We make it back to Lyon in what I’m sure is record time. The last text we received from Papi said they were going into surgery, but no updates since. I’m worried sick. What if something happened to Margo or the baby? I don’t even want to think about all the things that could go wrong.
I send one last nervous text asking if everything is all right, but nothing comes back. I shove my phone into my pocket as we turn onto the hospital’s driveway.
There’s construction on the building’s entrance, which only adds to my sense of anxiety. A big cement truck blocks the main doors and a man with a yellow jacket redirects traffic. The drilling of a jackhammer blends with the blaring of an ambulance siren behind us. Diego moves to the side to let the ambulance pass.
We follow the detour signs to the carpark, drop the bike, and speed walk to the hospital.
The moment the automatic glass doors slide open, we are hit with the smell of alcohol and chlorine. Diego and I hurry down a long corridor with white walls and blinding bright lights, following a string of confusing signs that point in ten different directions. We pass a few people in gurneys being wheeled to who knows where. I scan their faces, hoping none of them are Margo.
I try Papi’s phone one more time but it’s going straight to voice mail.
“I can’t get ahold of him,” I tell Diego. My hand is shaking as I redial. Voice mail, again.
Diego and I lock eyes in the hallway, neither wanting to acknowledge the desperation we feel.
“Excuse me.” Diego stops a nurse coming down the hallway. He’s wearing blue scrubs and carrying a clipboard. Hopefully he knows where Margo is.
After a short conversation in French I don’t understand even a quarter of, Diego informs me, “He says the maternity ward is through those double doors,” and points at a set of massive gray doors down the hallway.
My heartbeat is drumming so fast I fear an artery might burst. I lean against the wall behind me for support. It’s cold as ice.
Diego starts walking in the direction of the doors without realizing I’ve stayed behind, glued to the frigid wall, unable to move.
On the other side of those doors are two possibilities: An unspeakable tragedy, which I refuse to even consider. Or a new family in which I am already a big sister.
Diego disappears through the doorway, only to return a few seconds later to find me still in the same place.
“What’s going on?” he asks, taking hold of my shoulder.
I don’t say anything. I can only stand there, paralyzed, until two nurses push a gurney down the hall and I’m forced to move aside.
“Are you going to be sick?”
“What if the baby doesn’t like me?” I ask through quivering lips, keenly aware of how crazy I sound. We still don’t even know what happened during the C-section.
Diego stares at me. His face is a mix of amusement and disbelief. He finally wraps his arms around me and cradles me into his chest. His bike jacket is open, and I can feel his body heat through the thin layer of his T-shirt. I let my head fall into him and breathe in that familiar, calming scent. I reach inside his jacket and grab two fistfuls of his shirt. I want time to stop.
“That’s impossible,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “You are going to be the best sister ever. And the baby is going to love those chocolate chip cookies you make.”
I laugh into his chest.
I agree. Everyone loves those cookies.
He takes my face in his hands and our eyes meet.
“It’s going to be fine, I promise,” he says, as if he knows something I don’t.
“Okay,” I say, desperately wanting to believe him. I step back and release my grip on his shirt. “Let’s go in.”
He rests one hand on my shoulder and leads me through the doors.
We find Papi in one of the private rooms with Margo resting in the bed next to him. I’ve never been so relieved to see them. The baby is safely cradled in Papi’s arms.
When Papi sees me at the door, his face breaks into a huge smile. He turns so I can see the pink blanket wrapped around my new baby sister.
I smile and laugh and cry, all at once.
“Can I hold her?” I ask, stepping inside the room. The tiny bundle in Papi’s arms is all I can see.
Papi places this tiny baby burrito in my arms and kisses the top of my head.
“This is Flora,” he says.
She is so tiny I feel she could break if I don’t hold her right.
“Hi, Flora,” I whisper, bringing her closer to me. Her skin is soft and gives off a kind of pungent sweetness. Her head is covered with dark hair, just like mine and Papi’s.
The moment she opens her eyes my heart overflows with so much love that more tears form in my eyes. Suddenly, I understand what Lala meant when she talked about your heart being wide open. Mine feels like it has finally opened wide enough to let in this new family.
I place my pinky finger inside one of her tiny hands. She wraps her little fingers around it like she’s trying to hold on. But in reality, it is me who’s holding on to her. She feels exactly like my sister. I can already see our future waiting to be filled with lots of shared memories.
