Friendship Bread (17 page)

“Philippe never cared much for my cooking,” Hannah says. Not that she blamed him—she burned
pudding
once, for God’s sake. “I’ve never been very good at anything other than playing the cello. We just ate out a lot and whenever I did cook, it was either alarmingly simple or a complete disaster.”

“There’s nothing wrong with simple,” Madeline says. “I enjoy simple cooking tremendously. So much is overprepared or over-thought these days.” Madeline gets up to peruse a stack of books. “The previous owners had a lot of cookbooks—these came with the house when I bought it. There are some real classics here.” She selects a book and brings it to Hannah, wiping off a thin layer of dust.

Hannah accepts the book. It’s a heavy, intimidating tome with a simple cover and three words.

“Joy of Cooking,”
Hannah reads. She recognizes the cover and of course has heard of it, but this is her first time actually looking through it.

“It’s the backbone of many a kitchen,” Madeline says. “Restaurants, too. The author, Irma Rombauer, wrote it back in the 1930s right after the stock market crash.”

Hannah flips through the book and comes across a recipe for turtle soup. She’s way out of her league here, plus there’s no way she’s going to cook a turtle. She’s about to close the book and hand it back to Madeline when she comes across instructions for how to boil an egg.

Boiling an egg has always been a point of contention between Hannah and Philippe. He likes his eggs soft-boiled, runny on the inside, whereas Hannah likes hers hard-boiled. And in all the years they were together, Hannah has never been able to get it right.

She’d overcook his egg even if she left it in for the prescribed three minutes. And now, as she reads the instructions for how to do it, she realizes that she should have reduced the heat the minute the water hit a boil, and then let it simmer for three minutes. She didn’t know that. And Philippe, for all his complaining about how she couldn’t do it right, never bothered to figure it out himself.

Hannah’s eyes skim the rest of the page, and she suddenly understands why her eggs are sometimes hard to peel. Fresher eggs don’t peel as easily.

It’s not until Madeline lets out a dainty cough that Hannah realizes she’s been engrossed in the book for almost ten minutes. The sun has slipped past the trees on the horizon, the sky dark and moody now.

Hannah blushes, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Madeline. It’s just all so interesting. Would it be all right if I borrowed this?”

“Hannah, you can have it,” Madeline says graciously. “And you know,
Joy of Cooking
was initially self-published. Irma was just a simple homemaker struggling to make ends meet after her husband committed suicide the year before. She was fifty-four, I believe.”

Hannah definitely wants the book now. If Irma Rombauer can
write a book at fifty-four, Hannah can certainly find a way to pull her life together. She clutches it to her chest. “Thank you, Madeline.”

There’s a low rumble of thunder. Both women look out the window as fat drops of rain begin to pelt the side of the house.

Well, that came out of nowhere. Madeline is starting to see how she’s been spoiled living on the sunny west coast, plentiful with its bright sun and blue skies. She’s forgotten how the weather here is much less forgiving, how it can be dry and sunny one moment then pouring down rain the next.

She leaves Hannah with
Joy of Cooking
and goes to check on the onions. She cracks the oven door open and the most divine aroma fills the kitchen. Perfect. She carefully eases the pot out of the oven and places it on the stove over medium heat. The onions are a beautiful golden brown. She stirs them, watching the liquid reduce until a light crust has formed on the bottom of the pot.

She adds water and then gives it another good stir, mixing the crusty pieces back into the onions. She’ll need to do this a few more times until the onions are dark brown. As she waits for the liquid to evaporate, she takes a thin baguette from the bread basket and slices it, lining up the pieces on a baking sheet. She’ll bake them for ten minutes until they’re crisp and golden. Tomorrow when they serve the soup she’ll put a slice on top, sprinkle it with Gruyère cheese, and set it under the broiler before serving. It’s one of her favorite recipes from
Cooks Illustrated
and she can’t wait to eat it again herself.

A clap of thunder shakes the walls of the house, causing her to start.

“Did you hear that?” Hannah asks as she comes into the kitchen. She has the afghan wrapped around her body, the book cradled in her arms.

Madeline nods her head. “I did. Cats and dogs. I suppose we have two more months of this.”

