Chapter 37 #2
My throat closes on a swallow. He’s on the cold lake avoiding me because I made him leave. Part of me wants to text him and say: come home now; I need you. But I still don’t know what I want to say to him.
With dogged determination, I scrub the board and dry it thoroughly before setting it on the long dining table just off the kitchen. The height of it works best for me.
A fire crackles in the stacked stone hearth at the far end of the table, giving off the scent of charred wood. In the kitchen, Mom and Margo chat, their familiar voices creating a soothing cadence that takes me back to childhood.
Quietly, I make a flour well and crack eggs into the center. My mom laughs at some old joke as I whisk the eggs and start bringing the flour into them. When the eggs are incorporated, I use my scraper and work on creating a ball to knead.
Kneading dough is deceptively hard work. There isn’t room for pausing. But the repetitive action feels good. Muscles snap to life, growing warm, as I go at it for at least fifteen minutes, maybe more, until the once sticky ball is smooth and elastic.
While I let it rest, I help myself to coffee, watch the moms finish up the filling, and then drift back to the table to my work.
Rolling out the sfoglia is my favorite part of the process. It isn’t easy, but the pride I felt when my nona announced in her short, stern way that I’d done it well remains. Grabbing the roller, I lightly dust the board with flour, shape my dough into a disk, then begin.
Roll up, turn, roll up, watch it spread. Control the movements, left, right, roll it over the mattarello, drape half over the edge of the board . . .
It becomes apparent that my mom’s pasta making plan is diabolical in its simplicity. I don’t have time to think or brood while working the dough. My mind empties out. Muscle memory kicks in. The familiarity of the process soothes.
The rhythmic kah-kunk, kah-kunk of the mattarello moving over the wood, the rocking motion of my body as my hands glide along the dowel, finely gritted with flour, outward-in, back and forth.
The sfoglia grows bigger, thinner, smoother. My back and neck burn. Sweat gathers along my spine.
Mom and Margo drift in to watch. I don’t mind.
It’s quiet work, and they respect the process.
When I’m done, the dough is silky thin and translucent enough to see the shadow of my hand behind it.
I sit to rest my aching back, and Mom takes over cutting the sheets into small squares.
Margo brings in the filling and soon we all draw up a seat to create the tortellini.
Filling and shaping the delicate little pasta purses is a different type of labor. Repetitive work in which one can chat with ease while letting their fingers do the work.
“Now,” Mom says as she pinches together the tips on one tortellini. “Talk to us.”
It’s so unexpected, I don’t have time to brace or evade. “I hate that I hate my father.”
“He doesn’t make it easy to love him.”
“True.” I flick a filled pasta to the growing pile and start another. “I hate that he doesn’t love me.”
That one hurts to say. Rapidly I blink down at the table.
Mom’s quiet for a moment. “He doesn’t have it in him to love. That’s on him. Not you.”
“I know.”
Warm brown eyes, the color of mine, find me. “You are loved, cara. So very much.”
“Ma . . .” I don’t want to cry all over these tortellini.
“She’s right,” Margo puts in quietly. “We all love you too.”
For a second, I concentrate on my task. “I shouldn’t have kicked August out. I hurt his feelings.”
“He’ll get over it.” Margo dots more of the ground pork filling along the cut squares of pasta dough.
“Maybe. But I shouldn’t have been so . . . reactionary.”
“You bottle too much up,” Mom says.
“I took it out on him. I sent him away.”
“Why did you?” Margo asks. There’s no judgment. I have the feeling she’s trying to let me work it out myself.
“I don’t know . . . I find myself always wanting to lean on him or turn to him for comfort.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Margo asks. “A benefit of being in a relationship is having that comfort.”
“But I should be able to comfort myself. Work out my own problems.”
Sighing, I roll my stiff neck. It doesn’t help.
Everything feels like it’s clamping down.
I think about Monica crying over being blamed for Jelly’s performance, me being hit with a freaking sandwich, my trashed bike, August’s face when Dad sneered about us.
It’s a kaleidoscope of panic. Shouldn’t this be easy?
