Are you sure you don’t want to come in?” Diego asks.
We’re standing outside the front door of his father’s apartment building—a collection of modern lofts encased in floor-to-ceiling glass windows. It’s in what is clearly a trendy part of town with lots of green spaces and luxury stores.
“I’ll be at that little bakery on the corner,” I say, gently squeezing his arm. “Take your time.”
Diego leans in and kisses me, his hand resting between my cheek and my neck. It is a slow and tender kiss, one that implies, I’ll be right back. I lean into his hand and kiss him back. With every kiss, I discover a new sensation, like walking into one of those ice cream shops that advertises a hundred different flavors—you find a new favorite every time.
He steps back, still holding on to my hand.
“Try their mallorcas,” he says. “They’re my favorite in the whole city.”
I reluctantly let go of his hand and watch him walk inside the building. He briefly turns, so I give him a reassuring wave. Then he crosses the threshold and disappears into a corridor.
I head down the street toward the small bakery I’d seen on our way to the apartment. Inside, the sweet smell of mallorca bread is intoxicating. I stand by the register and order two bags with a dozen rolls each. This way Diego can bring some flavors from home back to Bessenay. For myself, I order a toasted ham and cheese on a mallorca roll, and a coffee.
On my way to a table, I notice a rack of cookbooks for sale next to the storefront window. They’re all in Spanish, but I’m drawn to one in particular with a black-and-white photo of a boy sitting on a bakery counter. He reminds me of Jakub. His legs dangle over the side and he’s holding two baguettes up in the air like he just won a contest. It’s adorable.
I pick up a copy and do my best to translate the words written on the back jacket. The author, a man in his eighties, promises to teach you all the secrets of how to create the perfect loaf of bread. His family fled Nazi-occupied France in the 1940s and carried their recipes in a suitcase all the way to their new home in Barcelona, where they have lived ever since. I learn that his family opened this same bakery shortly after they arrived.
I get so lost in this man’s story that I don’t hear my name being called behind me. I turn to face a server holding a tray with my food.
“The mallorcas you ordered will be out shortly,” he says in Spanish, then leads me to a table by the window.
I set the book on the table, the little boy staring back at me from the cover. In the background, I notice an old lady leans against a doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest. She’s smiling at the boy.
I bite into the sweet mallorca, as if through this bread I can somehow connect with the boy in the picture and the old man who wrote this book. They’re the same person sharing two different experiences: joy of childhood and wisdom of time.
I open the cover flap and scan the biography page for words I can translate. His family rebuilt their French bakery in Barcelona, and the recipes have passed on to a new generation. In the process, they also added new recipes, such as the mallorca bread, to honor their new life in Spain. He calls it his family’s legado, which after checking the translation app on my phone I learn means “legacy.” “Anything handed down from the past,” I read.
I sit there in total stillness, letting the old man’s words sink in—deep, deep into my heart. I glance out the window to the sidewalk, where people are walking by. A woman rides her bicycle with a basketful of flowers. A girl about my age talks on her cell phone. There’s a lot of coming and going in a million different directions. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here, alone, feeling like I can’t go anywhere until I face my own legado. The one I’ve been avoiding for six months.
It’s time, I assure myself. A sudden unwavering resolve drives me to pull Lala’s cookbook from my bag and set it on the table in front of me.
I never thought it would be so freaking hard to open a book. All my grief comes to the surface as I touch the tattered red linen cover. Some of the fibers around the edge of the hardcover have further unraveled.
I slowly undo the cooking twine knot Lala tied to keep the pages from falling out and turn the cover. My skin tingles with the rush of happy memories that follow. But my eyes sting at the feelings of loss that always come right after.
I stare at the first page, where Lala wrote her name. Her handwriting is the kind of old-style cursive they don’t teach anymore, with letters that flow neatly into each other and flawless loops and tails.
Under her name is a quote written in Spanish from someone named Carme Ruscadella. It reads, “The history of gastronomy is the history of the world.”
I search Carme Ruscadella on my phone. Turns out she is the world’s only seven-Michelin-starred female chef, and she is from Spain. Lala never mentioned her, which only serves as a reminder that there was a lot about Lala I didn’t know.
I read Ruscadella’s bio and learn she had no classical training. She came from a family of farmers who taught her how to cook as a young girl.
“What are you trying to tell me, Lala?” I murmur into her book.
Very gently, as to not disturb the delicate binding, I flip through the familiar pages.
Her recipe for roasted pork is here, and so is the one for her guisado black beans. On the border of the pages, she’s written notes such as “Fiesta de Reyes, 1961” or “This is Jaime’s favorite.”
