car, out of the garage, being told to hurry.

  I heard, “Don’t make any noise and no one will get hurt.”

  Heard, “Move it, motherfucker.”

  Heard, “Get going, bitch.”

  Heard, “Now we are going into the house.”

  And then I heard the clang and clatter of Jeffrey’s keys as he heaved them into the bushes.

  I felt, rather than heard, his fall to the ground, and felt the crack of the gun against his head, like a shot, over and over. I felt the air shift as the arm holding the gun came down, felt Jeffrey’s sigh each time it hit his head.

  And then the man who had me pressed his gun deep into my temple and said, “Give me your purse.” As I obeyed him he let go of my arm, and without knowing that I was going to do it I took off as if I had been pushed, screaming and running as fast as I could.

  Will he shoot me? I wondered, ducking behind the nearest car for cover as I shouted, “Help, help, please help me!” No one was following me, and I went running down the middle of the street, feeling ridiculous.

  Afterward there were cops and ambulances and doctors—the whole sorry aftermath of crime. But it was months before I understood what kept me anchored to my kitchen, baking endless pies.

  I had run off and left Jeffrey lying in the street without a second thought. It probably saved our lives, and he was only an acquaintance. But I knew he would never forgive me.

  I roasted sweet potatoes and mashed them with a fork. I added sugar and eggs and rum. I heard the policeman’s voice as he finished taking depositions. “You’re lucky to be alive,” he’d said. “God must have wanted you to have a second chance.”

  For what? I wondered, as I put the pie into the oven.

  SWEET POTATO PIE

  2 medium sweet potatoes (about 1 1/4 pounds)

  1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter

  3/4 cup sugar

  3/4 cup whole milk

  3 large eggs

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

  1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

  1/4 teaspoon salt

  1 tablespoon dark rum

  1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

  1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell

  Preheat the oven to 350°F.

  Prick the sweet potatoes with a fork and roast them on a shallow baking pan in the middle of the oven until very tender, about 1 1/4 hours. Cool to room temperature.

  Raise the oven temperature to 400°F, and place a shallow baking pan on the bottom rack.

  Scoop the flesh from potatoes into a bowl and discard the skins. Mash the sweet potatoes with a fork until smooth. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and stir in the sugar. Add the melted butter mixture to the sweet potatoes with the milk and the eggs and beat with a whisk until smooth. Whisk in the remaining ingredients (the filling will be quite liquid). Pour the filling into the pie shell.

  Carefully transfer the pie to the heated shallow baking pan on the bottom rack of the oven and bake until the filling is just set, about 40 minutes. Transfer the pie to a rack to cool.

  Serves 8.

  Spring: Apricot Pie

  Grabbing for second chances, I opted for honesty. That spring I finally got the courage to say to Doug, “Let’s talk.”

  I told him about Colman. I told him about Michael. He sat looking at me as if he had never seen me before and uttered these three words: “It’s not possible.” I knew that he was just beginning to understand what I had known for quite some time: We were no longer the people we had been when we’d married. For a moment he saw me as some new exciting creature and seemed thrilled by the possibilities. Then his face fell and he began asking all the obvious questions—when, where, why? I told him as much as I could, as much as I knew myself.

  I said that they were both just friends now, that I was trying to give our marriage a chance. I told him that I knew two things for certain: I would always love him, and I wanted to have a child.

  And then it was his turn. Doug told me about his women; I was not surprised that they existed, but I was shocked at how many there had been, and for how long. I had suspected there was a woman in Omaha, and I had been almost certain he was sleeping with someone in Seattle. But I had not anticipated the lovers in Chicago and New York. Or Berkeley. He had even slept with someone from The Swallow. It was a blow, and I suddenly remembered the way I had felt that first morning in L.A., when I woke up in Colman’s bed and wondered where Doug was, and with whom. But the most painful part of all was hearing him say that he did not want children. At least not now.

  Later, when we had said all that there was to say, I looked over and saw that his face was wet with tears. “I’m so scared,” he said. “We’ve taken it apart and we’ll never put it back together.”

  “I’m scared too,” I replied.

  Doug had work to do and he flew off, to Minneapolis, to Seattle, to New York. “If he really cared,” I told myself, “he’d stay home and try to make this work.” But we were angry with each other now, angry because we had grown up to be different people than we had anticipated. Neither of us had counted on that.

  When Doug came back I went to the airport to pick him up, ready to steel myself against him. But he walked into the terminal looking so much like my husband that I held out my arms and said, “Welcome home!”

  “You are my home,” he replied. My heart melted, and we drove out to Point Reyes, to watch the sunset on the beach.

  There was a spectacular neon sky, and as the fiery ball sank into the sea Doug put his arm around me and said, “We belong together. You’re my family.” And I put my head on his shoulder and my arms around his waist and agreed.

