3. Chapter 3
Chapter 3
W ith the house quiet, Winnie gone, and her grandma napping upstairs, Jules sat alone, replaying the night before, the sharp sting of forgetting a recipe she once knew by heart still lingered.
***
“Jules! Let’s whip up some goulash for dinner,” her grandma called up the stairs to where Jules was unpacking her bags.
Jules hadn’t made a fresh meal from scratch in years, and a pang of anxiety flashed through her mind. Her meals mostly consisted of take-out or pasta from a box and a can of tomato sauce. She doubted she’d be able to “whip up” much else.
Jules made her way back to the kitchen but lingered near the table, hoping her grandma would give her a clue to what she needed to make the dish, afraid to admit she couldn’t recall the exact ingredients and steps. Although they’d made it together dozens of times growing up, she wracked her brain to remember. Maybe peppers and some kind of noodle?
Sensing her hesitation, Grandma Rosa told her where to find the ingredients in the pantry and refrigerator.
“I had some groceries delivered before you got here,” she explained. “There’s fresh pasta from John’s Shoppe, too,” her grandma instructed.
John’s Italian Shoppe was a fixture in Riverbend. It had been around since the town first incorporated decades ago. Located in the center of Main Street downtown, it donned an iconic green and white striped awning out front and a few cute wrought-iron tables where people sat to eat fresh gelato in the summer months. Every Saturday morning growing up, her grandma would take Jules there to pick up fresh bread and pasta flour. Boxed pasta just wouldn’t do. Not even on the days when her grandma’s arthritis flared, stiffening her hands.
Jules found the ingredients where Rosa said they’d be, and soon the recipe came back to her in bits and pieces. It had felt good to cook again, especially in the kitchen where she learned how, even if she was a little rusty from being out of practice. Maybe she could teach herself again, dust off her skills while she was home.
In the end, the goulash tasted good, but it wasn’t her grandma’s. Jules swore Grandma Rosa used secret ingredients in her recipes. Nevertheless, they’d both enjoyed the meal. It reminded her of the many hours they used to spend in this kitchen together years ago.
Cooking in this kitchen was home.
***
The previous night’s struggle to make a dish as simple as goulash got under Jules’ skin. Determined to feel useful, she pulled herself back from the memory to the kitchen table where she still sat as the as the afternoon heat seeped in through the cracked windows. She needed to move, to do anything but sit there.
As she stood to rinse out the lunch dishes, she heard a faint drip coming from the sink. Curious, she fiddled with the handle, turning it on and then off again. The dripping didn’t stop. Hoisting herself beneath the sink, Jules found a large bucket catching a steady leak from the seams on the pipes. This would give her something to do, although she had zero idea what the parts were called, or how to fix it, but she wanted to try. How hard could tightening a leaky sink be?
“Damn thing,” Rosa muttered as the front wheel of her walker caught on the kitchen doorway, startling Jules. She hadn’t heard her wake up.
“What are you doing under there?”
“Just looking around,” she said, pushing herself upright and not wanting to elaborate further. Jules knew her grandma would try to talk her out of fixing the sink herself.
“Mm-hmm. Whatever you say,” her grandma murmured as Jules tried to help her to the table only to be waved off. Rosa wasn’t one to admit defeat.
“I’m going to head to the store for some more groceries. Text me if you want anything,” Jules said, grabbing her bag and keys to the Subaru before kissing her grandma and heading out the door.
It was a short drive downtown, one she could maneuver blindfolded. But this time, Jules slowed down as she turned onto Main Street. A lot had changed since she’d last been there.
The Piggly Wiggly was now a Jewel-Osco, the old sandwich joint had turned into a coffee shop boasting planter boxes of colorful flowers, and the Post Office had moved to another shopping center altogether. Thankfully, Nicholson’s hardware store was in the same location it always had been, right next to John’s Italian Shoppe.
Snagging a parking spot in front, Jules made her way into John’s Shoppe, eager to see if it had changed at all.
