The Case of the Missing Deed (5 page)

The five of them stood outside Grandma’s door, hesitating. Alex knocked softly. There was no answer. He opened the door
a crack. Grandma was lying in bed, propped up on pillows, gazing out the window. In her hand was a crumpled tissue.

“Grandma?” he said. “Can we come in?”

“Sure,” she said in a flat voice.

They arranged themselves around her.

“Grandma …” Alex began, “would you come down and cook for us?”

“Cook what, honey?”

“Anything.”

“How about your fresh pea soup?” Olivia said.

“Or peach cobbler?” said Sébastien.

“With ice cream,” Claire added. “Yum!”

The others giggled, but Grandma just lay there. Alex shot Geneviève a look. Strange that she wasn’t chiming in, suggesting dishes. After all, she was the one who loved to cook with Grandma.
She looks kind of distracted
, he thought.

“We miss you, Grandma,” Olivia said.

“And we know how you love cooking, so we thought–” Alex stopped. Then he plunged on. “We thought it would cheer you up.”

Tears filled Grandma’s eyes, and she choked back a sob. “I’m sorry, but … I just don’t feel up to it.”

“But Grandma, it’ll make you feel better,” Claire said.

“I’m afraid not, sweetheart.”

Alex knew there was no point pushing her. He stood, and the others followed his lead. “Okay, Grandma, it was just a thought. We’ll leave you alone.”

Silently they went downstairs and sat around the kitchen table.

“Now what?” Olivia said.

“I don’t know,” replied Alex. “All I know is that I can’t stand seeing Grandma like that.”

Olivia opened her sketchbook and started drawing a picture of Grandma in the kitchen, whipping up something in a big bowl. Sébastien looked over her shoulder. She’d made only a few marks on the page, a thick line here, a squiggle there, but somehow they conveyed the energy and hubbub of Grandma cooking. Amazing.

“Maybe,” he said, thinking aloud, watching Olivia’s pencil fly, “if we can’t get her to cook, we can cook
for
her.”

Alex looked at him. “You mean … try and get her to eat?”

“Yeah, fatten her up. She’s so skinny.”

“Good idea, Seb,” Claire said.

“What do you think, Gen?”

Everyone turned to Geneviève, who was staring off into space.

“Gen!” Sébastien said sharply. “We’re talking about what we can do for Grandma. Do you care?”

“Of course I care,” Geneviève shot back. Her cheeks colored. “I just … have other things on my mind at the moment.”

“Well, stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about Grandma–”

“Don’t you tell me–”

“Guys!” Alex said. “No fighting. Not now.” He turned to his cousin. “You’re the cook, Gen. What should we make for her?”

Geneviève shrugged. “Let’s look in her recipes.”

Everyone followed her to the pantry, where Grandma kept her recipe collection. Geneviève started handing them
out – the shoebox full of index cards, the manila envelope crammed with slips of paper and magazine clippings, the scribbled-on envelopes held together by an elastic band, the bulging loose-leaf binder, the spiral-bound notebook. They carried them all to the table.

They each grabbed a box or notebook. Sébastien took the loose-leaf binder. It nearly came apart in his hands. The cover, a pebbly black kind of paper, was rubbed thin and torn in places, the cardboard lining poking through. So many extra pages and sticky notes had been added that the notebook gaped wide like an open accordion. It even had a smell, the aroma of ingredients that had splashed or splattered on its pages: vinegar and cinnamon, garlic and chocolate.

He started paging though. In places Grandma had written notes to herself, things like “double the sugar” or “decrease baking time” or “subst. honey for sugar.”

“So what does Grandma love?” he asked.

“Herbed Roasted Chicken,”
Alex said, pointing to a recipe.

“Lasagna,”
Olivia piped in.

“Salmon à l’orange,”
said Geneviève. “Remember how good that was?”

“Chocolate Cake … Lightning Cake … Angel Food Cake … Lemon Pound Cake …”
Claire said.

“I asked what Grandma would like, not what you would like,” Sébastien teased.

“Grandma loves everything,” Geneviève said. “Or at least she used to, before …”

“Okay, then what would really grab her? There must be something.”

Olivia pulled a recipe out of the shoebox.
“Pesto!”

“Right, Liv!” Geneviève said. “That’s her favorite food in the world. She puts it on everything – pasta, rice, potatoes, sandwiches …”

Sébastien chuckled. “One time I caught her putting it on toast – for breakfast!”

“Pesto
it is, then,” Olivia said.

Grandma’s Famous Pesto

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves

1 cup fresh parsley

1 tablespoon fresh oregano

1 tablespoon fresh thyme

1 tablespoon fresh rosemary

1 tablespoon fresh tarragon

1/4 cup walnuts

1 or 2 garlic cloves, crushed

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup olive oil

pinch of salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Spread walnuts on a baking sheet and toast in oven until just golden. Cool slightly before using.

3. Pick herbs.
The keystone is the key
.

4. Blend all ingredients in a food processor (or crush using a mortar and pestle) until a smooth paste forms.

5. Refrigerate for up to 1 month (as if it will last that long!).

The cousins checked to see what ingredients were on hand, and Geneviève made a list for the general store.