“No, I mean I think someone is at the door.”

The two women look at each other for a moment. Madeline listens
intently, her ears alert. At first she thinks it’s a branch hitting the house but then she hears it again. A definite knock.

“Perhaps it’s Julia,” she says, and Hannah nods though she doesn’t look convinced. There’s hardly any crime in Avalon so Madeline isn’t worried about that.

Well, maybe just a little. You can’t be too sure these days and she knows better than to be too complacent about anything. It’s completely dark outside and Madeline notes how everything seems so much more foreboding at night. “Come,” she instructs Hannah. On the way out, she decides to grab a rolling pin for good measure.

Madeline hasn’t had a chance to turn on the exterior lights but she can see a figure looming on the porch. She senses Hannah’s apprehension next to her and realizes how ridiculous they’re being. If Steven could see her now, he would never let her hear the end of it. She can hear him chuckling in her ear, and it’s enough to make her straighten up and toss the rolling pin aside. She flips a switch and suddenly the hallway and porch are flooded with light.

“Mystery solved.” She opens the door and ushers in a soaking wet Julia.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Julia stammers. She’s shivering despite wearing a coat, her curly hair pasted to the sides of her face. At Madeline’s nod, Hannah quickly tosses her blanket over Julia’s shoulders. “My husband was late and when I got here I didn’t know if I should come in so I was just walking around and thinking …”

Walking around and thinking? In this weather? Without an umbrella? Madeline knows better, and she suspects Julia does, too. “Come,” she orders. She wants to get them back into the warmth of the kitchen and she’ll start a fire. She takes Julia’s hand, which is ice cold. “I’m glad you came in.”

“I had to,” Julia says. Madeline can see that she’s been crying. “Because I can’t bear to go back home.”

Julia is wrapped in a blanket as Madeline adds kindling to the cast-iron stove. Julia has peeled off her wet clothes and is wearing a soft
flannel nightgown that is short and a little tight around the shoulders, the only thing Madeline could find that would fit Julia’s tall frame. Julia is shivering even though her body has warmed up, unable to stop her teeth from chattering, unable to stop the violent shaking that overtakes her every now and then.

“I can’t go home,” she says again, and both Madeline and Hannah nod. They seem to understand, and yet she hasn’t explained anything. How can this be when for so long nobody could understand what Julia needed no matter what she said?

Except for Mark, who saw her retreat and let her go, knowing that no one could go there with her. It’s been like this for so long that tonight, when he came home and looked into her eyes, Julia was struck with fear. She saw the gentle suggestion of life returning to them as they once knew it, and yet this is impossible. How can things ever be the same?

What is it like to lose a child? Julia has never been able to put words to the grief. The shock. The devastation. What can you say when your life is suddenly destroyed?

In the days and then months that followed Josh’s death, Julia was in a daze. It was like a nightmare she wanted to wake from, but couldn’t. When Gracie was born four months later, Julia had cried so hard the doctor had to sedate her. Nobody understood why. She heard groggy murmurs about grieving for Josh
still
, as if it were something she’d eventually stop doing. What nobody could understand was that she was grieving for her daughter. For Gracie. Gracie was now out in the world where anything could happen to her.

Their friends offered awkward comfort in the beginning and then evaporated into thin air. Julia never felt like going out but when she did, people smiled uneasily and looked away. This was the town she grew up in, these were people who knew her, but suddenly no one wanted to be around them. They say that tragedy is supposed to bring people together, but that hasn’t been Julia’s experience. Instead, everything became more separate.

Everyone fell away eventually, even her parents. Her mother and father had cried alongside her in those early weeks but then they
seemed to quickly find their footing, seemed ready to come back to a world that was filled with nonsensical tasks like grocery shopping and mowing the lawn. They tried to coax Julia to eat a little more, to take a shower, to come outside and take a walk. She refused.

On the first anniversary of Josh’s death, they were hurt when Julia refused to watch a slide show they had painstakingly put together. On his first birthday following his death, they had been appalled when Julia plucked everything from the tombstone that had been left for him—balloons, small gifts, a T-shirt from his favorite baseball team—stripping it bare except for the flowers she had brought. What nobody seemed to understand—nobody except for Mark, who had silently helped her and then took everything to the Salvation Army—was that none of these things were for Josh. They were for everybody else, so they could feel some sort of misplaced peace about his absence, as if he were still a guest at his own party. It seemed to escape everybody’s attention that Josh could do nothing with those things, because he wasn’t there.

