Life From Scratch (18 page)

From here, the dough can be rolled thinly and sliced with a pizza cutter to make fettuccine. Sheets of dough can also be filled to make several dozen ravioli. While rolling, remember to dust the pasta dough if needed, and slap it down once in a while to get the gluten to relax.

Gently boil until tender, keeping in mind fresh pasta typically cooks twice as fast as dried. Bite to test doneness. If any white remains in the center, keep cooking.

Makes 2¼ pounds

CHAPTER 11

On Borrowed T
i
me

W
HEN IS SHE COMING HOME?
” I asked Pierre as I cut into the tender red skin of a newly harvested potato.

In Patricia’s absence, spring had given way to summer. Our potato sprouts had cracked through the dirt and formed leafy plants. For weeks, Pierre and I had piled soil around each tender stem, hilling them for the best yield. When the leaves yellowed and dropped, we’d pulled the tiny potatoes from the dirt and boiled them with a touch of salt. I had no idea if Patricia had called with an update, or if she and Pierre were even talking. But I couldn’t take the silence any more.

“I–I’m not sure,” Pierre said, staring at the mound of potatoes on his plate. Whenever I asked him about her, he stuttered, clearly heartbroken. So I stifled my questions, and we continued our meal in silence.

Another few months went by. I started my senior year of high school. The green leaves began to lose their vibrant hue, and just when the first few began to fall, Pierre announced that Patricia would be home that weekend.

Though bewildered by the sudden news, I was happy for Pierre that she
was
in fact coming home. And she wasn’t coming alone. Patricia had decided to bring her dad back to live with us, converting the dining room into his bedroom, since his health was deteriorating and he needed care. She and her father had become close since her mother’s tragic death when Patricia was a young girl.

That night I crept into the kitchen and checked every last corner for crumbs. I scrubbed it down and silently slipped out again.

That fall, I put my nose down and focused on college applications, applying to a dozen schools all over the United States. Patricia never mentioned her time away, but resumed her duties with weary determination. But she was different. Her eyes glanced off mine. It was as if my very presence tormented her. It grew worse and worse, until Patricia ignored me so completely for two weeks that I began to pinch myself, wondering if I’d become a ghost. I wondered if she knew I’d been cooking in her kitchen, and asked Pierre if he thought that was the reason for her behavior toward me.

“I don’t know, Sasha.” He looked up the long, narrow stairway to her shuttered room.

“You have to find out. Please,” I cried, “I feel … invisible.”

An hour later, Pierre emerged from her room and motioned me outside into the blue winter light. We sat on a stone bench under an old oak tree by the vegetable patch. No one spoke for a long while. I traced my sneakers through the dirt. Finally, he cleared his throat.

“Did you tell Annie’s parents that you were adopted?”

I looked up in surprise. Lately I’d told a lot of people that.

“Well, yes, I
—
”

He took a deep breath. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I know it’s not true, but …” I looked down at the potato plants, now blackened from the frost. I wondered if the roots would survive the winter. “It was just easier than saying
guardian
. It sounded nicer …”

“Sash, we didn’t adopt you on purpose. We want to keep the door open for you to see your mom again. We never thought you’d be with us this long. Your mother led us to believe this was … a temporary arrangement.”

I’d been with them seven years.

“But she doesn’t want me.” My lip was trembling. “She’s made that clear. I haven’t heard from her since Paris—what, almost three years ago?! And even that was …”

“We know she’s had some difficulties since Michael died. We just … we always hoped she’d be able to take you back.”

“Is this because of Paris?” I asked, feeling my ears burn. “I’ve been trying to be better.”

“No, it’s not that, Sasha.” He paused, looking me in the eye for the first time, “We’ve always felt this way.”

I sat back, shell-shocked by the words he hadn’t said—the ones that trembled between the lines and whispered, “We don’t want you. We never have.”

Later, Annie tried to tell me that this couldn’t have been what he meant: He was just trying to keep my relationship with my mom a
possibility
. But I’d been a temporary fixture in enough homes, by now conditioned to believe the worst. I didn’t question Pierre or my new assumption: This family was borrowed.

Whatever Pierre had said to Patricia worked; the next time I saw her, she was civil, and I tiptoed through life again. But something short-circuited deep inside me as I worked to override my urge to
belong
.