  But then he was off again. He was going to Buffalo, to build a piece and meet a woman. The night he left I baked apricot pie. It was his favorite, and he stood for a long time watching me roll out the dough. It sailed smoothly across the counter, the little bits of butter in ragged layers, glistening through the flour.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” he said.

  “Me either,” I replied.

  “Will you bake me another when I come back?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “By the time you come back,” I said, “apricots will be out of season.”

  APRICOT PIE

  1 recipe pie dough

  2 pounds apricots

  1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter

  3/4 cup sugar

  3/4 cup flour

  1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

  Roll out the pie dough and fit it into a 9-inch pie pan. Crimp the edges and put the pan in the freezer for 15 minutes.

  Preheat the oven to 400°F.

  Wash and dry the apricots. Do not peel them. Break them in half with your fingers, and remove the pits.

  Melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the sugar. Add the flour and nutmeg.

  Put the apricots into the unbaked pie shell. Cover them evenly with the sugar mixture. Put the pan in the oven, on the bottom rack.

  After 10 minutes turn the oven down to 350°F. Bake for 35 minutes more, or until the top is crusty and brown.

  Tra
nsfer the pie to a rack and cool before serving.

  Serves 8.

  Summer: Chocolate Cake

  When Michael asked if I would bake a cake for his fortieth birthday party, I could not say no. It was what I would have done for any friend. But as I watched myself cream ten pounds of sugar into seven pounds of butter I began to understand what I was really up to. My unconscious had taken over; I had made a decision. The cake took rivers of chocolate and dozens of eggs, and by the time it was finished I needed four men to help me lift it into the car.

  Michael blanched when he saw my creation coming toward him. This was more than a cake; it was a declaration of love in front of three hundred people, and we both knew it.

  People at the party drank too much. They became maudlin and sad. They confessed things they were sorry about later, and threw up in the bathroom. We had planned to be forever young, and now middle age had come riding into our midst. It was time to make choices. And I had made one.

  “Let’s go somewhere,” said Michael in the morning. “Let’s just get in the car and get out of town.” We packed what was left of the cake and headed north on Route 1, curving up the rugged California coastline.

  We drove for half a day to a remote windswept village where the earth and the sky and the sea converged until it was impossible to know where one ended and the other began. “Here,” said Michael, stopping the car. He went inside and I stayed in the car, thinking how nice it was to be carried along, to be with a man who would make the decisions.

  He climbed back into the car and threw me a key. “I’ve rented a house,” he said, pulling up in front of a gray-shingled structure on the edge of a cliff. It walked so lightly on the earth it seemed to vanish into the landscape.

  We lived on chocolate cake and wine—when we ate at all, which wasn’t often. We could not get enough of each other, and I felt myself drowning in sensuality. Every pore of my body yearned for this man, opened up to him. I had not known that sex could be like that: sweet, tough, funny, tender. He looked at me and my bones melted. He touched my hand and I felt it to my toes. When he played the blues my whole being vibrated to the music.

  But this was more than sex. We talked, endlessly, and I could feel my mind stretching to meet his. His brain was quick and restless, and he was curious about everything. I imagined our life together and now I could not imagine settling for less.

  Driving back he said, “When we make love I feel that I’ve come home. I feel that we are in this dance that’s been going on for thousands of years. It feels right. I want to have children with you. Leave Doug. Marry me. Why are you so frightened?”

  But all my fears had come back, and now I was no longer certain that I had made the right choice. Looking into the future I could not imagine it without Doug. It had never occurred to me that you could love someone and leave them, and I was terrified.

  “You had better make up your mind,” said Michael. “Soon.”

  We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and I fed him the last piece of cake, crumb by crumb. By the time we reached San Francisco, it was gone.

  BIG CHOCOLATE CAKE

  FOR CAKE LAYERS

  1 1/2 cups boiling water

  1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch Process)

  3/4 cup whole milk

  1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

  3 cups all-purpose flour

  2 teaspoons baking soda

  3/4 teaspoon salt

  3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, softened

  1 1/2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar

  1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

  6 large eggs

  FOR FROSTING

  5 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped

  1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened

  1 cup whipped cream cheese

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar

  1/8 teaspoon salt

  MAKE CAKE LAYERS

  Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 133932-inch baking pans and line bottoms of each with wax paper. Butter paper and dust pans with flour, knocking out excess.

  Whisk together the boiling water and the cocoa in a bowl until smooth, then whisk in the milk and vanilla. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

  Beat together the butter and sugars in the large bowl of a standing electric mixer until pale and fluffy, then add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. On low speed, beat in flour and cocoa mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (the batter may look curdled).