The layout was different, but it still had that fresh baked bread smell that she loved as a kid. The narrow aisles donned shelves full of fresh and imported ingredients, many from Italy. Soon, she found herself standing in front of the dessert case and picked out a dozen Italian cookies, her favorite.
After sneaking a bite of cookie, she wandered through the store, pushing a half-sized cart, trying to decide what she should cook for dinner. Grandma Rosa hadn’t texted her, so she was on her own.
Inspired by the variety of ingredients around her, ideas were toppling over themselves as she felt a spark of creativity for the first time in a while. It didn’t take long to fill her cart to the brim.
“You’ve got quite the collection of food here,” the store’s cashier commented after Jules had made her way to the only till.
Jules shrugged. She probably went overboard, but she didn’t want to limit herself. The thought of cooking made her excited to get back in the kitchen. And she wanted to redeem herself for last night’s sad performance. Satisfied with her purchases, Jules loaded the bags into the car and made her way to Nicholson’s. Her sore ankle throbbed a little, reminding her to go slow.
The clean and organized hardware store smelled like paint and pine wood and was illuminated by bright LED lights hanging overhead. Standing just inside the front glass doors, Jules scanned back and forth, looking for anyone who could help; she had no idea where to start. Losing hope in finding someone who worked there, she took her time navigating to the plumbing section using the aisle signs that hung from the ceiling. Nothing looked familiar to her as she stared blankly at the various tools and parts hanging from the rack. With a grunt, she pulled her phone out of her purse and punched “how to fix a leaking sink” into Google where she found several articles detailing what she’d need and how to do it.
Back at home, Jules put away the groceries and laid out the tools and parts she purchased on the counter to take inventory. All of her motivation disappeared.
“What’s all this?” Grandma Rosa asked, taking in the sight.
“The sink is leaking, so I went to Nicholson’s to get a few things. I’ll tackle it tomorrow,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek.
“Baby girl, that’s not your job. I can hire someone to do that.”
‘Baby girl’ was the nickname Grandma Rosa used for her whenever she was trying to be sensitive or cheer her up. Hearing it now, Jules felt tender towards her grandma, especially knowing she never had to worry about things like leaking sinks when Grandpa Lou was alive. He took care of her this way, always putzing around the house to fix it up. It was his pride and joy.
The thought made her even more determined. She didn’t want her grandma worrying about a silly sink. Plus, if she was going to be here, she needed to be helpful.
“Let me just try. I googled how to do it. God knows there are plenty of other things around the house that could use a professional. Like the ceiling fans upstairs that won’t turn on.”
“Oh, you googled it , I stand corrected. You are now a certified plumber,” her grandma teased with a wink. Jules just rolled her eyes and shook her head. She’d figure it out.
Jules gathered the spaghetti, pancetta, and cheese she had picked up from John’s earlier to make dinner.
Grandma Rosa guessed right away it was for spaghetti carbonara. They’d made it hundreds of times together, so Jules knew she wouldn’t need her grandma’s help this time. She could make it in her sleep and hoped her grandma would sit back and relax, but Jules should have known better. At every step, Rosa chimed in, “Are you going to grate the cheese by hand?” or “You’re not going to use cream right, just pasta water like I taught you?”
It slowed Jules down, but she didn’t mind. She loved being back in this kitchen cooking with her grandma. It felt more natural to her than anything had in years. And it tasted delicious.
As a child, Jules always thought she’d go to culinary school and work her way to becoming a successful chef, taking the food world by storm. No doubt in her mind that she’d make it happen, just like her great grandfather. But as with most childhood dreams, its shine faded, reality eclipsing its allure.
Jules didn’t realize her family wasn’t “normal” until she entered middle school. Her family didn’t look like the other nuclear families around her. Sure, she had a mom, but she was hardly ever around, and she never knew her father. Her mom didn’t say much about him, except that he left when Jules was three months old. As she grew older, Jules learned she could only depend on a few people: her grandparents and herself. That’s when her dreams of becoming a celebrated chef faded into the rearview mirror.
