The Kitchen Daughter (12 page)

When I’m done I count her up. There are twenty-nine black-and-white pictures that look like identical copies of each other. A woman in front of a gray sky. I line all the pictures up in a row. Why so many of the same? Who is she? The photos have no marks on the backs, all the lines are clean, and I can’t tell how old they are. It could be five years ago or it could be twenty. Faded color is a giveaway but there’s no color here. All I can see of her clothes is a trim white collar. No clues in the background, no buildings or trees. I look at her face. In some pictures she is looking directly into the camera. In others she is looking down and to the side. I wonder if there’s something she’s looking at, something out of frame.

More than anything else I wonder why my father had twenty-nine pictures of someone who was not his wife.

I don’t know why these pictures are here. I don’t know who she is. She could be anyone. But in a sense, she helps me make up my mind
what I need to do next. This is a question I can’t answer, but there’s another question, one even more important, that I’ve been hiding from.

Who did Nonna mean when she said
Do no let her
?

I was terrified of the ghost Evangeline, but terror’s no excuse. There must be a reason I can bring ghosts with the smell of their cooking, and it must have something to do with her warning. Evangeline was a mistake. I can bring a family member instead. Family is safe. Nonna, or Ma. I may not always get along with my mother, but I know she loves me. That counts for a lot.

It’s time to cook the food of the dead, and see what happens.

U
NFORTUNATELY, JUST MAKING
the decision isn’t enough. I need the opportunity. Amanda doesn’t budge. She packs up valuables, sometimes efficiently and sometimes inefficiently, but she spends all day working in the house and she sleeps in her old room at night. Sometimes when Angelica comes by she’ll take a break and go out for lunch, always reminding me first that Angelica’s phone number is on the fridge if there’s an emergency, but I never know how long she’ll be gone. One time it’s three hours, another only fifteen minutes, and she comes in explaining that Angelica got a call to show a house so plans changed. I can’t be sure she’ll stay away long enough for me to cook a ghost’s recipe, and if I can’t be sure, then it isn’t safe. I hide the pictures of the black-and-white woman one day when she’s out getting coffee, tucking them under a loose bit of carpet on the floor of my closet, but there isn’t time enough for anything else. I have to be vigilant.

After the cider I don’t cook anything to encourage other people to think of my home as their home. I put all the pots away and leave a spotless, empty stove. One time I’m downstairs when Angelica brings an artsy-looking redhead in, and when Angelica sniffs the air and says “What smells so good?” I can honestly say, “Nothing.”

During Angelica’s visits I try to keep an eye on people, and I reward myself with time on the computer afterward. The Internet is magic to me. It provides all the advantages of dealing with people, without the drawbacks. If it had been around when I was little, I probably would have burned my eyes out staring at it, digging deep into obscure and useless archives. Or Ma would have had to put rules on how much I could use it. But now I know how to manage it, how to focus.

First I place an online order for spices, the cinnamon and bay leaves and ancho chili powder I’ve been wanting. Then I read Kitcherati, specifically a thread called “The Fear of Bread.” It turns out to be about how people are nervous to make bread at home. I can see why. Ma said it was easy:
Yeast into warm liquid, enough flour to absorb the moisture, knead until it feels right.
But I couldn’t watch when she did it. It always made me sick to think of yeast being a live creature. It’s funny. Gizzards and livers and unborn chicken embryos don’t bother me, but I can’t handle eating yogurt and I never make any recipe that calls for yeast. The one thing I insist on my food being is dead.

I don’t have anything to say on this thread, but I post on Kitcherati nearly every day. Without the person in person, I actually like questions. With plenty of time to think, I can put together intelligent points. The Internet term for someone who watches without contributing is a lurker. But on the Internet I’m not a lurker. I guess I’m a lurker in life.

