What a mess I am.
“Neil, Jan, and the girls went out for some more wine,” she adds diffidently, as though we both don’t know she’s alleviating my curiosity. “They should be home in a bit. And when August and March come back from fishing, we’ll have a feast.”
Fishing. When the weather has taken an unexpected dip and no one else wants to go out there.
My throat closes on a swallow. He’s on the cold lake avoidingme because I made him leave. Part of me wants to text him and say:come home now; I need you. But I still don’t know what I want to say to him.
With dogged determination, I scrub the board and dry it thoroughly before setting it on the long dining table just off the kitchen. The height of it works best for me.
A fire crackles in the stacked stone hearth at the far end of the table, giving off the scent of charred wood. In the kitchen, Mom and Margo chat, their familiar voices creating a soothing cadence that takes me back to childhood.
Quietly, I make a flour well and crack eggs into the center. My mom laughs at some old joke as I whisk the eggs and start bringing the flour into them. When the eggs are incorporated, I use my scraper and work on creating a ball to knead.
Kneading dough is deceptively hard work. There isn’t room for pausing. But the repetitive action feels good. Muscles snap to life, growing warm, as I go at it for at least fifteen minutes, maybe more, until the once sticky ball is smooth and elastic.
While I let it rest, I help myself to coffee, watch the moms finish up the filling, and then drift back to the table to my work.
Rolling out thesfogliais my favorite part of the process. It isn’t easy, but the pride I felt when mynonaannounced in her short, stern way that I’d done it well remains. Grabbing the roller, I lightly dust the board with flour, shape my dough into a disk, then begin.
Roll up, turn, roll up, watch it spread. Control the movements, left, right, roll it over themattarello, drape half over the edge of the board...
It becomes apparent that my mom’s pasta making plan is diabolical in its simplicity. I don’t have time to think or brood while working the dough. My mind empties out. Muscle memory kicks in. The familiarity of the process soothes.
The rhythmickah-kunk,kah-kunkof themattarellomoving over the wood,the rocking motion of my body as my handsglide along the dowel, finely gritted with flour, outward-in, back and forth.
Thesfogliagrows bigger, thinner, smoother. My back and neck burn. Sweat gathers along my spine.
Mom and Margo drift in to watch. I don’t mind. It’s quiet work, and they respect the process. When I’m done, the dough is silky thin and translucent enough to see the shadow of my hand behind it. I sit to rest my aching back, and Mom takes over cutting the sheets into small squares. Margo brings in the filling and soon we all draw up a seat to create the tortellini.
Filling and shaping the delicate little pasta purses is a different type of labor. Repetitive work in which one can chat with ease while letting their fingers do the work.
“Now,” Mom says as she pinches together the tips on one tortellini. “Talk to us.”
It’s so unexpected, I don’t have time to brace or evade. “I hate that I hate my father.”
“He doesn’t make it easy to love him.”
“True.” I flick a filled pasta to the growing pile and start another. “I hate that he doesn’t love me.”
That one hurts to say. Rapidly I blink down at the table.
Mom’s quiet for a moment. “He doesn’t have it in him to love. That’s on him. Not you.”
“I know.”
Warm brown eyes, the color of mine, find me. “You are loved,cara. So very much.”
“Ma...” I don’t want to cry all over these tortellini.
“She’s right,” Margo puts in quietly. “We all love you too.”
For a second, I concentrate on my task. “I shouldn’t have kicked August out. I hurt his feelings.”
“He’ll get over it.” Margo dots more of the ground pork filling along the cut squares of pasta dough.
“Maybe. But I shouldn’t have been so... reactionary.”
“You bottle too much up,” Mom says.
