“Not a problem,” she replied smoothly. “In the meantime—can I get you both something to drink? A seltzer or a coffee?”
Doug chimed in. “Pint of beer?”
Caleb’s face was a crumple of fury, but still he muttered, “A glass of milk would be nice.”
My expression was frozen in a debutante scream. Milk. My husband wanted milk. Beneath the artificial delight was a curdling feeling, a distinctly unsettling sense that I had unknowingly married and been impregnated by a toddler.
At the exact moment my mask fell, my father-in-law glanced over at me. His gaze was every bit as curious as his son’s was hostile. I could practically hear what he was thinking:Why did you marry my son?
How to answer that question.
Natalie’s like a border collie,my mother used to say to the other women at church.She needs a project, otherwise she starts chewing the cabinet corners.
Are you saying my son is a project?I imagined Doug saying.
No,I imagined my mother replying.I’m saying he’s the cabinet corner.
The Mills estate was large and sparse and cold. The hallways were so wide they felt academic in nature—a far cry from thecorridors,which snaked alongside the hallways, no wider than three feet, to be used exclusively by Maria and Luiz and all the othergodsendswho worked at the estate. Each room was painted in earth tones and contained about three fewer pieces of furniture than the space called for. Amelia claimed that clutter gave her anxiety. She also claimed that too much company at once (another form of clutter, I supposed) gave her anxiety, which meant we would only ever see Caleb’s brothers and their families at holidays, for a few days at a time—and even then, nearly everyone but us would retire in the evenings to one of the nearby four-star hotels, though there were more than enough rooms to house everyone at the estate. Another left turn in my marriage: I’d thought I was marrying into a big, boisterous American family, but I would never actually get to know Caleb’s brothers, nor their wives or children, and they would never take an interest in me. Years into our marriage, I would learn accidentally over a New Year’s celebration that the four other families went on vacations together, and this was when I realized that the strangely pungent anxiety radiating from the Mills family was not a universal stink, but rather one that was exclusively associated with Caleb and his mother. After that, on the rare occasion all the familiesweretogether, I would watch how the four older brothers instinctually grouped themselves away from Caleb, showing their backs to him like puppies crowding out a sick runt, and I would wonder if this animal dynamic had happened the night of my engagement party. Then, like a one-two punch, I would remember a strange, small detail of our wedding: Caleb hadn’t had a best man. His brothers had sat in the front row with all the other guests.
On that first day, though, none of this was immediately clear to me. I carried Clementine into the bedroom where we would be staying. It was Caleb’s childhood bedroom, Amelia said, but it might as well have been a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, it was so decadent and anonymous.
“Welcome home,” I whispered to my daughter, once the doorwas shut and we were alone. I gave her a hopeful smile. She began to cry.
Reena was entering her junior year of college soon. That was what I thought about while I held my wailing child in my arms. This week—maybe today, even—marked the beginning of the fall semester.Back to class,I thought distantly.
I would never complete my degree.
17
Maeve and Ibring the basket of eggs inside. I stand, holding the basket, while she marches around the kitchen, getting a bowl and then guiding me to the kitchen table. She climbs onto a chair and then cracks the eggs one by one and begins to stir. Mary is by the fire, carefully pushing a covered pot into the coals, positioning it until it’s surrounded by embers, but not actually touching flames. Biscuits. My stomach growls. For pretty much the entirety of my twenties, I never thought about food. I was a woman of discipline, not cravings. Now I’m constantly hungry in this world.
While Maeve carries the bowl of scrambled eggs to Mary, I sit down at the kitchen table, exhausted.
“We need the frying pan,” Mary says to Maeve. “I’ll get it.” She crosses the room, throwing me a dirty look as she passes. “Well, don’t you look cozy.”
“What? Isn’t breakfast about to start?”
“Breakfast won’t be for another hour.” She grabs the frying pan from the counter and returns to the fireplace.
“What should I do until then?”
Mary looks back at me with an unnerving maturity. Fifteen, going on fifty. “You should get to work.”
I look around the kitchen, my gaze coming to rest upon a half-full container of flour on the kitchen shelf. “Do we need bread?”
Flour, salt, water. A jar of sourdough starter. At the sight of those simple ingredients lined up in a row on the countertop, I feel an unfamiliar pressure building behind my eyes. I’ve never been one to cry, but right now, I could.
Hello, old friends.
The jar of starter is surprisingly well-kept. No crust around the rim, and the starter itself looks bright and airy, not the dark color of jaundice that happens with even a week of neglect. Not surprising, I suppose, given how militant Mary is with housekeeping. She must be keeping an eye on this little yeast ball, along with everything else in this house. I wouldn’t be surprised if the girl does chores while the rest of us sleep.
As soon as I dive my fingers into the wet jar, a calm falls over me. I scrape as much of the bubbling starter out as I can, then drop it into the bowl. I pour three cups of flour on top, then add a sprinkling of sea salt. Then I begin to knead, my fingers digging deep into the dough in a quick, restless pattern.
The trick to baking a good loaf of bread is to build tension. You have to fold and press the dough in on itself,justenough to lock air within the layers of flour. Too much kneading, and it becomes a rock. Not enough kneading, and it comes out mealy. As I work the dough into a tight, springy ball, I remind myself that I am being watched. I lovingly pat the ball of dough, then place it into a bowl and spread a towel over it to let it rise, right as Old Caleb steps inside and hands Mary a large steel bucket. She takes it carefully. It looks heavy. As she walks over to the kitchen sink, taking care not to slosh the liquid inside, I peek into the bucket. It’s raw milk.A delicacy,I used to tell my followers,a medical marvel, capable of curing any known ailment,except this bucket is smeared with cow shit. Mary takes out a gray rag and wipes down the sides of the bucket in a businesslike fashion, then takes the bucket and carefully begins pouring it into two pitcher-like containers. Then she turns to me. “I think we should change your dressing.”
I feel the blood leave my face. “No, thank you, I think I’m fine—”
Two minutes later, I’m sitting in a kitchen chair, my foot in Mary’s lap while she carefully unwraps the bandage, revealing something that looks more like a pickled chicken foot than any leg I’ve ever seen. The skin is yellow and wrinkled and streaked with dry blood, and the stitching looks like a beginner’s crochet project gone awry, and—my God, the little flecks of hardened muscle that got caught on the wrong side of the seams—