Managing Julia became overwhelming for her parents, she knows. Not that she asked to be managed, but they would do it just the same, talking about her in the third person as they planned the week, coordinating Gracie’s care with Mark. Her parents would look at each other, their eyes in silent conversation as they nodded toward Julia as if she weren’t there. She knew they wanted her to move on, and when it was clear that she couldn’t, they did.

On the day they were scheduled to fly to Florida, her mother came to the house for one last goodbye. It was three years after Josh’s death. Rebecca Townsend was all dressed up, her hair done, her nails done, made up as if she were going to a party. Julia couldn’t even look at her.

“Julia.” Her mother took her hands. “Julia, we all miss Josh, but you need to get past this. You need to give some love to your husband, to Gracie. You still have a long life in front of you. There is still much happiness waiting for you, Julia.” When Julia didn’t respond, Rebecca just sighed and kissed her older daughter goodbye.

At the door, Rebecca hesitated. She surprised Julia by turning to
gather her in her arms, holding her tight. “Call Livvy,” she had whispered in her ear, and Julia felt the dampness of her mother’s cheek, unsure of who was crying.
“Talk to her, Julia.”
And then her parents were gone.

For days Julia considered this, thought of making a phone call to Livvy, a visit even. But in the end she couldn’t do it, couldn’t bear to hear any explanation or excuse. She saw her sister’s hesitation at the hospital, recounting for the police what had happened, her nervousness, the way her eyes darted back and forth, worried she would somehow be blamed.

Well, she’s right. Julia does blame her. Livvy should have driven Josh straight home as they had planned. She shouldn’t have left him alone in the yard, asked him to do a task, and then not supervised. She shouldn’t have locked the car door. She shouldn’t have left him for a moment.

What
should
Livvy have done? She should have gotten her lazy husband to properly tend to their yard like all other Avalon homeowners so that there wouldn’t be any yellow-jacket nests so close to the house. She should have returned Julia’s skirt on her own time or, better yet, never have borrowed it at all. She should have kept a cool head while Josh was lying there, remembering that a single shot of epinephrine would have saved Josh’s life. By the time Livvy remembered, it was too late.

What Julia doesn’t understand is how Livvy could forget. Livvy has known this boy all his life. She was there when he was born. She was the godparent. Josh adored her. And at the beginning of every school year, every summer camp, it is the first thing that goes down on the paper.

ALLERGIES. BEES. RISK OF ANAPHYLACTIC SHOCK. CARRIES EPIPEN ON PERSON AT ALL TIMES
.

Julia knows Livvy knows this. She’s filled out forms on Julia’s behalf. Of all the times for Livvy to freeze up, to not think clearly, why did it have to be then?

At the hospital they all stood there in shock, and eventually Julia’s father had ushered them back to the waiting room where they had
paperwork to fill out, organ donation to consider, everything that shouldn’t be happening in that moment, on that day. Julia sat on the unforgiving plastic chairs, flanked on either side by Mark and Livvy, her parents and Tom opposite them. They were all crying and Julia couldn’t think straight, couldn’t hear a word that was said to her. All she could think about was seeing Josh head to school that morning, that last goodbye she had barely paid attention to. She had told him to tuck in his shirt and he had, rolling his eyes. That was it.

That was it.

She felt the wall go up almost immediately, everybody fading into the background—her husband, her sister, her parents. She couldn’t believe that Livvy had let this happen, and even when she started to accept that it may not have been Livvy’s fault
exactly
, she couldn’t believe that Livvy had been the last person Josh had seen before he died. It should have been Julia, not Livvy.

Her parents visit once a year. They call and sometimes write, mostly birthday cards for Gracie with a ten-dollar bill carefully taped inside. They’ve begged Mark and Julia to come for a visit, promising to watch Gracie and show her the time of her life, but Julia doesn’t want to go anywhere. She wants to stay right where she is, near Josh. She’s not leaving him.