I find a recipe for an enchilado de mariscos, a Cuban seafood stew from what I can gather, with the note “Last meal in Havana, 1970.” Her entire life can be traced back through these recipes. About halfway in, I find the recipe for her apple pie. At the top of the page reads a quote from my great-grandmother: “The best-tasting love is one slowly baked in the kitchen. —Mary Fields.” A few pages later, I find the recipe for Cascos de Guayaba a la Isabela with the note, “Para mi morenita, nacida con azúcar y miel en las venas.” I may have been born with sugar and honey in my veins, but there are a few grains of salt and hot spices too.
I blink a few times and swallow the giant knot lodged in the back of my throat. I’m trying so hard not to cry but every cell in my body wishes I could go back to her kitchen one last time—that I could, even if it’s just for a second, dip my fingers into her pineapple cake batter or watch her roll the dough for her pie crust. I want to take in the scent of her Maja soap and listen to the joy in her heart as she laughs.
But I can’t. I will never get to do any of those things again. So instead I flip through the pages until I find an empty section at the end, waiting to be filled with new recipes and new stories.
I pull out a pen and write in my own. I title it “Clara’s Flan,” and under the title I write one short line, like Lala used to do: “From Barcelona to Kansas, with love.”
I write Clara’s recipe through an onslaught of tears. I wipe them off with the back of my hand, but more come.
“Are you all right?” Diego appears by my table. “What’s wrong?” He sits and puts a bag down on the floor next to him.
I clean my face with both hands, breathing in and out slowly.
“Everything is great, actually,” I say, reaching for his hand across the table.
“Are you sure?” His thumb caresses the top of my hand.
“I’m sure.” I nod. “How did it go with your dad?”
“Fine, I guess,” he says, ripping off a piece of my sandwich and putting it into his mouth. “Are you going to eat the rest of this?”
I push the plate in his direction and he digs into my leftovers.
“Fine?” I ask.
“He told me if I wasn’t going to university, I had to get a job.” He pauses to chew. “Ah, these are the best. Can you make these?”
“Can you stay on point, please?”
“He wanted me to get some job at the firm where he works.”
“And?” My pulse goes from zero to a hundred in half a second. Is he staying in Barcelona?
“I’ll be right back. I’m starving.” Before I can protest, he stands and walks to the register.
It’s moments like this that make me want to strangle him. I watch him talk to the girl at the register. She smiles at him and giggles at something he says. For crying out loud, does he have the same effect on everyone? He returns a few minutes later, carrying a plate. Meanwhile, my heart is about to burst out of my chest. How could he not tell me he was planning to stay in Barcelona all along? And how did I not think this was a possibility?
“If you are staying here, I can just take the train back,” I say. My shoulders tighten, and my lips press into a thin line. I close Lala’s book and tie back the twine. “It’s not a big deal. I’m sure Papi and Margo can ship your things back.”
He’s staring at me, not saying anything. He’s simply chewing on a piece of mallorca like nothing is wrong.
“And I’m sure they can put your dog on a plane or something. I doubt you even have to come back.” I stuff Lala’s book into my backpack and zip the top closed.
“Where do you get these crazy ideas?” he asks, wiping his hands on a napkin. “I’m working at the cherry farm. I’m not leaving.”
His words sink in and I briefly close my eyes in relief. A smile spreads across my face. He’s not leaving. He’s staying—with me.
“James offered to take me on full-time for the season.”
“Was your dad okay with that?”
“He wasn’t about to throw me a party, if that’s what you’re asking.” Diego leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “He’ll just have to get over it. I’m not the person he thinks I am. Can you really see me wearing a suit and tie? Working behind a desk? Please.”
I take him in fully—the tight white T-shirt that barely contains his arms, the messy hair that somehow manages to look sexy every single day, and the day-old stubble on his face that tells the world he just doesn’t care what it thinks. Diego doesn’t belong behind a desk, pushing papers all day; he belongs in the fields and on the open road. Anyone can see that.
“What’s in the bag?” I ask.
“My camera,” he says, opening the top of the bag to reveal a professional-looking camera and lens. “I want to start taking pictures again.”
“Again?” I ask, amused at this new development.
“I took a class in school. My teacher said I was pretty good. I was out in the fields the other day and had this idea for some portraits of the workers. I thought I’d give it a try.” He shrugs and zips the bag closed. “I want to try everything.”
My phone buzzes and Papi’s face lights up the screen. I pick up. “Papi?”
“Where are you guys?” he asks, panting.
