Friendship Bread (2 page)

His daughter, Rosa, and her husband, Jack, visit when they can. They live in Grand Rapids. Rosa will cook for days and then they’ll pack up the car with ice coolers and drive the five hours from Michigan
to Illinois, arriving with enough food to feed Leon for a month. He tries to tell his daughter that he doesn’t need so much, but she doesn’t listen. Food has always been a comfort in their home, and it’s what Rosa does best. Just like her mother.

Rosa came for a visit last month. She and Jack are trying to have a baby, but can’t, and it makes Leon sad to see her sad. He tries to tell her that these things sometimes just happen, but he knows that’s a flimsy excuse. He’s an engineer by training, a scientist at the end of the day. He looks for the reason behind everything. When he and Marta were first together, she couldn’t believe that he didn’t believe in God.

“How can you not?” she’d asked, surprised.

Leon shrugged. “I just don’t.” The truth was, he didn’t really need God. He had all the answers he needed and didn’t think any more of it. Marta wasn’t religious, but she had a spiritual outlook on life that was contagious to anyone who came in contact with her. Even when she was sick, she held on to her beliefs. When Leon tried to contact every doctor, every specialist, anyone who could give her a different diagnosis, Marta had simply smiled, almost amused. She was too weak to argue with him, but her eyes were still bright and full of life.

In the end, she’d had enough of the doctors, enough of the hospitals, enough of the heavy medications that made her sick. She was okay with dying, even though Leon implored her to live.

“Oh, Leon,” she said. “I am so tired. My body is tired. Can you let me go?” She placed her hand against his cheek while he cried.

So they stopped the chemo and moved her home so she could be in her own bed and see the stars. She slipped away two weeks later.

On her tombstone he wrote
MARTA YDARA, BELOVED WIFE, 1935–1995
. And beneath it, her favorite quote, which he reads aloud every time he visits her grave.

Leon lowers his binoculars. The lenses are fogging up. It happens. Some nights the equipment won’t work right, or the weather won’t cooperate. The night sky teaches you patience.

He turns to cast an eye over his neighborhood. At this hour families are tucking their children into bed, ready for the quiet relief that graciously accompanies a long day even though there will be dishes to wash, toys to pick up, lunches to be made. This is part of what keeps Leon here in Avalon, in this house. The house itself is much too big for an old man like himself, but he has secretly fallen in love with the people who surround him, their familiar faces, their history now a part of his own. They remember Marta, her laugh that put everyone at ease, made everyone smile. There are still so many wonderful Marta stories they share—every now and then he is reminded of a memory long forgotten—and it fills his heart with unexpected joy, like a child discovering a silver dollar beneath his pillow the morning after losing a tooth.

He imagines Marta watching over them, over the sadness that hangs over one house that used to be filled with laughter, and he wishes she could tell him how he can offer comfort, if such a thing were possible. There are so many unspeakable tragedies, things that are over in a moment but leave so much unhappiness in their wake, lives put on hold, families torn apart.

What do you think, Marta? What is there left to do?

He feels her warm breath on his neck, a tickle, a hint of a smile.

Oh Leon
.

He feels her chiding him, or is it his own foolish mind beginning to fail? Leon is practical about this. He has seen death take the people he loves as it will one day take him. There is no use in arguing … or is there?

He reaches for his mug of hot water, picks at the crumbs of the cake he’s been making since Rosa’s last visit. Now that he is in the dusk of his life, Leon has time to indulge in such thoughts. After everything that has happened, does he believe in God? That is the question, perhaps the only one that really matters. How can
anyone be absolutely positive that God exists? Is there a God, yes or no?

He feels his head tip back as he is startled by a sudden realization. He wants to burst out in laughter.

The answer is there—in the stars, in the universe, in the galaxies.

You just need to look up.

AMISH FRIENDSHIP BREAD

NOTE
: Do not refrigerate the starter. It is normal for the batter to rise and ferment. If air gets in the bag, let it out. DO NOT use a metal spoon or bowl for mixing as it will interfere with the fermenting process.

REMEMBER:
If you keep a starter for yourself, you will be baking in 10 days. The bread is very good and makes a great gift.

I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT
.

Julia Evarts looks up from the paper in her hand and studies the gallon-size Ziploc bag. Inside is a substance that reminds her of dry-wall compound, except it’s much pastier and filled with tiny air bubbles. It would have gone straight into the trash had Gracie not been standing beside her, eyes wide with curiosity.

