A DIFFERENT NURSE TOOK JANE’S INITIAL BLOOD DRAW in the Infusion Center. She didn’t speak; she didn’t smile. I looked around for Cecilia, instinctively knowing her presence would calm me, as coming back felt more oppressive, real, and scary than the first time. It was ironic because nothing about Cecilia’s look was calming—not the dyed hair, the piercings, the tattoos, the dark makeup, or the heavy shoes. But there she was across the room, holding hands with and leaning toward an older woman, looking as if that conversation held the only words that mattered in the entire world. I smiled—she was more than calming.
I focused on her because everyone else set my teeth on edge, clamped hard and driving through the back of my neck: a middle-aged man argued with yet another nurse; the older man from the time before was scowling over his crossword puzzle, his lovely wife nowhere to be seen; one brother looked like thunder, while the one hooked to the IV graded papers and darted furtive, unsure glances at his sibling . . . And Andy? His young presence jarred me regardless of his expression.
Following our jaunt to see Dr. Chun, Cecilia returned with Jane’s IV bag and a genuine smile in her eyes. “Your color is better and your count is up. What changed?”
“I’m eating.” Jane’s eyes still held a glow of relief.
“It’s working. Food, rest, and a good perspective.” Cecilia squeezed Jane’s hand as she set up the IV.
The first nurse hovered nearby. She was thin, older, and held a stern expression. I noticed her derisive eyebrow lift as she took in the scene before her. Neither Jane nor Cecilia noticed.
“Did you know Lizzy runs her own restaurant in New York?”
“I didn’t. That’s wonderful.”
The other nurse coughed slightly, and Cecilia peeked over her shoulder before adding, “All set. Let’s get you started.”
Jane sighed and closed her eyes, preparing for the Red Devil.
“I’ll be around again soon.” Cecilia straightened and removed her mask as she and the other nurse turned back toward the front desk.
“Who’s Nurse Ratched?” I whispered.
“That’s not funny,” Jane hissed. “She’s not that bad. Her name’s Donna.”
“Are you sure? She looks like a Nurse Ratched to me.”
“Shh . . . Don’t call her that. Cecilia is coming back.”
Donna stayed behind the desk as Cecilia walked toward us. She hesitated and then pulled out a chair next to me and whispered, “Do you cook for other people?”
“I don’t understand.”
She turned to Jane. “Are you really eating? Do you feel better? Your count was strong.”
“I can’t tell you what a difference keeping food down has made.”
Cecilia looked around furtively. “There’s a patient. You know Tyler.” She nodded across the room and lowered her voice further, forcing us to lean in to catch her words. “His brother moved here to take care of him, but meals aren’t going well. Tyler hardly eats and Brian can’t cook. He keeps ordering out and is terribly frustrated.” Cecilia looked at me, pleading.
“I’m not sure what you’re after.”
“Could you cook some meals for him?”
“I leave in a few days.”
Nurse Ratched moved in our direction.
“I shouldn’t have asked.” Cecilia stood and walked away, absorbing a glare from Donna as they passed but offering her no explanation or conversation.
I turned back to Jane, who was glaring at me. “What did I do?”
“Cook him some meals, you grinch.”
“You can’t be serious. I’m here to visit you, not start a soup kitchen.”
“But maybe you can help. Mom always shared food—that’s all we ever did. We had so many strays and firefighters at our house you’d think it was a soup kitchen. Why wouldn’t you want to help?”
I retaliated. “As if you’d know about helping or cooking. My memory’s got you filing your nails at the table.”
“No one needed me. Mom’s little chef.”
“Stop complaining. Daddy’s little girl.”
“Until you started cooking. Then you were just like Mom—and he always loved her best.” She paused and then sighed dramatically. “Forget it. We’re not kids. Can’t we put all that behind us? It’s petty.”
“Never coming to visit your dying mother is not petty. It’s unforgivably selfish.” I dipped my words low and slow. “Sorry, Jane. Having trouble getting past that one.”
Jane narrowed her eyes. She looked furious, but then her eyes filled and spilled over with tears. “You have no right to judge my decisions.”
I grabbed my empty water bottle and stalked from the room. But there was nowhere to go, so I wandered down the hall and stood at the window watching the rain, watching the cars, watching . . .
Jane was right—on all counts. Food was relational to Mom. That was her gift. She wasn’t a good cook; she was a loving cook. I can remember every food reference in literature I read, and for a while I had a living example before me, and yet I still forgot.
Great writers and my mom never used food as an object. Instead it was a medium, a catalyst to mend hearts, to break down barriers, to build relationships. Mom’s cooking fed body and soul. She used to quip, “If the food is good, there’s no need to talk about the weather.” That was my mantra for years—food as meal and conversation, a total experience.
I leaned my forehead against the glass and thought again about Emma and the arrowroot. Mom had highlighted it in my sophomore English class. “Jane Fairfax knew it was given with a selfish heart. Emma didn’t care about Jane, she just wanted to appear benevolent.”
“That girl was still stupid. She was poor and should’ve accepted the gift.” The football team had hooted for their spokesman.