Reluctantly, I pass Flora to Diego, who’s been patiently waiting behind me. I take a mental picture of the two of them. He is so tall, and his chest is so wide that Flora is dwarfed even further in his arms. Like me, he can’t help but smile.
“I’ve called you like a million times,” I tell Papi, pulling out my cell phone. “I was freaking out.”
“My phone died,” he says. His face looks strained and tired, but there is undeniable joy in his eyes. “The doctor told us the baby was breech. So we went into surgery. She flipped at the last minute. It was a natural delivery.” He sighs, letting his shoulders fall.
Papi sits next to Margo and reaches for her hand. All this time she has been watching us silently from the bed with a smile on her lips.
“How do you feel?” I ask.
“A little tired, but I’ll be fine,” she says. “I’m just so relieved.” She squeezes Papi’s hand and they exchange a bigger smile.
I glance at an untouched dinner tray next to her bed. The smoked salmon salad and baguette don’t look terrible when judged by American hospital food standards.
“Have you eaten?” I ask. “We can go get you some dinner.”
“You know what I’ve been craving this whole time? That chicken in white wine and butter sauce you made once . . . with the mashed potatoes and the vegetables.” Her voice is full of longing, as if this chicken will somehow make her feel better.
After all these weeks of not eating my food, I can’t believe this is the one thing she wants. It must have been the pregnancy thing all along.
I glance at the clock on the wall; if we leave now, we should be able to get to the house, make the chicken, and be back in a few hours. Which will leave me with zero time to prepare for the final exam.
Lala used to say that love was her secret ingredient. And that when you cook with love, a meal could nourish the soul. This is what I’m meant to do.
So I push away all thoughts of my exam and ask Papi for the car keys.
There is so much love in this room that everything comes into focus. There is so much joy that it’s easy to see what I want to do with my talent. And easy to know what I need to do when I return to Grattard’s kitchen.
“I’m coming with you,” Diego says, after I explain I’m running home to bring them back a proper dinner. “I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving,” I joke.
“It’s all your fault, really,” he says as we reach the car. “If your food wasn’t so amazing, I wouldn’t want to eat it.”
My cheeks blush at the compliment.
“So, really, you just need to make crappy food. And problem solved,” he adds with a grin. “But we both know that’s not gonna happen.”
I shake my head because he’s right. I love cooking too much. And above all, I love that food always brings people together. So I make a mental list of all the ingredients we will need to get at the store—including a few apples. Enough to turn a hospital room meal into a first feast for our new family.
Back at the house, Lala’s book is propped up on a stand on the kitchen island. The recipe for our family’s apple pie is displayed on the open page.
While the chicken simmers, Diego and I begin to work on the apple filling. The dough for the crust is already resting in the fridge.
“We have to peel and core all these apples,” I say.
It took me fifteen minutes to find the right apples at the store. It was a testament to Diego’s patience that he didn’t hurry me once. Now, in the soft light of our kitchen, they look perfect.
“I’ll peel, you core,” he says, pulling a knife from the drawer and standing next to me. As is always the case, his body has the effect of making the kitchen feel way too small. But tonight, as we cook side by side, it feels more like a homey coziness, the way Lala’s kitchen used to feel.
I find myself wishing she was here with us, helping me get the right amount of nutmeg in the syrup. Instead, I have to rely on the instructions she left me in her book. I turn a new page and an old photo falls onto the counter. I clean my hand on my apron, carefully pick it up, and bring it closer to my face.
“Is that her?” Diego asks, peering over my shoulder.
“That’s my Lala,” I say, showing him the picture. She’s standing next to me, wearing a black dress with bright pink flowers. I must have been Jakub’s age. I’m holding her hand and gazing up at her with the most innocent smile.
“She used to call me her morenita,” I say. It’s weird how one word can make you feel so you, honest you.
My eyes fill with tears.
“I know this sounds absolutely insane, but I’m so angry at her for dying,” I say. A heaviness lifts off my chest as the words leave my mouth.
Diego puts down the knife in his hand and reaches for my arms.
“Here,” he says, pulling out a stool. “Sit down, Isa.”
I let him guide my body to the stool, then sit.
“Sometimes I wish I could scream at her for leaving me.” I rub the tears away with both hands as the words spill out of me. They feel like a mad rush held back for too long.