“Mama, can I try one?” Gracie asks. She holds up a china plate decorated with pansies and roses. Several slices of what looks like banana bread are fanned out on the plate and covered with plastic wrap. Gracie was the first to spot it when they pulled up to the house—the plate, the Ziploc, and the accompanying instructions for “Amish Friendship Bread” sitting on their front porch. There was no card, only a yellow sticky note with the five words written in shaky cursive.

For a moment Julia was confused—had the weekly meals started up again? Not that she’d mind having a casserole to serve for dinner tonight, but this? This smelled suspiciously like a chain letter, with the
added headache of having to bake something. Julia can’t remember the last time she’d baked something.

Gracie tears off the plastic wrap before Julia can stop her. “This looks good!”

Julia has to admit that it
does
look good. It’s coming up on 3:00
P.M
., time for an afternoon snack anyway, and as usual she hasn’t thought this far ahead. She has no idea how other mothers do it, or how she managed to pull it off before.

“Gracie, hold on. Let’s get inside first.” Julia unlocks the front door and ushers her five-year-old daughter inside.

She puts their things on the kitchen island and then opens the fridge. It’s pretty bare because Julia has forgotten to go grocery shopping, and there’s no milk. She doesn’t want to have to go out again, so she pours Gracie a glass of water from the tap and heats up the remains of this morning’s coffee for herself.

“Now?” Gracie is practically bouncing in place.

They eat straight off the plate, using their fingers. It’s not banana bread or like anything Julia’s ever tasted before. It’s moist and sweet with a hint of cinnamon. It hits the spot, as unexpected kindness always does, and soon there is only one slice left.

“I bet Daddy would like it,” Gracie says. Her fingers have crumbs on them, and she licks each one.

Julia bets he would, too. Mark has a sweet tooth, even though he’s been on a bit of a health kick lately. She tucks a stray strand of Gracie’s mousy brown hair behind her ear, so different from Julia’s flyaway strawberry-blond curls. “We’ll put it aside for him,” Julia says, even though she was hoping to have the last piece for herself. She reaches for the used plastic wrap but Gracie gets to it first.

Julia watches as Gracie tries to extricate the wrap from itself. She waits for the tantrum, for the meltdown that sometimes happens at this time of day, but Gracie manages to pull the plastic wrap apart and lay it over the single slice of bread, carefully tucking it under the scalloped edges of the plate.

“I did it!” Gracie looks at her handiwork, proud. “So now what?”

Julia notices a blue streak of dried paint on the back of Gracie’s hand and gives it a rub. “What do you mean, now what?”

Gracie holds up the note and the instructions. “Is this a recipe? It looks like a recipe. Are we supposed to do something? I can mix. I’m great at mixing!” The sugar from the bread has clearly entered Gracie’s bloodstream.

Julia turns to look at the Ziploc bag slouching on the counter. She has figured out that it’s basically fermenting batter, but the mere thought of baking and what it entails exhausts her. “Yes, you are great at mixing, Gracie,” Julia concedes. “It’s just that … well, someone gave this to us to be nice. They don’t expect us to actually do it. I’m not sure I even have the ingredients.”

“We could buy them.”

Julia gives her daughter a small smile. “I don’t think so, Gracie girl.” Her voice is apologetic but firm. “Would you like to watch a little television while I get dinner ready?”

Gracie slides off the stool. “I think Clifford is on,” she tells Julia, then runs off.

The microwave dings. It’s a reminder ding, a clever feature the manufacturer came up with. Or maybe all microwaves have reminder dings now—Julia has no idea. Their previous microwave caught fire when she placed a box of dry macaroni and cheese inside and set the cook time for an hour. Black smoke billowed out and the fire alarm shrieked. Gracie was barely a month old. She was startled but didn’t cry, even when Julia broke down and Mark frantically ran about, fire extinguisher in hand as he tried to air out the house.

The microwave dings again. Julia opens the door and sees her cup of coffee. She takes a sip and finds that it’s lukewarm and stale. She puts it back in for another minute then stares at the last piece of bread, wondering if Mark will care if she eats it.

He probably won’t. He’s deferred to her for the past five years, too tired to argue, too tired to try. She can’t say she blames him. She doesn’t know what to do to make things better, either.

Her coffee is now hot and she pulls back the plastic wrap to finish
off the last piece. The evidence is still between her fingers when Gracie walks in holding a piece of pink construction paper.

Her daughter looks shocked, as if Julia has just committed a cardinal sin. “Mama! That was for Daddy!”

Julia feels guilty, and then defensive, but it’s pointless either way. First, Gracie is five. She has the clear advantage in this situation, as Julia can’t bear to see her daughter distraught. Second, Gracie was born after everything happened. She doesn’t know a life other than the one she’s living now, where the worst thing that can happen is Julia eating the last piece of Amish Friendship Bread.