Chapter 5
“Moe, this loco moco is the best I’ve ever tasted. Tell us about this recipe and what it means to your family. You learnt it from your grandmother, is that right?”
It’s midnight and I’m standing at the stove in the homey warmth of my kitchen, stirring dried lavender buds into a Le Creuset Dutch Oven of honey sea salt caramels and trying to forget the disappointing vision from earlier this evening.
It’s a little difficult to do though, because as I stir, I’m half concentrating on an episode of Savor.
Onscreen, my TV heartthrob Henry Summers is in Los Angeles, eating at a diner tucked into a bowling alley.
He’s sampling their Hawaiian fusion food and chatting with the owner, who is a double amputee.
Henry really does have the plummiest accent.
It makes me think of armchairs in wood-paneled libraries and polo parties on manicured lawns.
It makes me think of Henry down on one knee with a red box in his hand…
I shake my head, trying to dispel the feeling of longing and disappointment.
Here in the shabby little kitchen of my childhood home, under the bright overhead lights, the delicious aroma of melted butter with honey, vanilla, and lavender perfumes the air and soothes me with the familiar scent.
It’s been years since I made these caramels—or anything from my life in Europe, as a matter of fact.
Tonight I was inspired by my vision, impossible though it may be.
As soon as I tucked Gus into bed and bid good night to Mom, I came down here and started making these from memory.
I can’t recall the last time I made something that wasn’t fudge or a simple dinner whipped up quickly between the shop closing and Gus’s bedtime.
Today was a disappointment, but it wasn’t all a loss.
I may not have seen my true purpose in life, but glimpsing the chocolate shop in my vision, the shop I’ve dreamed of for so long, inspired me to try my hand at something from my past, a recipe I learned in France.
It’s a far cry from actually opening my own shop, but it’s a step toward reclaiming an important part of myself.
I may not be able to make my vision come true, but still I was reminded tonight of who I was, who I always dreamed I’d be.
These caramels are helping me reclaim a part of myself I’d tucked away and almost forgotten.
“What do you think this diner has meant to your community all these years, Moe?” Henry asks the owner, a large, bald Hawaiian man. “What would you say is the legacy of this place?”
Moe scratches his chin and thinks. “Legacy? Probably the community that comes here, that’s always been here,” he says. “This place is like the beating heart of our neighborhood.”
I slowly stir the butter and cream and sugar mixture as it melts, watching Henry onscreen.
This is why I have a crush on Henry Summers.
Because he asks questions like this. He cares about the history of places, about the people.
He doesn’t just produce a glossy reality show with manufactured drama and scripted tension.
He really seems to be interested in people’s personal stories, in real life.
He is thoughtful and curious and kind. And who doesn’t love a man wearing leather elbow patches?
The caramel mixture in the saucepan reaches a rolling boil, and I pour in another cup of heavy whipping cream and stir.
Now I just need to keep stirring and wait for it to come up to temperature.
I eyeball the color as it changes, then check my digital thermometer just to be sure.
It reads 180 degrees. Still a ways off. We need to reach the soft ball stage at 250 degrees. I keep stirring.
It feels good to do something I understand, to control an outcome and make something delicious from this familiar process.
If only I could do that with my life. The truth is that increasingly I feel stuck.
I love my mom dearly, and Gus has my whole heart.
I love our Poulsbo community too, and Dot and Dani.
But my responsibilities are a heavy weight that feels like it presses out most of the energy and creativity I once had.
I would never neglect caring for my mom or Gus.
They’re the ones I love most in the world, but sometimes…
sometimes…I just wish there was a little more of me left over at the end of the day.
After I dole out my time and energy to everyone who needs me, what remains often feels scanty, like too little butter spread over too much toast. There’s not enough of me to go around.
Tonight is a perfect example. All I have left over for myself is a little sliver of time when I should be sleeping.
Instead, I’m making caramels in my pajamas at midnight and mooning over a guy who doesn’t know I exist.
Onscreen, Henry is tasting the diner’s famous butter mochi. His hair is a little longer, down past his ears, and wavy. I want to run my fingers through it. I recall my vision from earlier, Henry rising and embracing me as I cry prettily, and I find myself wishing that somehow it could be true.
“Bergamot,” I say aloud in the empty kitchen as I stir. “Henry Summers smells like bergamot.”
I am officially losing it.
I check the color of the caramels, which are turning a rich butterscotch shade somewhere between yellow and brown.
Almost there. For the last degree or two, I use the thermometer to get it exactly right.
Candy is finicky. A degree can make a difference.
At 250 degrees exactly, I carefully pour the hot liquid caramel into a buttered glass dish.
Then, before the mixture can cool, I sprinkle sea salt from nearby San Juan Island over the top and a pinch of dried lavender buds.
It’s hard to beat a good caramel, but adding sea salt and lavender bumps it up a notch to a whole other level.
As a last step, I scrape out the darker brown leftovers at the bottom of the Dutch oven and drizzle the hot caramel onto a little dessert plate, sprinkle on salt and lavender, and leave it to cool.
“Something smells good.”