“She volunteered with a needle exchange program near her home in Kansas. She used to be a nurse in Havana, so she had some experience with the medical stuff. As part of the job, she’d take used needles from drug addicts and give them new ones. It’s supposed to limit the transmission of infectious disease.
“It should’ve been funny, really—hilarious if you knew my Lala. She was this tiny Cuban abuela, driving around in a van with a box of infectious waste material in the back and half-dozen pies in the front seat. She’d hand out pies along with the needles. It was crazy.” I manage to laugh between the tears.
Diego smiles and squeezes my hand. He gives me a kitchen towel so I can clean my face.
“She accidentally pricked herself with an infected needle. It gave her hepatitis and killed her liver.”
I stare at the picture in my hands. Behind us, there’s a big hydrangea bush in full bloom.
“Why are you angry, though?” Diego asks.
I shrug and swallow hard, rubbing my eyes with the kitchen towel.
“She was like the ground under my feet,” I say while staring into Diego’s eyes. All the affection in his face completely melts my heart. “I just don’t understand—how could she put herself at risk like that? She told me it would be fine, but it wasn’t. I know it’s not right to think this way, but part of me is angry she picked them over me. I needed her too.”
“Them?”
“Bubba, Milly, Mary,” I recite, ashamed. “The people she was trying to help.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, resting his hand on my knee. He reaches for a strand of loose hair around my face and gently moves it behind my ear. “But whether you can see it or not, you’re just like her.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is how you give yourself, Isa.” His eyes are set on mine as he says, “This is how you show others that you care. You go out of your way to make all this delicious food because you know it will make people happy. She was doing the same thing.”
A few more tears run down my cheeks at the recognition that Diego is right.
It wasn’t only me who lost Lala—all the people she was helping lost her too.
“Come here.” Diego pulls me onto his lap, wrapping me in an embrace.
I lean my head on his shoulder.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I say, reaching around him.
“Me too,” he whispers into my ear.
We hold each other like this for what feels like forever. I feel so safe and cared for in this space that I never want this moment to end.
We only pull away when Beluga enters the kitchen. He sits by our feet and whimpers in my direction.
“I think he wants you to pet him,” Diego says. “He hasn’t been happy with my ear scratching ever since he had you.”
I laugh and squat down next to Beluga.
“Come here, you,” I say, digging my fingers behind his ears. He leans his wrinkled face toward my hands and makes a low grumbling sound. I sit on the floor next to him and scratch his neck until he climbs onto my lap and rests his whole body against my chest.
“Okay, Beluga. You’ve had enough. We have a pie to finish,” Diego says. He starts to usher Beluga out of the kitchen, but I stop him.
“He can stay, I guess.”
Diego smiles. “You hear that?” he tells Beluga, who plops himself down on the floor.
I swear, this dog is something else.
“Now, let’s see what kind of sous-chef you make,” I say, washing the dog hair off my hands.
We peel, core, and cut the apples. In little time, we have a mountain of apple slices ready to go inside the baking dish.
I reach for a saucepan and gather the ingredients for the most important step, the syrup. Lala’s special syrup, passed down from my great-grandmother, was a combination of butter, white and brown sugars, vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon. The recipe calls for mixing the apples and the syrup before placing them into the baking dish to ensure every piece of apple is covered.
“Can you pass me the dough?” I ask Diego.
He reaches into fridge, pulls out the ball of dough covered in plastic wrap, and sets it in front of me.
“What if . . .” he muses, removing the plastic wrap from the dough. “What if—this may sound a bit strange, but just listen for a minute—what if she’s not totally dead?”
“Okay . . .” I glance at him and chuckle at his nutty idea. “I mean, I saw the casket go into the ground.”
“Hear me out. I’ve been thinking about this . . .” He takes the dough from my hands and sets it on the counter. I turn to face him so that he has my full attention. A deep furrow appears on his brow, and I realize this is what he looks like when he is lost in his own thoughts. I want to memorize this expression.
“You know how some people believe in rebirth?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it means that the body and mind are two separate things. So when people die, the physical body dies, but the mind goes somewhere else. Takes a new form.”
“This is what you believe happens when we die?”