“I don’t know . . . maybe I’m making things hard on myself. I want everything now and I want it for forever.”
“That’s called ambition, Penny dearest. It’s a good thing to have.”
“But when it causes all this . . . emotion.” I press a fist to my aching heart. “Maybe I’m asking for too much too fast.” In the space of a few months, I’ve gotten everything I ever wanted. What if it’s taken away? People leave. The ones who are supposed to love you can stop.
“I’m only in my twenties,” I rush on, frantic now. “They say committing to someone too early isn’t really a good thing.”
“Oh?” Mom sounds amused. “And why is that?”
“Because you need time to grow into yourself, figure out life. If you don’t do that first you inevitably drift apart.”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me? What?”
“You heard me fine.” Mom shakes her head ruefully. “As a person who is not in her twenties and most definitely had plenty of time to figure things out, I say that is absolute bullshit. It’s an excuse people tell themselves to feel better. And if it makes them happy to believe it, fine.
“We’re always growing into ourselves. You think you hit some magic age and boom!
it’s all figured out? That you’re somehow going to be a different person?
I hate to break it to you, but, no. We are who we are.
We can mature in our outlook or change opinions on things, but we’ll be doing that for our whole lives.
We’re a constant work in progress. That’s life. ”
“Well—”
“If you love someone,” Margo says, “truly love them, and they make you happy, embrace it. Don’t worry about tomorrow or some nebulous future. Be happy now. Because now is where life is.”
God, they’re right. And it leaves me with the inevitable truth. That, aside from this current shit show with my dad, I am happy. More than I’ve ever been in my life. And it’s because of one person.
“I’m afraid.”
“I know you are, honey. And you aren’t alone. Opening yourself up to being with another person is a risk. That’s terrifying.”
“You and Neil are the ideal. But . . . My dad—”
“You think August would do to you what Doug did to me?” Mom asks softly.
“No.” I exhale weakly. “No, he’s not like that. But it’s just . . . scary how much I want it to work.”
Margo dusts her hands on a towel and then gets three glasses from the bar and pulls out a bottle of Chardonnay from the wine fridge.
She glances at the ring on my finger. It’s quick, but assessing.
A smile plays around the corners of her lips.
“If I know my son, I’m going to guess he’s scared for the same reasons. ”
She hands a glass of wine to Mom before pouring mine.
I don’t have it in me to tell her what I really fear.
That my depth of feeling might be more. That, despite my claims of growing apart, I know I’ll never not want August. But I’ll only know for certain he feels the same if I ask. And that is scary as hell.
Mom takes a sip of wine, then looks at me from over the rim of her glass.
“Fear is what stops people from truly living. You gotta learn to push past it. You might have to do it again and again because, as I said, we’re all a work in progress.”
“Great.”
Her smile is cheeky. “Isn’t it, though?”
“Not really.”
“But it is.” She pets my hand. “Because you’re alive. And that’s a fucking gift. Oh, relax, Margo. Fuck is a great word. Use it more.”
A laugh breaks from me, sounding more like a sob. But I love the way Mom can set everyone straight without falter.
The front door opens with a clatter, bringing in a gust of cold air and happy laughter. Neil, Jan, May, March, and June clamber inside, all noise and life.
And on their heels, walking with a somber, almost reluctant gait as though he’s not sure he’ll be welcome, is August. Our eyes meet across the expanse of chatting family. My heart turns over and my pulse kicks in.
Those impossibly beautiful eyes of his are uncharacteristically reserved, but I don’t miss the way he homes in on me, or how a small smile hovers at the edges of his fine lips. Like he’s so happy to see me but won’t let himself fully show it until I give him a signal.
Tenderness swells so hard and fast it hurts my chest. My lips lift in return before wobbling. August steps forward, moving past his siblings. Apparently, seeing me on the verge of crying is his hard limit for staying away.
“Just in time,” Margo announces to her brood. “You all can help finish assembling the tortellini.”
Groans fill the air. I rise and, holding August’s gaze, glance toward our room before heading that way. Mom squeezes my hand as I leave the table.