Three days go by. Amanda packs, Angelica shows the house, I spend my days at a simmer. The invaders come mostly in pairs. They ooh and aah over every aspect of the house—the skylight over the stairs, the fleur-de-lis wallpaper in the back upstairs bathroom, even the finished attic I use as my bedroom—but they always find some flaw, something to complain about. On one hand, I don’t like being
here, but on the other, me not being here doesn’t mean they won’t come. All told I suppose it’s better I be here to warn them off, in my own way. Even if it’s torture, and I’ve given myself more one-hour battery-recharging rests than I can count.

That’s ridiculous. I can always count. There have been five.

Because of the ghosts I’m afraid to cook, but I can’t do without it completely. It’s too much of my life, my routine. I watch cooking programs instead. Ma had a whole set she loved. Some used to be on videotape but Dad got them all put onto DVDs for her. She cried. I put one into my laptop and watch it, and then another one, then another one. Julia Child making omelet after omelet. The Two Fat Ladies lining a terrine mold with streaky bacon. Jacques Pépin deboning a chicken.

I watch them cook. I know that if I needed to, I could replay the sequence of events in my head and cook what they’re cooking. I have scores of conversations in my head I can play back when I want. Because cooking matters to me I could do the same with these videos. So I watch, and I file them away. I watch Julia Child make crepes, and goose, and suckling pig, and monkfish. She puts flowers in the suckling pig’s eyes and I find it kind of creepy. Still, it’s better than watching the people who want to buy our house stomping across the carpets. It’s at least less creepy than that.

Once a day I unwrap and rewrap my hand, hearing Dad’s tomato juice voice instructing me.
Remove the previous dressing and discard. Apply antiseptic ointment directly to the wound for proper hydration and to prevent infection. Wrap thoroughly and affix the bandage firmly.
By the third day the scrape marks are pretty much gone. I leave the dressings on for one more day because the gauze makes me think of Dad, but eventually the wound is healed, and I have to open it to the air.

When Thursday comes again at least I have one bright spot to look forward to. Gert will come and clean, and take away the grocery list.
I write out the grocery list in advance so I’ll have it ready when she comes. I add dried pineapple and chicken breasts and string cheese to the usual supplies.

Gert arrives midmorning. Amanda greets her with a drawn-out “Hiii!” when she comes in, and hands her a check immediately, then disappears upstairs again. I should be trying to slow her down more actively, but it takes too much out of me. Whatever is being packed can be unpacked.

Gert presses the heel of her hand against my forehead and says to me, “I have a small something for you.”

She hands me an index card. It’s her recipe for those coconut turnovers I remember so well. I can taste them just reading the words. All handwritten, copied in a careful hand in deep black ink. I can tell she presses hard. The shape of the letters pushes through the reverse side of each card. It’s raised under my fingertips like Braille.

“Thank you,” I say.

She says, “It is always good to bring something new into our lives. This is an old thing to me, but I thought it could be a new thing to you.”

“You brought us some, years ago.”

“But you have never made them. And I think you would like to.”

“Yes, I think I would like to.”

“You are a very good cook,” she says. “Better than I am. Better even than your mother.”

“No one’s better than Ma,” I say.

Gert says, “You are better at cooking. Time for me to start,” and heads toward the back bathroom first.

I follow her in and ask, “Can I help?”

“It is my job, Ginny. You do not need to help.”

“Okay.”

So I watch from the doorway, as I’ve done many times before, while she goes through the routine. She has an order, a structure. She runs a small amount of water in the tub and wipes it out. She pours bleach in the toilet and leaves it to sit. Then she does the vanity, down to the small crystal knob on each drawer. Once the vanity is done, she cleans the sink, then sprays the mirror. Then she returns to the toilet and scrubs that. And wipes down the wet mirror, until our reflections appear again, blemish-free. Cleaning has its own rhythm.

I follow Gert into the kitchen, where she speaks for the first time in half an hour. “This is a wonderful kitchen. I love the sunlight.”

“Yes,” I say, and we fall into silence again. She scrubs out the sink with white powder, wipes it out, rinses it. Her ponytail sways back and forth, lashing at the cabinets. She places the sponge back in its carrier. She fills a bucket with water, dips the mop in it, and begins to mop the floor in long, wide strokes. The mop glides over all the squares, a shapeless thing over the shapes.