I whirl in surprise. Mom is standing in the doorway in her floral cotton nightgown, leaning on her cane.
Mr. Butters is at her heels. Her face is bare of makeup, her usually perfect coiffure a little mussed.
She looks smaller somehow, and more tired.
I take in her bent form with a sharp pang, a familiar mixture of love and worry squeezing my heart.
“They’re honey sea salt lavender caramels,” I tell her. “Want a taste?”
“I’d love one.” She comes into the kitchen, Mr. Butters shuffling along right behind her like a snuffly, asthmatic shadow.
He was a gift from my dad, the last big gift he ever gave Mom, and while she’s always doted on the dog, they’ve been inseparable since Dad’s passing.
We tease her about it, but I think somehow Mr. Butters makes her feel closer to Dad.
Now she pours all the love and care and attention she gave to Dad for so long into the dog.
I’m not sure it’s good for either of them.
Mom needs something more to focus on than what sweater-vest Mr. Butters will wear today.
I run warm water and a squirt of dish soap into the Dutch oven. “What are you doing still up? Is the pain bad tonight?”
“About like normal,” Mom says, waving away my concern. “I just came down for a glass of water.”
She reaches into the cabinet, wincing, and I spring to grab a glass, running cold water from the tap and handing it to her. Her fingers close painfully around the glass and she drinks.
“Thanks, honey. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She sets the glass down and gives me a grateful smile.
When I came back from France, I moved back into my old room upstairs temporarily, intending to find an apartment as soon as Dad was on the mend.
But then I found out I was pregnant, which changed the timeline for me to get my own place.
I was still planning on moving out at some point after the baby was born, but then Gus arrived and turned my world inside out.
I don’t know how he and I would have survived if it had just been me and this tiny, squalling human I had to keep alive.
Mom was a rock star grandma, taking a few night shifts a week so I could sleep, rocking Gus for hours when he was fussy.
Dad was great with him too. Somehow we got through the first hard year together, and then soon after Gus’s first birthday it became obvious that Dad was in a slow decline from which there was no recovery. So I stayed.
It was good for all of us. My parents helped watch Gus, and I helped drive and organize medical appointments and cook and keep the household and the candy shop running during Dad’s long deterioration.
After he died, the thought of moving out never even crossed my mind.
By that point, Mom’s condition was taking a turn for the worse too.
There was no way I could leave her. Nor did I want to.
Now it isn’t practical for Mom to live alone anymore, as she can’t do things like drive a car or open jar lids.
Sometimes she even has trouble with doorknobs.
So we are a multigenerational family of three under one roof, and I can’t imagine us any other way.
What would she do without us? What would we do without her?
And yet sometimes I still secretly dream of another life, one where I get a starring role, where I still live in France, where I open my chocolate shop, where my days revolve a little less around others and a little more around what I always hoped my life might look like.
But that isn’t now. That isn’t real. So I tuck those thoughts away and get on with life as it is.
Mom sits down carefully at the little round kitchen table where we eat all our meals at home.
Mr. Butters parks his squat body next to her chair leg in the hopes that she will drop something tasty.
I slide the dessert plate into the center of the table and sit across from her.
Carefully I twist off a bit of caramel and hand it to her.
It’s greasy with butter and still warm in my hands.
“It’s been a long time since you made something like this. Did you learn to make these in France?” Mom asks, taking the caramel from me.
“Romaine’s mother taught me,” I confirm.
“His family owned a property in Provence, nestled in the lavender fields. He took me there once for a weekend, and his mom taught me how to make these.” Although my relationship with Romaine didn’t last, I walked away with Gus and a handful of really excellent recipes.
“Mmm, that’s delicious.” She nods approvingly, chewing the candy. “Your creativity is such a gift, Emmie.”
“Thanks.” I’m pleased by the compliment. I twist off a long ribbon of the caramel for myself. The candy itself is rich and buttery, and the sea salt and lavender give a nice bite at the end. It really is decadent.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” Mom eyes me carefully. “After what happened at dinner.”
I blow out a breath. “I’m disappointed,” I admit.
“I really felt like this was going to be the year I’d finally get answers and figure out what I’m supposed to do with my life.
” I look down and pick little sticky flecks of caramel from my nails.
“Now I feel more confused than ever.” I don’t say it, but I also feel a little embarrassed to have made up this ridiculous fantasy of a future for myself.
“You know what’s strange about what you saw,” says Mom slowly.
I glance up. Her brow furrows in a confused frown.
“I saw the same things when I got my vision. The same gold sparkles and shimmers and fireworks. It’s exactly what every one of us has seen when we’ve been given our visions.
I know you think there’s no way what you saw could be true, but what you’re describing feels like the visions we’ve all had.
Exactly the same. And every one of those visions has come true. ”
I shake my head. “Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything.” I twist off another bit of slightly too-dark caramel and pop it into my mouth. “Because there is no way what I saw is anything but a pipe dream.”
Mom cocks her head and considers me thoughtfully. “Or maybe there’s something we just don’t understand yet,” she says, arching a thin, plucked eyebrow and looking at me expectantly. “I have a feeling, my sweet birthday girl, that you just may be in for a surprise.”