I stare at him, amused, because this is so not the guy I met in the market three weeks ago. This Diego is so open and unguarded, so easy to fall for. Yeah, so easy. Anyone could fall in love with this guy.
Including me.
“What I’m trying to say is, maybe it’s like she’s living somewhere else.”
“That’s deep stuff,” I tease.
“You know, there is more to me than an albino dog and an ever-hungry stomach.” He brings a kitchen towel to my chin and wipes something away. “You are covered in flour.”
I lean into him with a smile. The space between his chest and his arms is my favorite new place outside of the kitchen. He kisses the top of my head, which barely reaches his neck.
“So, you’re saying that Lala has been reborn somewhere else?” I ask, my cheek pressed against his T-shirt. I can hear his heart beating faster inside his chest. Mine is too.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. And because the mind can go wherever it wants, you can somehow connect with her.”
“Like telepathy?”
He gently pushes me back so he can see my face.
“I’m being serious,” he says while on the verge of laughter.
“Me too!” I try hard to suppress my own giggles.
“Not telepathy. More like what you think and feel affects others. There are studies about this. It’s a real thing.”
“Okay, so let’s pretend for a second that Lala was reborn into some awesome house with an amazing new family. How does that help me now?”
“You can tell her how you feel with your mind. And she’ll get the message. It’s like a subconscious thing.”
“I’m telling you something with my mind—can you tell what it is?”
He rubs the back of his neck, leaving behind a trace of flour on his shirt collar. I wipe it off with a kitchen towel.
“Let me give you a one-word hint: loco,” I say, laughing.
Diego doesn’t budge, though. “She will get the message,” he says confidently. He kisses my forehead, steps back, then puts the ball of dough back into my hands. “I’m going to start taking some things to the car. Give you guys some privacy.”
He takes off his apron, grabs a bag full of containers, and leaves.
I spread a thin layer of flour over the counter. My hands firmly grip the sides of the rolling pin as I begin to roll the dough. I think of all the times I made this pie with Lala and let myself feel everything again. I don’t push the memories away, instead I open my heart wide and let them exist inside me. I allow them to become a part of who I am.
After I finish rolling out the dough, I cut out the lattice strips. Then I pour the syrup-covered apples into the pie dish. Finally, I crisscross the dough strips over them in Lala’s special pattern. The end result is perfect and beautiful and exactly the way Lala taught me how to make it.
As I place the dish inside the paper bag, I realize that this pie, with its history of familial love, has the power to heal the splinters in my heart. I put it into the oven and close the door, then lean against the kitchen counter and close my eyes.
“Lala,” I start in a whisper. “It’s me, your morenita.”
For a moment, I give myself permission to believe everything Diego said is true. I tell my Lala all the things I didn’t get to say. And I send her all the love I didn’t get to give. I want to believe she got my message; that as I honor her legacy, our minds and hearts are connected as one. The moment I reach out into this space of my mind, my skin tingles with a feeling I can only describe as pure joy. Lala’s laughter reverberates inside my chest and suddenly I can smell the scent of her Maja soap. I know then, I can let go of my grief, my anger, and my pain. She will always be with me.
Later that night, we return to the hospital with platefuls of delicious chicken, roasted vegetables, and a special dessert fitting the occasion.
Diego and I pass the food around while Papi runs to the vending machine to get us drinks. When we’re ready to dig in, Diego takes his spot next to Margo, while Papi and I sit across from each other, sharing an over-the-bed table we borrowed from an empty room.
“Thank you for making all this, sweetheart,” Papi says. He’s moving the chicken around his plate with a fork like he’s not quite ready to eat. “I never told you how sorry . . .” He clears his throat, staring at me from across the table. Our eyes meet and I can see his are turning watery and red. He clears his throat again and looks down at his plate.
“It’s okay, Papi,” I say, reaching for his hand. Our eyes meet again, and a moment of recognition passes between us.
Even though what he did is not okay, it’s okay for him to feel sorry about his mistake and for me to accept this new dynamic between us. For us to live this new life together.
“Te amo,” he whispers, squeezing my hand.
“I love you too.”
In the confines of that small hospital room, we finish our dinner and cut into Lala’s delicious pie with the gusto of a celebration a hundred times the size. As I watch our extended, complicated family share its first meal together, I realize another thing Lala once told me is true: Food made from the heart will nourish the soul. I can’t think of anything better to do with my life.