“That girl’s name was Jane Fairfax, and motivation always matters.” Mom’s glare seared them.
I tried to remember the rest of the lesson, but couldn’t. I think she assigned a paper, and the football team stopped chuckling.
Another memory flashed before my eyes. It was from that same spring; Mom was baking a cake to take to a neighbor who’d had a knee replacement.
“We don’t have enough chocolate.” I shut the cabinet door.
“We’re making an orange cake, not chocolate.”
“Chocolate is so much better.”
“Then we’re lucky it’s not for you. Mrs. Conner is sad and she hurts and it’s spring. The orange cake will not only show we care, it’ll bring sunshine and spring to her dinner tonight. She needs that.”
“It’s just a cake.”
“It’s never just a cake, Lizzy.”
I remembered the end of that lesson: I rolled my eyes—Mom loathed that—and received dish duty. But it turned out okay; the batter was excellent.
I shoved the movie reel of scenes from my head. They didn’t fit in my world. Food was the object. Arrowroot was arrowroot. Cake was cake. And if it was made with artisan dark chocolate and vanilla harvested by unicorns, all the better. People would crave it, order it, and pay for it. Food wasn’t a metaphor—it was the commodity—and to couch it in other terms was fatuous. The one who prepared it best won.
Jane was right on the second count as well. I was a grinch and had no right to judge her—hadn’t I made the same choices? Sure, I waited a little longer—but I left and never returned, shutting Dad out as completely and effectively as Jane had shut out Mom and us.
I knocked my head against the window glass. How did I get here? In the beginning I had believed that food was an offering, a vehicle to joy, celebration, communion. I came alive. The sum always swelled to greater than the parts. When had they equalized? When had they diminished?
I took a deep breath and suspected that the magic of cooking died long before I recognized its absence—perhaps the day Mom died. And I had lived and worked, and was working now, on nothing more than ambition and technique. Enough.
I headed back to the Infusion Center. In my periphery I saw Jane turn toward me. I didn’t look; I marched straight to the brothers.
“I’m Elizabeth. My sister, Jane, is over there.”
The brother in the straight-back chair shifted his eyes away, back, and said nothing.
The one hooked up to the Adriamycin laid The Sun Also Rises across his chest and smiled. “I know Jane.” He nodded her direction before turning back to me. “I’m Tyler.” He narrowed his eyes at his silent brother. “This is Brian.”
I pulled over a chair and sat. “Cecilia mentioned that you’re having trouble eating.”
Brian stiffened and glared toward the desk. I followed his sight line and saw Cecilia catch his look. She dashed questioning eyes to me and I flinched, certain I’d betrayed her.
I rushed on. “It was just a comment. Jane’s having trouble, too, and I’m a chef, a bored chef. Can I cook you some meals?”
“Thanks, but it’d be a waste of time.” Brian returned to his magazine.
“Jane said the same thing, but she’s eaten well this week. She’s kept food down.” I addressed Tyler, who sat silent, but by his tense posture I knew he was listening. He looked like he was about to fly off the seat. “I could try . . . I’m at a loss without much to do.”
“It wouldn’t wor—” Brian droned out.
“How much do you charge?” Tyler cut across him.
Brian looked up. His startled expression matched my own.
“Cost of groceries?”
“You’ve got time and labor.” Tyler started scratching notes on the edge of his book.
“How about ten dollars per meal plus cost of groceries?”
“Times two of us. So groceries plus twenty bucks to feed us both per meal?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Sure.”
“That’ll work for now. We’ll take ten each.”
“Twenty meals?” I squeaked. “What if you don’t like them?”
“I’m willing to take that risk.”
It sounded more like a challenge than a risk—and I was up for a challenge. Maybe it was just what I needed. “Twenty it is. I can deliver them Thursday.”
“We’ve got an appointment at ten. We’ll meet in the parking lot.” He tore a corner off a page. “Here’s my cell. Call me and we can meet.”
“Okay.” I looked down at the scrap. I can do this. I shook the water bottle. It was still empty. “Excuse me. I’ll see you both on Thursday.”
“Why are you doing this?”
I jumped at Brian’s harsh whisper behind me.
I glanced back but didn’t stop until I’d reached the lobby’s water fountain, certain he was trying to intimidate me. “It’s simple. I found some things Jane can stomach, and maybe Tyler can benefit too.”
“He eats nothing I bring in. Any restaurant. What makes you different?” Brian tapped the wall with his fist.
I capped the bottle and moved to the other side of him. “Are you the only one helping him?”
“His girlfriend dumped him when he got diagnosed last year. Our mom hasn’t come once. Yeah, I’m it . . . and it sucks.”
I was nodding my head in commiseration and sympathy until his last add. I pulled up short. Did it “suck” because no one else shared the load? Or did he feel imposed on? I understood both feelings, but recoiled from the second. It was a petty and ugly side of me—not one I wanted to acknowledge to myself, much less admit to others.
Brian watched me. I knew he expected agreement, but I only managed Jane’s doe-in-the-headlights look.
“I don’t need more on my plate, so I want to make sure you’re not messing with us.”
