Page 30 of Home Body
She parked next to her mama’s Beetle and turned off the truck, letting the warbling on the radio fade away so she could sit in silence. She took a moment to take in the place she loved so much. The sturdy old barn loomed large in the dark, its never-ending presence having always brought her a sense of security, a devoted testament to her beloved poppa’s life work. The sheep slept in their pasture, having been left out on this warm summer night. The chickens no doubt nestled in their nests in the henhouse. Only the barn cat, Barney, wandered around, his eyes shining in the light from the house when he looked her way.
The house was dark except for the front porch light and the front hall light she could see through the window, lights Mama always left on for her.
She would go inside like always, but it would be a different woman going into that house on this night. This new woman didn’t know her heritage. The person she’d thought to be her birth mother was dead. She’d quit her job. She’d have to break her promise to Mama. She’d had wild sex with someone she hardly knew. And she was falling in love.
As quietly as a ghost, she got out and drifted inside feeling like a stranger in her own skin.
CHAPTER 19
“Boo honey, what on Earth are you doing?” Barely awake enough to scuttle into the kitchen, Mamie fumbled with the tie belt on her robe. Her body screamed at her to go back to bed. She squinted at the clock on the wall. Two o’clock. The black void outside the window above the sink indicated it was indeed the middle of the night. She turned on the overhead light seeing that only the small hanging lamp above the kitchen table illuminated the room.
“Oh Mama, I didn’t want to wake you. I was trying to be quiet.” Dalia held a giant bowl against her body with one hand and with the other hand beat a poor white cake batter so violently her mother put a hand on her wrist to stop her.
“Baby, what’s wrong.”
Dalia put down the bowl, wiped her hands on her apron, and swiped at a tear that rolled down her cheek. She faced her mother like a condemned woman making a confession. “Mama, I quit my job tonight. I couldn’t make myself go in there again. That means we don’t have enough money for a bakery.”
Mamie paused, taking that in. “Why, boo, is that all? We don’t need a bakery. That was just a pipe dream of mine. A fantasy. I’m sorry you ever heard me talk about it.”
“It’s not only that. Poppa wanted that for you, too. I heard you two talking about that ever since I was ten years old sitting at the top of the stairs after you thought I’d gone to bed. He wanted that for you, Mama. And I know you want it, no matter how much you say you don’t. And, Mama, I want it, too. I love all this…” she tapped the worn leather recipe book sitting open on the table, the one with Mamie’s handwritten recipes “…as much as you do. It’s as if I miraculously inherited your baker gene. I can’t imagine doing anything else. So it’s for me, too.”
“I see. I guess I knew that but was thinking of it rather selfishly.”
“Ha. You don’t have a selfish bone in your body.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be saying that. Once you came up that driveway with your little cup, I was never going to give you back, certainly not to someone like Agnes. Maybe that was selfish. We thought you were her child. But you were mine from that moment on.” She tapped her heart. “Right here.”
“I love you, Mama. It doesn’t matter who gave me birth. You’re my mother.”
“I know that, boo. And you know that ’til the day I die I’ll love you as if I’d birthed you myself. Even if you do beat a cake batter to death.” She pointed at the bowl. “What is this? The wedding cake we’re delivering in the morning on our way to the Farmers’ Market?”
Dalia started beating the batter again, more carefully this time. “Yes. I needed to work off some steam so thought I might as well get it done. You’d be up in a few hours to do it anyway.”
“Well, I’m up now. I’m even almost awake.” Mamie took her bib apron off its peg and put it on over her robe. “How about I put on some coffee and then finish the cake, and you do the strawberry frosting. You’re so good with that. Nobody decorates a wedding cake more beautifully than you.”
“Well, I do admit, I think I’m getting awfully good at it. I’ve worked hard to master it.” Dalia picked up the recipe book to study the frosting recipe.
“I picked the strawberries for it this afternoon,” Mamie said as she prepared the percolator coffee pot. “They’re in the fridge, washed and cored and ready to be crushed.”
“The cake will be three layers, so I think I’ll do a spatula texture with the frosting, then delicate pale green lace and pink rosettes with green leaves.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“Mama, you know what I love about baking?” Dalia left the bowl of batter and pulled the strawberries out of the fridge as she talked.
“Licking out the frosting bowls?” Mamie chuckled.
“Well, yeah, that, too.” Dalia used a pastry blender to mash the strawberries. “But it’s the feeling of being connected to the earth.” She picked up a strawberry and held it out. “Taking something from the earth and turning it into something that gives people sustenance and pleasure – that’s a great feeling.” She dropped the berry into the bowl.
“Yes, it surely is. What we do also brings people together. I think about that all the time. A family shares a loaf of bread over a meal. Women friends have croissants for their morning coffee klatch. Townsfolk stop by to get donuts to take to work.”
“People celebrate over birthday and wedding cakes.”
“Yes. It’s a great business we’re in, isn’t it? It’s more than a business to us.”
“Speaking of which, you know how you’ve always given whatever we have left over to the homeless shelter?” Dalia spoke of the shelter in Ann Arbor, the nearest town big enough for such a facility. “I’ve been thinking about how once a week we could make a big batch of your chicken-vegetable-noodle soup andsome bread and take it to the children’s shelter. Your homemade noodles are the best.”
“I love that idea. You’ve done such a great job with the vegetable garden. That’s what makes that soup so delicious. What made you think of that all of a sudden?”