We’re quiet again for a while.

I’m trying to relax and just let myself enjoy the fresh, sharp smell of clean things. But seeing Gert makes me think of David, and I remember something he said the other day.

“David said ours is the only house you still clean,” I say.

“When did he say that?”

“Last week. I met him when he brought the groceries.”

“I am glad you met him,” she says.

“Well, I’m glad you still clean our house.”

“Your mother, she helped me when I needed help, a very long time ago. I owe her more than this, but this is in my power.”

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. Maybe ghosts aren’t the only ones with answers. I say, “How long have you known my parents? Twenty years?”

“More.”

I say, “Gert, do you know anything my father did that my mother had to forgive him for?”

The mop is still then. She says, “Ginny, why would I know this?”

“I don’t know if you do. I found a letter he wrote to her. And he asked her to forgive him. But I don’t know what for.”

“Maybe you do not need to know,” she says.

“I’m curious.”

She squints up at the ceiling. It looks like she’s examining the skylight but she may just be giving herself time to think. She says, “You have heard of the proverb ‘Curiosity killed the cat’?”

I say, “I’m not very good with proverbs.” I interpret them too literally. Rules are better than proverbs for me. The Normal Book says,
It’s normal to lean on proverbs and platitudes.
But she’s right. Maybe I don’t need to know.

The mop snakes across the squares of the floor, dripping when it’s lifted, and then snakes across again.

“I do not know the answer to your question. But you know what your mother would say,” Gert says, and goes back to moving the mop in a regular pattern, with no breaks in between.

I know what she means, but Ma said a lot of things. She said
I don’t know whether to be glad or not that you’re pretty. If you were ugly they’d leave you alone.
She also said
Sometimes you have to cut toward your thumb.
She said
Everyone has a worst sin and yours is to be gullible.
She said
Stop that
and
Don’t touch
and
Be more careful, Ginny
, and
That’s just like your father
and
No, you can’t
and
Because Amanda’s different, that’s why
and
Back to your books now
and
Don’t you pay them any mind
and
Meet you back here at four sharp
and
You know how much we love you.

I take the kitchen towel down from its hook next to the sink and toss it into Gert’s basket. It needs a wash. I replace it with another from the cupboard. When the kitchen floor is almost completely wet
and the water in Gert’s bucket is brown and soapy, I back out of the kitchen to let her finish up the corner without my feet getting in the way. The kitchen smells bright and clean now, like a cilantro stem, or a freshly unwrapped bar of soap.

As soon as the last tile has been wiped and rinsed, Gert leans the mop against the wall, looks at me, and says, “You met David.”

“He seems nice.” Ma taught me that whether or not this is true, it is always worth saying.

“He is nice. But very troubled.”

“Since the accident?”

“Some before that too, but since the accident, it is the worst.”

“Since his wife died.”

“His grief,” she says, shaking her head. “Such grief.”

“Worse than mine?”

“No one grief is worse than another. They are all terrible. They all destroy. But you need to find the way to use yours. I put mine in this bucket and toss it out at the end of every day. Maybe you put yours in your cooking. Amanda, maybe she uses hers to put things in order, or to draw a wall around her family to protect them. I don’t know. She is your sister, you know her better.”

“Maybe.”

“There are ways to use grief,” she says. “We all have to find our own. David, he has not found his yet.”

“Is there any way to help?”

“I have tried what I know. To bring him out of his home, out of himself. But so far, nothing.”

She reaches up and tugs the clean towel to anchor it in place. She says, “He has some trouble, but he is my son, a good son. Like you are good daughter.”

I am such a good daughter, I am afraid to invoke my mother’s ghost for fear we’ll do nothing but argue and she’ll tell me she’s glad she’s
dead. Which is a whole set of revelations Gert doesn’t know about. I’m not going to explain it to her, either. Instead I say, “I don’t know if I’m that good.”

“You are good,” she says. “Your heart is good.”