“Why would I do that?”
He studied me a moment. “People do it all the time. Everything requires payback. But Tyler, he’s excited.” Brian looked me up and down almost dismissively. “The kid thinks you can help.”
“I’ll do my best.”
He narrowed his eyes as if to say We’ll see and walked away.
I walked back to Jane, uncomfortable with Brian’s comments, cynicism, and anger. I was also saddened that some of it registered with me.
“That was nice of you.” Jane’s tone bubbled with smugness.
“It had nothing to do with you.”
“Of course not.”
I took the book from her lap and searched for her bookmark.
“You’re going to read?”
“If it’ll keep you from talking to me.” I struggled to keep a smile from my face, but I had to admit that I felt good. I was doing with food what I was taught to do, and somehow felt that could make everything right.
Hope danced in my periphery—as did Jane. She was working equally hard not to smile—and looking far too pleased with herself.
“ ‘How long it is, how terribly long since you were here! And how tired you must be after your journey! You must go to bed early, my dear—and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go—you and I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel.’ ”
“Think I could make you and Tyler gruel?” I chortled.
“What is it anyway?”
“Think thin oatmeal. Probably better than the slop I’ve been force-feeding your kids lately.”
“Do they like it? It sounds good.”
I smiled and turned back to the page. Only Jane.
“Excuse me.” Andy’s mother, Courtney, tapped my shoulder. “Can you watch Andy for a moment? I need to call my daughter.”
“Mom, where am I going to go?” the teenager murmured.
“I’ll feel better.”
Andy opened his mouth, but I cut him off. “Sure.” I handed Jane the book and scooted my chair over before he could protest. We sat in awkward silence for a moment.
“Am I doing this right?”
“I’m not sure. Mom blinks less.”
I laughed out loud and then pressed my lips together. Laughter might be forbidden in our dystopian library.
I noticed a deck of playing cards and a water bottle on his side table. “Do you want to play cards?”
“Do you know gin rummy?”
“I do.”
I shuffled the cards and dealt. I held three of a kind and two of another, the beginnings of a winning hand. About ten cards later, Andy slapped down a card—facedown.
“How’d you do that so fast?”
He laid out his hand and grinned as only a teenager can.
“You had what I needed!”
“I know.”
“You did not,” I countered.
“You discarded the four of hearts but not the five; you picked up the ten of spades but let the eight go by; you—”
“You count cards?”
“I don’t think paying attention classifies as ‘counting cards.’ ” He made quote marks with his fingers.
“You’re right, and I never pay attention. It’s always a surprise when I win or lose.”
“You gotta respect your opponent more. I learned that from my brother. He crushes me in Halo every time.”
“I’ll remember that, young Jedi. Wanna play again?”
We played three more—very quick—games before his mom returned. I lost them all.
Courtney sat as I shuffled the cards and replaced them on the table. She opened her mouth to start a conversation. Shut it, looked around, and tried again. “Were you reading Emma?”
I smiled. “We were. Jane likes it, but her head aches when she reads. I hope we weren’t too loud.”
“Not at all. I haven’t read it since college.” She nudged her son. “Does him good to hear it too. I can’t remember the last book he read.”
“Mom.”
“Well?”
“Harry Potter.”
“You were ten!”
“I’ve been busy.” He said it lightly as he flicked the IV line. Courtney blanched. “Mom, it was a joke.”
“I know.” She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hand against his leg. All small talk ended.
I quietly scooted my seat back to Jane, unsure if I’d caused the moment, contributed to it, or simply witnessed it. Nothing was light in our library; perhaps that’s what made it dystopian—everything turned in a flash to its elemental base, and sometimes it skewed to a dark, frightening edge.
Jane tapped my arm and nodded toward her own IV line. We watched the last drop of red travel to her chest. I put away the book and we waited for Cecilia, who was chatting with Andy. Courtney looked distracted, answering hesitantly and a beat late.
Cecilia came over to flush and unhook Jane.
“I’m cooking some meals for Tyler,” I whispered.
“That’s wonderful.” Her eyes lit up. She held up her finger, instructing me to wait as she closed Jane’s line. She then stood and removed her mask. “I can’t talk with that on.” She grinned for a moment as if the smile had been waiting for release.
“What are you cooking?”
“No idea yet, but Tyler wants twenty meals.”
“Hmm . . . What’d Brian say?”
“Not much. Tyler took the lead, but Brian seems annoyed that I might actually help.” I shrugged. I didn’t want to say more.
Cecilia narrowed her eyes, watching me, as if I were telepathically relaying the conversation by the water fountain.
“It’s hard for family members. Few realize that. They can’t fix the problem or provide the one thing their loved one needs.”
I knew that feeling and moved the conversation around it. “I’d better add tinfoil, Pyrex, and storage containers to my shopping list. I need—”
“Can I help? Tomorrow’s my day off.”
My head sprang up. “Seriously? Would you?” My own enthusiasm surprised me. I shrugged to downplay it. “I could use the help.”
Cecilia beamed, checked herself, and quietly whispered, “Text me what time and I’ll see you tomorrow.”