Fifty-Three
When Nina thought the time was right, Clara got on a plane and flew to Rochester.
Clara knew, or hoped, that she and her mother were going to be okay when Nina demanded that Clara come home.
For so long Nina had treaded oh-so-carefully with Clara, but in that moment Nina sounded like a mother, like her mother, for the first time in forever.
As she was driving the rental car to Bridie’s apartment, she took a long-forbidden route.
It seemed so silly now. How before she left town for good, she would drive in a circuitous manner to avoid passing by any of the Finnegan’s Grocers around town.
As if the looming edifices would sense her avoidance and feel slighted.
Her mother should have stated it more gently on that long-ago morning, but Clara had, in spite of the inelegant warning, spent a lot of time overestimating the importance of her presence.
And her history. At a dinner party recently, she’d told the story of the elopement and after answering the usual questions with her canned responses, honed for effect, a woman she didn’t know said, “Wasn’t that what everyone was doing in the seventies?
” And the conversation moved on to a new downtown restaurant.
She found herself pulling into the parking lot of the store where her family had always shopped.
It looked completely different. She knew the stores had repeatedly been expanded and remodeled.
Finnegan’s! in its evergreen script with the tiny shamrock dotting the letter i still looked exactly the same.
She might as well bite the bullet. She’d laughed when she’d read an article about Dune Finnegan and his embrace of the European food hall experience, but he’d done a good job.
She had her quibbles. The prepackaged meat and fish were not to her liking.
Too many cheese platters all offering the same things, and nobody needed a pile of syrupy walnuts next to a tired bunch of grapes.
Why was there an entire section devoted to back-to-school supplies?
Hardware? Video rentals? This is where the European food hall met Finn Finnegan’s love of the very American one-stop shop.
You would not be able to buy a folding lawn chair with beer holders in the arms at Harrods, she was pretty sure of that.
She went to the bakery section and chose a plastic clamshell (hated those, too) filled with half-moon cookies, Bridie’s favorite.
She got back in her car and opened the plastic package and bit into one cookie, which was—she would argue this to the death—a far superior version of the New York City black and white.
Softer cake. Frosting instead of fondant.
People in New York City didn’t understand what they were missing.
She took another bite. It was a commercially produced product, not as good as the ones at the little bakery they frequented as kids, but good enough.
She ate the whole thing. And then another. These cookies were her Proustian snack.
WHEN brIDIE SAW CLARA STANDING on the other side of the screen door they’d neglected to switch out against the chill of the coming winter, she stood stock-still.
They looked at each other warily. Clara raised the container with the remaining cookies and waved it a little.
Bridie put a hand on her hip and shook her head, but Clara could tell she was biting back a smile.
Finally, Bridie stepped forward and opened the door. It was a start