“Still in Barcelona. We were about to start the trip back. Is everything okay?”
He swallows hard and goes silent for a few seconds.
“Papi?”
“Margo was bleeding so I took her to the emergency room. We’re at the hospital now. She’ll need an emergency C-section. Just get here—” The line goes dead.
“Hello? Papi? Are you there?” There’s no answer. The call dropped. My fingers tremble as I dial his number. It goes straight to voice mail.
“What’s wrong?” Diego asks.
“Margo is having an emergency C-section. Can I borrow your phone?”
“Sure.” He takes his phone out of his pocket and hands it to me. I dial Papi’s number but it goes to voice mail again, so I try texting instead. No response.
“He probably forgot to charge it. You know how he is,” Diego says in an attempt to bring some levity for my sake. But as much as he is trying to hide his own concern, I can see it play across the tense lines of his forehead.
“He sounded really upset,” I tell him.
My thoughts go into overdrive. I search emergency C-section on my phone and immediately wish I hadn’t. Words like placental abruption, uterine rupture, and abnormal fetal heart rate jump out from the page.
My own heart rate picks up. How can I lose everything again? Just when I was starting to believe in this new life—in our new family. This baby, I now realize, meant a new beginning for all of us—even for me.
What will happen if . . . I can’t even go there.
How does one get up in the morning after something like that? Lala dying as an old woman is one thing, but a baby? My baby brother or sister.
I don’t see how our lives could be the same. Or how I could return to Grattard’s kitchen tomorrow morning.
I’ve learned death is its own natural disaster. It wrecks everything, and everyone, in its path.
“Margo is strong. She and the baby will be fine,” Diego says, reaching for my hand and squeezing it tight.
“How can you be so sure?” I pull away, angry at myself for agreeing to come on this trip. “I knew I shouldn’t have come here,” I snap, standing to pack my things. “How fast can you get us back home? Maybe I should look into a flight instead.”
Diego doesn’t respond. He just sits there stone-faced, cleaning his greasy fingers on a napkin.
“I’ll be outside. Can you please hurry?” I rush out of the restaurant.
The café door closes behind me and I’m standing alone on the sidewalk. I expected the burst of street air to help me find calm, but the busyness around me only adds to the desperation in my heart.
Why is this happening?
I move out of the way to let some customers pass on their way into the café.
After they go in, Diego steps out behind them.
My body edges against a cement wall, searching for support. I shut my eyes and will myself to find some peace in the chaos of my thoughts. But there’s no peace to be found.
Death is like the winds of a hurricane; it will obliterate life as you knew it in seconds. It’s like an earthquake that ruptures the ground under your feet. And it’s like a tsunami that floods your heart with loss and then retreats back into the ocean, dragging away all the happiness within you. I know this. I’ve lived this already. I can’t do it again. Not so soon.
“I know this is hard, but you’re not the only one who’s ever lost someone,” Diego says quietly.
I nod. I know he’s right. But sometimes it feels like no one ever in the history of humanity felt this much grief. It’s irrational. But death also takes away reason.
“I’m just so . . . scared,” I finally say. “And tired of feeling this way.”
Diego stands next to me so that our arms touch. Slowly, my head leans onto his shoulder. His body is steady and solid against mine. He brings an arm around me and kisses the top of my head. Under different circumstances, I could stay here forever.
“I know,” he whispers, pressing his lips against my forehead. “It’s going to be okay.”
I hug myself, hoping he’s right.
“Excuse me,” I hear someone say in Spanish next to us. Our server is standing outside the café with two bags of mallorcas dangling from his hand. “You forgot these.”
Diego glances at me, confused.
“I got them for you,” I say, making an effort to smile and remembering the cookbook pressed against my chest. “Oh, and I have to pay for this.”
“How much is it?”
I turn my copy of Buen Pan, searching for a price. “Twenty euro.”
Diego hands the server a paper bill and thanks him.
“You didn’t have to pay for the book,” I say as we turn to walk away.
“Consider it a souvenir.” He unzips one of the bags of mallorca and pulls one out. “You don’t strike me as the T-shirt type.”
“I’m not.”
We reach the motorcycle and quickly strap on our helmets.
“How long will it take us to get home?” I ask, suddenly aware of all the love and hope behind that plain, four-letter word.
“We’ll be there this evening,” he says, helping me inside the sidecar.
I silently pray to La Virgencita for Margo, the baby, and Papi.
“Please,” I beg in a murmur over the roar of the bike’s engine. And then, I do something I’ve never done before today: I pray for myself.
Please. Help me.