Chapter 3
I wake Friday morning determined to make the most of this unexpected break from work, the gift of more time with Hannah.
We never really celebrated her kindergarten graduation, so I envision making her celebratory French toast, the fluffy kind dripping with real maple syrup.
But then I remember I used up the remaining two end pieces of bread on the PB instead, I order online and get virtually the same groceries delivered every week.
“Want to get doughnuts at the farmers market?” I ask Hannah.
Her eyes grow wide. She squeals at the mention of the D word, and now I don’t feel like such a terrible mom after all.
At the market, we eat our warm rings of cinnamon sugar as we stroll past the delicious, colorful offerings of late May.
There’s a smell of potential in the morning spring air, the promise of sun and summer and bounty and harvest. Anything is possible.
The future is bright. At least, that’s how it feels at the first farmers market of the year. I’m relaxing already.
Hannah points to a table ahead. “Is that celery pink?” she asks.
I see a familiar but forgotten sight, a table loaded with crisp crimson stalks. “That’s not pink celery. That’s rhubarb.”
I show Hannah the gorgeous color up close. “You can eat only the stalk,” I tell her. “The leaves are actually poisonous.”
“Oh no.” Her lips twist in concern.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “The farmer cut that off already. See?”
Her shoulders relax.
The woman selling the rhubarb asks how much we want.
“Want to bake a pie today?” I ask Hannah, as I pay the woman for two bundles. “A strawberry-rhubarb pie? With whipped cream?”
“With ice cream?” she asks.
“I mean, with ice cream?” I correct.
She gives me the doughnut eyes again and licks her lips.
“This is the best day ever,” she says.
By afternoon, Hannah sits in a carbohydrate-induced coma in front of her iPad.
The doughnuts for breakfast and boxed mac and cheese for lunch have hit her hard.
Forget the strawberry-rhubarb pie. While I may have time to make a pie, I don’t have the energy.
I haven’t made dough in years. It’s only five ingredients—flour, butter, sugar, salt, and water—but I feel a bit rusty.
I decide to just cut and freeze the rhubarb for another day.
Besides, watching Hannah’s zombie stare at the screen prompts me to suggest a walk to the playground this afternoon.
While Hannah pumps her legs on the swings, I sit on a nearby bench with a slew of other parents about my age.
Most seem more interested in checking Instagram or playing Candy Crush than talking to each other.
However, I note one mom and dad talking on an adjacent bench—can even overhear their banter about weekend errands and calling someone about the dead tree in the front yard, their debate about whether their oldest is responsible enough to get a cell phone.
The exchange makes me pause. Would Sean and I be discussing these types of things if he were with me on this bench?
Brainstorming venues for Hannah’s sixth birthday party?
Buying a newer, safer car? Planning our next date night?
I shake this thought away, and instead take the quiet opportunity to open the Maps application on my phone.
I type in the address of Great-Aunt Alice’s farm in St. John’s Ferry.
I just can’t stop thinking about her letter, about her invitation to visit.
And as I do with most things that won’t leave my mind, I begin to obsess and search the internet.
St. John’s Ferry, I learn, is a small town of about three thousand people located in southwestern Wisconsin.
It sits on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River, and thus, just over the border from Minnesota.
It’s at the very heart of the Driftless Area, a region of the Midwest characterized by steep bluffs and dramatic valleys caused by a lack of glacial drift, hence the name “driftless.” The rest of the Midwest is flat because glaciers essentially plowed through them ages ago.
The photos are breathtaking—this part of the Midwest could double for somewhere like Ireland or Scotland—at least, that’s how it looks on my phone.
From an aerial view, Alice’s farm appears fairly large.
I see a pond, walking path, barn, henhouse, small orchard, garden, and main house just from the map image.
The street view doesn’t reveal much, though.
Her farmhouse is significantly set back from the road and not visible.
All I see is a black mailbox and a gravel driveway lined with oaks and maples.
I do a quick Google search using my aunt’s name and address, but it seems she has no digital footprint, which makes sense given she doesn’t have internet service.
I don’t know why I even bothered looking her up.
But there’s something at the bottom of the list that catches my eye.
A recipe from over thirty years ago archived in the St. John’s Ferry Gazette:
Magpie’s Zucchini Bread, submitted by Alice Brodbeck.
I peruse the recipe and find it interesting. Orange marmalade is one of the primary ingredients. But that’s not the most intriguing part. At the bottom of the recipe is a postscript in italics.
My three-year-old great-niece, who I call Magpie, can’t get enough of this bread, especially if it’s slathered with orange honey butter.
I wait until after Hannah’s bedtime to call my mother, and I cut right to the chase.
“There’s something you aren’t telling me about Alice,” I say.
I hear everything she hasn’t told me in her silence.
“What do you mean?” Her voice is high and tight.
“Mom. Please.”
“Please what?”
I take a deep breath. She isn’t going to budge unless I back her into a corner. While I feel my blood pressure rising, and know I shouldn’t get myself upset or angry, this is important.
“I spent time with her when I was kid,” I say matter-of-factly, because it’s all I can infer from Alice’s recipe.
My great-aunt nicknamed me Magpie. She made me zucchini bread and slathered it with orange honey butter because she knew I loved it that way.
These are things you do when you know someone, when you interact with them on a regular basis, not once.
Another silence.
And then, “You remember?” she asks.
I don’t. My only memories of Alice aren’t really memories at all, more like stories or anecdotes I heard growing up. But my mom’s reply tells me I’m getting closer to the truth.
“Did we stay with her?” I ask hesitantly. “On her farm in Wisconsin?”
“For a short time,” she finally says.
“When?”
“When you were very young,” she says brusquely, as if clearing off crumbs from the conversation. “So young, I didn’t think you could possibly remember.”
I wonder if I do. My first childhood memory, at least what I have long thought to be my first childhood memory, is biting into a tomato like an apple, and the warm, sweet juice dripping down my chin onto my hands and down my forearms to my elbows.
The midday sun hits the top of my head, and I feel my scalp burn.
I’m barefoot and the summer grass sears my feet.
When I shared this memory in the past, my mother told me I was around three, and it was likely the summer months, when tomato plants are ready for harvest.
Except my mother doesn’t garden.
“When exactly did we stay with her?” I push. “And for how long?”
My mother lets out a loud huff. “Oh, you were just a baby. I don’t really remember exactly, Maggie. It’s been so long.”
“Give me a ballpark figure.”
“A month or so?”
I think back to the zucchini bread recipe printed in the local newspaper, the note in italics. Alice called me her three-year-old great-niece. That isn’t just a baby. We had to have been there more than a few months.
“It was longer than that,” I say with certainty, although I am far from certain.
She clears her throat. “Did she write that in her letter?”
“Mom,” I snap. “I’m going to be thirty-six years old this summer. Whatever it is you’re dancing around, afraid to tell me, just let it out. I can handle it.”
I hear my mother exhale, but this time it isn’t in defense. It’s in resignation. “You went to live with her when you were about three months old,” she finally says.
My stomach drops. Because she said you. Not we.
“I was finishing my master’s.” My mother’s voice cracks. “I didn’t know how to build a career and be a mom, a good mom, at the same time.”