“Well, since we’re giving photo gifts,” Asher says, standing and looking to my dad. “Should we do this?”
My dad grins as he makes to get up. “It’s your show.”
I look at my mom, confused, as they both duck out of theroom.
“What is this about?” my mom asks. “I have no idea.” It’s an honest answer because I am just as confused as she is.
“I wasn’t going to give this to you until the baby shower, but it feels more appropriate to do it now,” Asher says as he reenters the room carrying two identically wrapped rectangular gifts.
My dad takes a seat next to my mom, all smug and happy like a Cheshire cat.
As if … “Do you know what it—” “Here we go.” Asher sets one of the gifts in my lap and one in my mom’s. It’s heavy and perfectly wrapped in silver paper.
I run my hand over it and look at him as he sits down across from us. Asher’s dark jeans hug his thick thighs and his standard black T-shirt, one of twenty that live in his closet, clings to his still-tanned, muscular arms. His beard hasn’t seen a razor in weeks but, somehow, even the overgrown scruff on his jaw is perfect too. Especially when it’s tickling my arms, or neck, or inner thighs.
“Well, go on then!” Asher coaxes us now, his accent coming through a little stronger than usual with his subtle excitement. As excited as Ashercanget.
I look at my mom, who’s smiling giddily as she starts tearing the paper. I do the same and pull out three frames, each filled with … I gasp as my eyes move quickly over the contents. In front of me is a collage of little photos of me and my nana at various stages of life, and next to them … My stomach drops and my eyes instantly fill with tears when I register what I’m looking at.
“Her recipes?” I croak out, swallowing the giant lump in my throat. I look back down at the gifts, barely able to see them through the blur of my tears. Asher kept and removed the salvageable recipes from the burned-up old cookbook Ithought was lost to the fire? He took my prized possession and turned it into … art?
“I hope you don’t mind. I took the book and found a restoration company to help remove the soot from the ones that could still be read,” he explains.
My fingers trace the glass as tears spill over my cheeks. I look at my mom, who grabs my hand in hers. She’s crying too.
“Your dad told me which dishes you used to make with her the most,” he continues. “And helped supply the photos, of course.”
Each frame houses two or three different recipes, decorated with charred edges, but somehow the burnt design makes the paper prettier. My nana’s scribbled notes are all still visible, thanks to the restoration.
In one of mine sits our favorite chocolate cake recipe next to a photo of my nana and a twelve-year-old me making it in her kitchen. I’m laughing in the picture; she’d just swiped batter onto my nose. The other two frames are much the same. One boasts how to make her famous pineapple upside-down cake and is set next to a photo of me, Nana, and my mom at Christmas one year. We’re all grinning, wearing our festive aprons at the kitchen island.
I glance at my mom’s frames; Asher has included a few photos of when she was little too, in which my nana’s eyes twinkle with her own youth. I look over every recipe, every photo, and it’s only when I’m done that I see the engravings on the bottoms of the wooden frames.
“Your dad helped me with that too,” Asher says with a shrug as my fingers trace the writing on each frame.
“The gravy makes the meal,” my mom reads. “Life is short, eat dessert first,” I counter, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“This icing is perfect,” my mom says as we turn to look at each other. “Not too sweet,” we say in unison.
All my nana’s favorite sayings, written into the frames as a homage to her. My heart feels as though it could break inside my chest right now with love, with grief, with joy.This gift. This man.
I’m sobbing as I set them down and throw myself into Asher’s arms. And then my mom is there in a blink, pulling both of us close.
“Thank you,” I say to him. “This is the greatest gift I’ve ever received. I thought they were lost forever.”
My mom moves over to hug my dad, and I follow suit. “The two of you were in cahoots,” she says, wiping her eyes with a laugh as she returns to her seat to study the frames in more detail.
My dad grins. “It was all Asher’s idea. I was just there to assist.”
I try to catch my breath. “Don’t you know better than to do this to a pregnant woman?!”
“I know they were too important for you to lose,” Asher says softly, leaning over to place his hand on mine. “You’d already lost enough. Now you can each hang these somewhere special and keep them forever.”
And then he’s turning to pull two more items out of the bag he carried the frames in, handing us each an unwrapped, new edition ofThe Joy of Cooking.
“And these are to write your notes in. Maybe you can use it to cook with little bear so she can make her own memories with her mom, and her nana.”
More tears threaten to spill over, and by the time we’ve each looked at each other’s frames, my mom and I are a blubbering mess, and my dad and Asher are toasting themselves on a mission well done.