Around Thanksgiving Patricia handed me a large padded envelope from my mother. She told me the contents might help with my term paper for psychology class. I opened it tentatively, half afraid I’d find another photo of Michael in his coffin, as I had a few years earlier. But inside were hundreds of photocopied pages from various books about the psychology of family. Carefully penned annotations marked nearly every page. I studied the familiar blue scrawls, warming when I read: “I suppose I can write more often now that you’re a bit more grown up.”

I turned the envelope over in my hands and saw that the last line of the return address read “Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, 02130.”

It turned out that Patricia had written to my mother over the last few weeks and asked her to help me with my research: “I realize you must be very busy, but I wish you would give more time to write Sasha. You’re missing out on a very special relationship.”

A month later, at Christmas, a large cardboard box showed up outside my bedroom door. The return address was Mom’s. Inside was a letter, a wooden keepsake box filled with cinnamon sticks and pinecones from the Boston arboretum, a book of traditional Christmas carols, and a half dozen blueberry muffins moldy from the three-week delivery time. Despite the green mold, I contemplated eating the muffins. But when I unwrapped them, the scent bowled me over. They landed in the trash with a thud.

I rummaged through the other treasures, choking back giddy laughter. I spent the afternoon turning the box over in the filtered afternoon light, singing the carols in quiet rapture, and setting each item on my desk, as if a shrine.

I wondered at the timing, but didn’t dare ask for fear of another upset. What mattered was that after a three-year drought, Mom had written twice in one month. For the remainder of the school year, she continued to send letters at this pace. I wrote her back in equal measure.

In the spring, college acceptance letters began trickling in. Of the 12 schools I applied to, 11 accepted me. I took Wesleyan University’s offer in Middletown, Connecticut. It had a reputation for attracting hippies/conservatives/liberals/rednecks—in other words, everyone. Certainly I could find a place there.

Best of all, the school was only a few hours from Boston. Though I didn’t know what the future held with Mom, I wanted to be near her. Pierre helped me fill out the financial aid forms, and assured me he would pay the balance. He said it matter-of-factly, as though it were an understood part of his duty to me.

By the time I graduated from high school, Pierre’s work contract in Luxembourg was over. All summer he continent-hopped, going from job interview to job interview. I wondered where we might live next. Perhaps we’d spend Christmas in the Sahara or along the Great Wall of China. But nothing panned out.

Pierre started dying his graying hair before interviews, which only made me wonder why he wasn’t retiring. I figured he had to be at least 55, maybe 60. He and Patricia decided that when I went off to Wesleyan, Pierre would continue his hunt stateside so Patricia could care for her dad in the comfort of his hometown, Boston.

The entire house operated on transitional time. Though Patricia and I were civil again, I’d internalized the reasons they’d decided not to adopt me. I believed myself to be broken, fractured, unworthy of their love. Their home came to remind me of who I
wasn’t
, and who I could never be.

Weary of walking on eggshells, I spent the summer with Annie and Eliot, my boyfriend du jour, and avoided home as much as possible. Patricia and Pierre loosened their grip on me too. I’d be leaving soon enough.

On the morning I left for college, Pierre was a time zone away at yet another interview. The house was uncommonly still, so quiet I thought that I might be the only one home. A few days earlier, Patricia had said that she wouldn’t be able to drive me to the airport. I knew better than to ask her why. Annie’s parents agreed to take me.

As I waited for their car, the sun clamored over the hills, promising an impressively hot August afternoon by Luxembourg standards. I leaned out of the skylight in my room, angled just two feet above my bed, and let the warm breeze ruffle my hair. I stared out over the undulating hills and wondered what the next decade would hold.

Annie’s parents pulled up a few minutes early, and I strained to hoist my giant blue duffel bag onto my shoulder. I’d packed clothing and framed photos as well as the letters from my mom. The weight of my belongings made me stagger, and I was forced to pull the bag down three flights of tile stairs, its belabored
thump, thump, thump
marking my descent. Together, Annie and I hoisted it into the trunk, our small frames disappearing behind the bulging contours.

Just then Patricia opened the back door, her lips pressed into a hard line. She kept her hands tight at the sides of her housecoat. As I approached to hug her goodbye, she took a step back and raised her hands. She struggled for a moment, as though trying to decide what to say to me.

Finally, she managed, “Where’s Eliot?” She looked down into the car for my boyfriend, whom she’d taken a liking to.