  Divide batter between pans, smoothing tops. Bake in the middle of the oven until a tester comes out clean and layers begin to pull away from the sides of pans, 25 to 35 minutes.

  Invert cakes onto racks, remove wax paper, and cool completely.

  MAKE FROSTING

  Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring until melted. Cool to room temperature.

  Beat together the butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add remaining ingredients and beat until well combined.

  ASSEMBLE CAKE

  Put one cake layer, rounded side up, on a cake plate and spread with 1 1/4 cups frosting. Top with another cake layer, rounded side up, and spread top and sides with remaining frosting.

  Serves 20 to 25.

  COOK’S NOTE

  This is a classic sort of birthday cake, the kind of chocolate cake that pleases children. I made it for Michael because it is a recipe that is very forgiving and easily expandable. The cake I made for Michael was ten times the size of this one.

  If you’re going to double or triple it and bake the cake in larger pans, you will have to adjust the baking time.

  Fall: Mushroom Soup

  That fall, in New York, I made mushroom soup almost every night for my mother. And for myself. It’s the most soothing soup I know, with no sharp edges to jar the palate, no sneaky unexpected spices. It is the perfect prescription for those in need of solace.

  And we were definitely in need of that. Mom was running out of money, and the only solution was to sell her country house. I went east to help her clean it out, but she soon found this so depressing that she washed her hands of the entire project and took to her bed. “It’s too much for an old lady,” she protested, refusing to leave the apartment. “You and Doug are breaking up and I’m losing my house. You’ll have to do it all alone.”

  I took the train to South Norwalk every day, walking from the station to the house. I hauled boxes from the attic, cleared closets, dismantled beds and bookcases. The Goodwill truck arrived every afternoon to collect another roomful of furniture.

  In my parents’ bedroom I emptied the dresser drawers, caressing the soft cotton pajamas that had belonged to my father. I found a pair of shorts I remembered Mom wearing when I was in kindergarten, and the halter top she had paired with it. I unearthed the dress she wore to my wedding.

  Bit by bit my parents’ bedroom disappeared, and I moved into the bathroom, where I swept old lipsticks, bobby pins, and compacts into a box. Then I moved into my bedroom, reducing it to another blank space.

  In the living room I took down the paintings, rolled up the rugs, pushed the teak coffee table from Copenhagen into the middle of the floor. I boxed up the silver in the dining room, packed up the books in the den. Day by day the house grew emptier. Even its smell began to change.

  Every night I went back to New York and made mushroom soup. Then I went out to walk the windswept sidewalks, trying to tire myself enough so that I could sleep. But I could not keep from seeing the city through Doug’s eyes, noticing the arc of a curb, the reflection of a traffic light, the way electrical lines went singing through the streets. I had made a terrible mistake. When I was so exhausted that I could not stumble down another block, I turned and headed home for bed.

  “Doug called,” my mother said one night when I walked in the door. “He’s in New York. He’s on his way over.” />
  It was painful to see Doug in my mother’s apartment, surrounded by all my father’s books. It was such a reminder of what we had once had, what we had lost, that we clung to each other, entwining our hands as if we would never let go.

  In the morning my mother was furious. “People don’t behave this way!” she cried when he had left. “He’s leading you on.” And then she looked at me and added, “I’ve never seen you so miserable. He’s in love with someone else, and now he’s leaving you.”

  * * *

  It was easier to be angry at my mother than myself, and I spent the day in the attic viciously throwing out things I knew she would want: old curtains, ugly linens, an atrocious table she had always, inexplicably, loved. It gave me a certain satisfaction. When Goodwill rang the doorbell for their daily pickup I sang out, “Come in.”

  But it wasn’t Goodwill. “I drove out to see you,” said Doug. “There’s a full moon, and I thought maybe we could go to The Pier for dinner. Just for old times’ sake.”

  We had stuffed shrimp and lobster and key lime pie. We talked about my father and had too many drinks. And then we went back to the empty house and pulled a mattress off the Goodwill pile and put it in the middle of the living room floor. The moon was shining in the window, turning the wooden floor into a sea of silver. We snuggled together on the mattress, sailing on a vast shimmering ocean of light.

  But sometime during the night, after the moon had set, I felt Doug jerk and come awake. It was pitch-dark.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I had the strangest dream,” he said. “I was holding a power tool and it exploded in my hands.”

  I woke up knowing that it was really over. I made coffee and toast in the empty kitchen; Goodwill had already picked up all the pots. We sat on the floor in the dining room and wrapped our hands around the two cups I had saved out for the very end.

  “There will never be a day when we won’t miss each other,” I said, savoring the melodrama of the moment. He drove me to the train station and we stood there on the platform, like in all the movies, waiting for the train to pull in.

  “It’s too good,” he replied, “we have to save it.”