He struggled not to laugh. “Please don’t bother. This is probably something I should handle on my own.”
Caroline tutted. “It has not escaped my notice that you have always looked out for Luke and me. Sometimes Dad could be a little scattered, but we could always count on you to remember our birthdays and school graduations. You might be in China or Patagonia, but there would always be a note and a gift delivered on time. When I lost my first tooth and couldn’t stop crying, you wrote me the kindest note. I still have it. Gray, there isn’t anything in the world I won’t do for you.”
He had no idea those gestures had meant so much to her. It made him regret again all the years he’d spent abroad.
“Caroline, please don’t worry about me.”
“But I do.”
Her hand covered his, and he drew comfort from her touch. His baby sister was now proppinghimup. The worst thing was that he needed it, for Caroline was all he had left of a family.
Twenty-Two
For a week Annabelle moved through life like a sleepwalker—eating, bathing, preparing dinner, but feeling strangely disconnected, as though it were someone else performing these mundane tasks. Elaine seemed unusually happy these days. Or was it merely that Annabelle was so miserable? Most evenings, while Elaine sat reading a braille book, Annabelle kept glancing at her watch, wondering if it was too early to go to bed at eight o’clock.
But one Saturday morning, as they put the breakfast dishes away, Elaine surprised her. “Is this real vanilla?” she asked.
Annabelle had been so engrossed in staring out the window that she hadn’t noticed Elaine twisting the lids off each bottle of Delacroix spice that rested on the shelf in the kitchen. Elaine held the little dark bottle of vanilla extract, delighting in the delicate aroma.
“Yes.”
Elaine brightened and took another whiff. “I’ve heard of real vanilla liquid. It’s shockingly expensive. Did Mr. Delacroix give this to you?”
“Yes,” Annabelle said, praying they could move away from the topic of Gray immediately.
Mercifully, Elaine was more interested in the vanilla than in Gray. She spoke about how Harry, the blind soldier she’d been helping at the Library of Congress, used to work in a grocery, and he said vanilla was the most expensive product in the whole store. There were some cheap imitations, but real vanilla cost twenty times what the fake version cost. Most people wanted the cheaper version, for surely once it was baked into a dish there would be no difference.
“Let’s try it!” Elaine said.
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s buy a bottle of the cheap vanilla, then bake two cakes. We already have a bottle of the expensive stuff, so let’s compare! I have an entire book of recipes I checked out from the library.”
It seemed there was no stopping Elaine, who eagerly began paging through the braille cookbook. She soon settled on a vanilla-spiced pear cake for her experiment, but Annabelle wanted nothing to do with it. Elaine, however, would not relent.
“I’ll go to the grocer’s even if you won’t accompany me,” Elaine said, reaching for her coin purse and preparing to leave. It would be impossible to relax knowing Elaine was out fumbling through the shop on her own.
“I’ll go,” Annabelle grumbled, and an hour later, they had all the ingredients necessary to begin baking.
Annabelle measured the dry ingredients, while Elaine prepared the papery thin slices of pears, chattering the entire time. When had her sister become so fascinated with cooking? She rattled on about how the French used a special blend of wheat in their world-famous crusty bread, and about how wine could be used to improve mustard recipes. Elaine had never shown much interest in cooking back in Kansas. Their mother’s culinary skills had been limited to teaching them how to light a stove and use salt and pepper.
“Where did you learn all this?” Annabelle finally asked.
“At the library, of course. They have all kinds of books about cooking and culinary history.”
Finally it was time to blend the vanilla into each bowl of batter. Gray’s vanilla wafted through the entire kitchen as they poured it, while the bowl with the fake vanilla seemed just as nice. They each sampled the batter.
“They taste the same,” Annabelle said, and Elaine agreed. Since losing her eyesight, Elaine had developed a keener sense of taste and smell, but even she couldn’t tell the difference between the two batters. It was a little disappointing.
After putting both cakes into the oven, Annabelle prepared the vanilla glazes while Elaine kept sharing food lore she’d heard or read while working at the library. It was annoying. Each time Elaine started talking about the difference between sweet and smoky paprika, or techniques for making vinegar, it made Annabelle think of Gray, and it was torture.
At last the cakes had been baked, cooled, and were ready for the coating of vanilla glaze. By now the entire apartment smelled divine. Annabelle laid a slice of each cake on a plate and served them to Elaine, giving no indication which slice had the real vanilla and which the fake.
“Can you tell the difference?” she asked.
Elaine sampled the real vanilla cake first. Her eyes closed in ecstasy, and she moaned. “This may be the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Do we have enough pears for another cake? I’d like to bake another and take it to the library. This must be shared!”
Annabelle laughed. “Try the other cake.” It would probably be just as good. Gray could be such a snob, with an overly refined palate only rich people could indulge. Normal, red-blooded Americans probably couldn’t taste the difference.