Jules knew she had to be strong and sensible, because no one was going to save her. And that meant going to college, getting a degree, and then a respectable and safe job. She wasn’t willing to gamble stability on a childish dream.
After dinner, they sat upstairs together in the TV room in their pajamas, watching a Lifetime movie. Jules was transported back to being the eleven-year-old little girl who used to spend many nights up here doing the same thing. She loved these simple evenings with her family.
“You know, I’ve missed cooking with you,” her grandma said during a commercial break, almost reading her mind. “But it seems like you don’t do much of it on your own.”
“Is it that obvious?” Jules asked. “I don’t really have time for it and it’s just me now, anyway.”
“Hmm.” Jules felt her grandma hesitate, not wanting to offend her. “Well, I’m glad you’re here to cook for us,” Rosa added.
“Me, too." She was glad. It felt good.
“You know, I have a box full of old recipes that I haven’t made in years. I was going to work my way through them this year. You know, before I became helpless,” she said gesturing to her hip.
“You’ll never be helpless. I bet you can get through the recipes by Christmastime.”
“I have a better idea. Maybe we could do it together, while you’re here?” she asked, looking at Jules. “It would give me an activity to focus on. A person can only watch so much Lifetime before their mind turns to mush.”
Jules took a moment to think before saying anything. She thought maybe her grandma was offering more for Jules’ benefit than her own, but it would give her something to do besides playing caretaker and worrying about her career, not to mention all her life choices leading up to this. There was nothing like idle time to make a person spiral into doubt and anxiety, which is why she always kept herself busy.
“Sure, let’s do it. On one condition, though. I don’t want an overly pushy sous chef in the kitchen with me,” Jules agreed, winking at her grandma.
“Pff, sous chef, my ass! I haven’t been a sous chef since the early 1950s when I started working at my dad’s restaurant in Chicago.” Grandma Rosa laughed, tossing her hand over her shoulder. They stayed huddled together on the couch until the movie finished and their eyes were heavy with sleep.
The next morning, as they were drinking their coffee, Grandma Rosa told Jules where to find the recipe box. It was hidden in the back of the cupboard pantry, behind cans of tomato sauce and olives that might have been older than her. The shoe-box-sized tin was rusty at the hinges with a 1970s orange and green floral pattern around the outside. Inside, dozens of yellowing index cards containing recipes written in her grandma’s handwriting were stacked together. Jules wondered when she started saving these. She’d never seen or heard of this box before last night, but it had clearly been around long before she was born.
Dusting off the box, Jules sat it on the table between them.
“When did you start collecting recipes? They look ancient,” she asked, flipping through the cards.
“Around the time that your mom went to grade school. I had a lot more time on my hands then, so I started experimenting in the kitchen. Some recipes were better than others, but your grandpa Lou loved it. He got to try different dishes almost every night for five years straight,” she told Jules with a half chuckle.
Jules didn’t realize that the recipes in the tin were originals and not recipes she copied down from other places. She was impressed. She knew her grandma loved to cook, but never considered Rosa might have been a woman with a serious passion, not just a housewife who knew her way around the kitchen.
“Why did you stop?” she asked.
“It wasn’t just one thing, I guess. Life got harder. Your mom grew into an angsty teenager who needed more attention. For a long time, it reminded me of a dream that never came true, so I stopped. Sometimes what you love can also make you deeply unhappy with yourself.”
Jules knew that feeling. Lately, writing made her unhappy. In college, she felt drawn to it because it allowed her to create within a structured system. The rules of language made her feel grounded and in control. Not like she was floating in an abyss of possibilities that she’d never find her way through, like many other creative endeavors she never mastered. But now, she often felt too boxed in by it. Maybe she wasn’t good enough or didn’t have enough passion for writing to fill an entire career.
“So why now? Why do you want to revisit them?” Jules asked, referencing the recipes in the box.
“A lot of time has passed since then and I can’t quite remember the woman I was when I made them. I’d like to revisit her again."