“No, Mom,” Joe said. “You’ve been a great mother. You love me. I know that. I love you, too. But I have to protect my wife. That’s the man you raised me to be.”
She had a hand on her face now, but flapped the other one at him. “You’re just saying that.”
“Nope.” Joe got up, went around the table, and kissed her cheek. “I’m saying what I mean. But if you could help Marguerite with this, I’d be grateful, too. And give her thatchicken recipe, will you? I don’t know how you always make it come out exactly right.”
“Years of practice,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with her napkin. “You can’t imagine how bad my brisket and chicken were at first. Your father’s parents came for dinner once, early on, and—well, I wanted to impress them. I was supposed to tie the chicken’s legs together and sew up the cavity. All I had was red string, though, and the dye ran. The vegetables in the pan, the chicken itself—it all looked like a bloody pink mess. And my chocolate cake! When I went to take the layers out of the pans, they fell to pieces!”
“I came home to find you in tears,” Mr. Stark said. “And that was before we realized what had happened to the chicken. You looked at those cake pieces, ran to the bedroom, and slammed the door, remember? And I went to work with a box of toothpicks and the bowl of frosting. Of course, my dad bit straight down on a toothpick later on and practically chipped a tooth, but we had cake! And the toothpick was my fault, not yours, which helped.”
“When I came out of the bedroom,” Mrs. Stark said, “I cried again, just because you’d been so thoughtful. But when the chickencame out of the oven like that?”
“We left the food in the kitchen until the last minute,” Mr. Stark said. “When it was time to eat, I turned off almost all the lights and lit candles before you carried out the platter. Darkest dinner I’ve ever eaten. My dad practically put out his eye with a fork.” They were both laughing, which was wonderful progress, wasn’t it?
“Oh,” I said when we’d all finished laughing, “all this eases my mind so much to know! If you only knew all the terrible dinners I’ve served Joe. I’m getting a little better now, but?—”
“You’re getting alotbetter,” Joe said loyally.
“Thank you,” I said, “but anybody would say that you’re a too-lenient judge. If you’d help me set up the kitchen, Mrs.Stark, and give me more of your recipes—the Hamantaschenand Rugelach in particular? And Kreplach,the so-lovely dumplings, too, and—oh, so many things you’ve made for us. A really good Reuben sandwich, perhaps, for this is Joe’s favorite, and I believe one can make one’s own sauerkraut?”
“Well, of course you can,” Mrs. Stark said. “It’s as easy as can be, and when you do it yourself, you can control the level of sourness and crispness. For that matter, you can make your own corned beef, if there’s no deli close by.”
“But this is brilliant,” I said. “If you’ll help me with the design of the house, and also teach me to make these things for Joe, I’d be most grateful.” And smiled sunnily, like a woman with amnesia.
Amnesia is often the best course, I find, with mothers-in-law.
37
OUT OF THE BLUE
I was thinking of that dinner on a Saturday afternoon in February over a year later as I pulled the Fleetmaster Deluxe into the driveway and climbed out.Withoutwrecking anything, you’ll notice. I’d learned to drive eventually, and all I’ll say about that is, I had averypatient husband.
We’d been living in our new home outside the tiny town of Woodside for almost six months now, and Joe was a practicing attorney at last, but I still got the same thrill every time I arrived, and I thought he did too. It was so wholly and completelyours,you see. There was the wall of windows in the living room that we’d insisted on over the builder’s objections—“Where will you hang pictures?” he’d asked, as if one could possibly find a picture more beautiful than the mighty madrones and smaller manzanitas, with their red bark and sinuous shapes, and the towering redwoods that soared above them all. There were the raised garden beds, too, at the sunnier front of the house, which Joe had constructed from railroad ties and then filled with endless wheelbarrow loads of rich earth, coarse sand, and worm castings. I’d teased him that I hadn’t known I wasmarrying a worm farmer, but there the little wrigglers were, working away in their own Joe-built bin in a shaded corner, being fed a worm-feast of eggshells, vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, banana peels, and anything else Joe thought they might like.
Inside the house, there were not only my windows, but also my kitchen and bathrooms. In the end, I’d made the kitchen twice as large as the builder had suggested, “For,” I’d explained to Mrs. Stark, “there must be great comfort in a kitchen, don’t you think?” And she’d agreed with me. In fact, from the cozy pine table that divided kitchen from living room to the wood heating stove and its pile of logs, from the pale birch cabinets and cream-colored walls to the white appliances, we’d flouted every one of the builder’s suggestions, and I loved my kitchen even more than I loved our bathroom, with its pale blue-gray walls and white fixtures. The absolute antithesis of everythingThe Ladies’ Home Journalhad to say about what was modern and attractive, but I didn’t care. In this, I’d decided, I would be a princess and decide for myself.
The best thing about the new house, though? It had Susie and Fred next door. “Why would we live in that cookie-cutter neighborhood when I could be in the woods with you,” Fred had said, “being forced by Joe’s example to cut my own firewood and grow my own vegetables? I’m telling you right now, though: chickens are out.”
“But Fred,” Susie had said, “fresh eggs are so much better.”
“You say that,” Fred had answered, “because you didn’t grow up with chickens. Do you have any idea how much work it is to butcher a hen, and how bad it smells? You eviscerate the thing and think, ‘Well, nothing could be worse thanthat,’and then you scald and pluck it and change your mind pretty darn quickly. Not to mention how loud a rooster can be. You think they crow at dawn? They crowbeforedawn, andthen they keep right on doing it. If you want chickens, marry a farmer, not an engineer.”
Susie had chosen the engineer, of course, and there the two of them were, happily chicken-free and right next door. Of course, this also meant that I saw Susie nearly every day. This had been wonderful, for she was a most generous and amusing friend, and also, to my private dismay at my envious heart, not so wonderful, for she and Fred were expecting their first baby in three months.
Her happiness hadn’t always been easy to witness. I’d prayed every night for God to grant me generosity, but, oh, how many babies there were in the winter of 1951! Barbara and David now had two sons: Samuel, who was three and a most serious and determined little boy, and Daniel, six months old and the sunniest child imaginable, with his head of dark curls and his laughing brown eyes.
I was thinking of this as I opened the door, and then I put it aside as Joe came to meet me—he had a smudge of ink on his cheek, for he too had been hard at work—gave me my kiss, which was still of the bending-back kind and still made me breathless, and said, “How did it go?”
“Very well,” I said, setting down my briefcase and the bag with my supplies with relief, for I was very tired. “I won’t have to hold it open next Saturday, I’m sure. More than a hundred visitors!”
“How did the cookies go over?” Joe asked. This had been my brainstorm: to have cookies baking in the oven throughout the afternoon, so the house smelled delicious and the kitchen felt homey. I’d had to restrict myself to those without chocolate chips, however. I’d never imagined how many places small children could smear chocolate!
“The reports are positive,” I said. “Snickerdoodles received the best reception yet. Cinnamon is a very appetizing smell, I think.”
“I’ll bet,” Joe said. “You look tired, though. Go have a rest.” I hesitated, and he said, “What?”
“Do you have time for a walk?” I asked. “It would give us a chance to talk.”
He looked at me oddly. “Have we been neglecting each other? I haven’t noticed that, but have you?”
