Laura licks the spoon clean and drops it into the sink. She is back for the second half of the year. We’ve finished filling the empanada dough, and I’m brushing the tops with egg. “So, no plans. None plans. No, none plans at all?”
“None plans,” I say, shifting over a row of dough balls to fit the next on to the pan.
She high-fives me. “That’s a good plan,” she says.
“You should do Peace Corps,” Jolene says. She’s sitting on one of the stools, watching us work. She’s cut her hair short, a spiky pixie that makes her eyes look huge. “Not that I want to give you advice,” she says.
“Maybe,” I say.
“What does your grandmother say?” Laura says.
“Nothing,” I say. She has not spoken to me since we checked out of the hospital. She brought me home and fed me broth and put me to bed. I slept for three days. When I woke up, there was porridge and tea and more soup in the cabinet and she stayed in her office all day, and I couldn’t bring myself to go up that extra flight of stairs.
“She’ll be proud of whatever you do,” Laura says. “She just won’t say anything.”
I don’t answer her.
“You could move to New York with me,” Laura says brightly. She narrows her eyes at Jolene. “Are you still going to Sarah Lawrence?” Jolene grins, happy like a kid, and nods.
“I would like to maybe go to New York,” I say. I open up the oven when the preheat timer goes off, and slide the trays in. “I don’t know what I want.” It is a feeling that is awful and wonderful at the same time.
Laura starts talking about the apartment we can share in Queens, which is the new hip place because Brooklyn has been priced out and Manhattan is where all the rich people live now, and then the empanadas are ready and we eat them with our fingers in the parlor with the television turned on, but muted. Laura falls asleep facedown on the rug with Toby tucked under her arm and Jolene is curled up in the armchair and Annabelle Lee is snoring in the crook of her knees.
I pull myself up and take our plates to the kitchen. Soto pads behind me, nudges her head under my hand.
“Hello, beautiful puppy,” I say to her. I lean down to kiss her head. She follows me up the stairs, climbs onto the bed, and watches me as I rummage through my drawers. I pull out my box of stationery, a pen. I set a card in the middle of the desk. I write,
Clara Ruby Elizabeth Rumsen Perkins
Good for one talk about the future
Her light is on when I reach the top of the stairs. She’s sitting in the corner armchair with an afghan over her legs. She is as beautiful as ever, her hair glowing silver in the lamplight. I knock. She looks up at me, puts her book down. I extend the card to her, and she looks at it for a long moment before she looks back at me, reaches out, and takes it from my hand.