Page 12 of The Night the Lights Went Out
Before Merilee could point out the handheld vacuum she’d brought from their house, which now sat on its charger on the counter, Lily asked, “I’m done with the okra, so can I do the measuring?”
“Absolutely,” Merilee said, happy to have her daughter’s attention diverted from her laptop. Turning to Sugar, she asked, “Where’s the recipe? I could get to measuring out the next ingredients.”
“There’s no recipe. My grandmother on my daddy’s side taught me how to make these and she didn’t know how to write, so I learned by watching. Never saw the need to write it down.”
“Is that what it was like during the olden days?” Lily asked, concentrating on getting the exact amount of sugar in the measuring cup.
This time Merilee was sure she saw a smile. “Living on a farm meant there wasn’t a lot of time for schooling, especially for girls and mostly for everyone during the fall harvest and spring planting seasons.” Sugar looked out the window above the sink, her smile fading as her gaze seemed to focus on the woods. “So much has changed. I sometimes wonder...”
Instead of finishing her sentence, Sugar began filling a small saucepan with water, then placed it on the stove and lit the burner.
“What do you sometimes wonder, Miss Sugar?” Lily’s sweet, high voice seemed unusually loud in the quiet kitchen.
Sugar moved away from the stove and looked out the window again. “I sometimes wonder if people today understand what sacrifice means.”
“I know what it means,” Lily said with excitement. “It’s one of our vocabulary words this week. It means to do without or give up something, usually to help someone else.”
The old woman had gone very still, her gaze focused outside the window. “Yes, that’s right.” Addressing Merilee, she said, “When the water in the saucepan starts to boil, turn off the heat and put a half stick of butter in a bowl on top of it—just until it’s soft; don’t let it melt. And move fast, because I can’t be here all night. My shows start at eight o’clock.”
“Don’t you have a DVR?” Lily piped up as her mother retrieved the butter from the fridge. “Then you can watch your shows when you want to and fast-forward through the commercials.”
Sugar blinked slowly behind her glasses. “I like commercials. They give me time to get up and walk around the living room so I can get my steps in.”
Lily shared a glance with her mother before Merilee quickly did as Sugar had instructed. “What else can I do?” she asked.
“Watch, and memorize, because I don’t like repeating myself.” She handed her a mixing bowl filled with flour. “Please cut the okra into half-inch pieces and then coat them in here. When you’re done with that, shake off the excess flour in a strainer, and then we’ll move on to the egg and cornmeal part.”
“You know, they sell batter mix now, so you don’t have to go through all the trouble of...”
She stopped when she saw Sugar’s expression and took the bowl. They measured, mixed, and battered in silence punctuated only by Sugar’s directions. Lily slowly migrated back to her laptop while Merilee played the dutiful soldier, grateful yet irritated all at the same time. She was irritated at Sugar for being the way she was, and at herself for letting her get away with it. And at her mother, who hadn’t thought it necessary to share her kitchen secrets with her daughter, and then, after David died, had stopped pretending to care or make plans to do it later. As if his death weren’t punishment enough.
Her back was aching by the time they took the last batch of cookies from the oven and emptied the fryer of the final pieces of okra. She was about to suggest that Sugar recite the recipe again so she could write it down when she was interrupted by Lily.
“Mom! Do you know what a blog is?”
Merilee used the back of her wrist to scratch her nose since her hands were covered with oven mitts. “I don’t have time to follow any, but I know what they are. Why?”
“Because Bailey Blackford says there’s a new blog that’s all about Sweet Apple and that I might recognize some of the people mentioned in it.”
“Really? What’s it called?”
“The Playing Fields. Bailey’s mom thinks it’s because it’s all about the families with kids here in Sweet Apple, and all the time we spend playing sports. But I think it’s bigger than that, you know?”
Merilee frowned, unsure of what Lily was talking about, but amazed at her daughter’s insight just the same. “Who writes it?”
“No one knows because it’s just signed ‘Your Neighbor,’ but Mrs. Blackford thinks it’s probably a mom at Windwood since the blogger seems to know a lot about it. That’s called a-non-y-mous, when you don’t know who the person is.” She frowned. “Bailey says that I shouldn’t tell you.”
“About the blog? Why? Is it bad?” Lily understood that the word “bad” meant foul language, nudity, drugs, and pretty much everything she’d been exposed to in the brief snippet she’d seen ofThe Godfather.
“I don’t know; I haven’t read it yet. Bailey said she’d send me a link. Do you want to see it?” The frown lines that had disappeared during their cooking lesson reappeared.
“Yes, please. I’ll read it first, okay? Just to make sure it’s appropriate for a ten-year-old.” She leaned down and kissed the top of her daughter’s head. “And, Lily? Thanks for telling me.”
Lily beamed, making Merilee’s heart squeeze. Lily’s need for approval, while always a part of her personality, had gone into overdrive since the divorce. Yet another reason to silently curse Michael in Merilee’s nighttime rants when she’d wake up and couldn’t go back to sleep.
Sugar stood at the sink, filling it with hot water, her back stiff and unyielding, without any sign of a dowager’s hump. “Please,” Merilee said. “You’ve done enough—I’ll clean up. Can I send you home with some cookies and fried okra?”
The older woman appeared not to have heard her. She leaned toward the window, her gaze on Colin in the tree swing facing the woods. “What will you do if he finds that dog and it doesn’t have a home?”