“What do you suppose this means?” Sébastien said, pointing at the recipe card.

“What?” Olivia peered over his shoulder.
“The keystone is the key,”
she read aloud, then shrugged. “No idea. Some kind of note from Grandma to herself about how to prepare the herbs?”

“Isn’t that Grandpa’s writing?” Sébastien asked.

“Looks like it. I wonder why Grandpa would write on Grandma’s recipe,” Claire said. “He never cooked.”

“Who knows?” Sébastien said. “You know Grandpa – maybe it was a secret love note. Remember that time he hid Grandma’s anniversary present in the herb garden and then left her a clue in the bathroom saying
‘I’ll love you till the end of thyme’
?”

They smiled at the memory.

Just then the door opened. Sébastien turned. It was his mom and Charlie. They laughed as they hopped, first on one foot and then the other, brushing the sand off their feet. They were flushed and windblown.

“Hey, Mom, guess what,” Claire said, and started telling them about the plan to cook for Grandma.

“Great idea!” Charlie exclaimed.

Sébastien frowned. It wasn’t
his
family, wasn’t
his
place to say what was or wasn’t good for Grandma. This was
their
cottage,
their
family home.

If only Charlie would just go away.

It wasn’t like Sébastien wanted his dad to come back. He knew his parents had been unhappy together. He’d overheard the tense conversations at night when he was in bed. He’d seen the way they avoided each other, his mom always working late at her job in a downtown office, his dad always going out to run errands.

Still, it was a shock when they sat the three children down and announced that they were separating. Sébastien could still remember the feeling of disbelief, the conviction that they couldn’t really mean it.

But they did. Soon after, their dad had moved back to Québec. A year or so later he had married again. That was when Sébastien had to admit that his father wasn’t coming back.

Which was bad enough.

But then Charlie came onto the scene.

He was a physiotherapist. Eve had gone to see him because of a sore hamstring from running. Next thing Sébastien knew, Charlie was coming over for the odd dinner … and then lunch … and then staying over on weekends … taking his mom out all the time, charming Geneviève and Claire, who couldn’t – or wouldn’t – see what was going on. And now, here he was, acting like everything was his business. As if he belonged.

Eve gave them money to buy the groceries. “I just hope it works.”

“Grandma won’t be able to resist our cooking,” Alex said.

“Either that, or she won’t be able to
digest
your cooking,” Charlie teased.

Everyone laughed – except Sébastien. Then they all ran outside for their bikes.

livia loved Muriel’s general store. Being in it was like being inside a kaleidoscope. Whichever way you turned, you got a different view.

On a counter near the entrance, there was an array of Muriel’s
Heaven Preserve Us
jams and jellies, sparkling in jewel tones of ruby, purple, and blue. At the back there was a fresh seafood counter, with silver-skinned salmon and trout, blue-black mussels and pearly clams. Along one wall were bins of island produce: lettuce and spinach and chard, bunches of carrots with the dirt still on, plum-sized new potatoes, piles of pea pods. In the middle were shelves of coffee and ketchup, crackers and baby food, spaghetti and pickles. At Muriel’s store you could buy Band-Aids and postage stamps and pruning shears and a guide to the best surfing beaches on the island. Just being there made Olivia want to set up an easel and capture it all in dabs of paint.

When the cousins entered, Muriel was in her usual place, perched on a stool at the cash register. Her gray hair, still showing traces of brown, curled around her face.

She was knitting as usual. The scarf she was working on today was green, orange, and pink. Muriel’s scarves made of hairy, fluffy yarn reminded Olivia of small porcupines, except that they were in crazy colors: brown and red, purple and orange, yellow and blue and green. In Olivia’s opinion, they
were hideous, but they flew off the shelves. Evidently there were a lot of color-blind tourists with cold necks.

Muriel waved when they came in. “Hi, kids. How’s your grandma today?”

“Not so good,” Alex said.

Muriel’s brow furrowed. “I’ve been trying to get her to come over for tea, but she won’t.” She brightened. “She’ll be better now that you’re all here.”

I hope so
, Olivia thought.

“Oh!” Muriel said abruptly. “I just remembered. Guess seeing you all reminded me. Your grandpa gave me a package just before he … before. He said it could help your grandma if she needed it. I’ll pop over one day and give it to you.”

Before Olivia could ask what was in the package, the bell attached to the door tinkled, and Stan Wilensky came in. Olivia knew that Grandma and Grandpa didn’t like him. He was always puffed up, acting like he ran Otter Island. And now his picture was plastered all over the place on posters that read,
MINING A BETTER TOMORROW FOR OTTER ISLAND!

“Good morning, Muriel,” he said with a smile. “I need a few things. I’m treating my staff to a picnic.”

“Very nice,” Muriel said curtly.

Wilensky went down one of the aisles. As Muriel’s knitting needles clacked, the children told her about how Grandma couldn’t remember where the deed was hidden, and how they’d searched for it in vain.

“That’s awful!” Muriel said. “Without the deed, Lily could lose the place!”

Sébastien nodded. “She’s so down, she hardly gets out of bed.”

Muriel shook her head.

Walking back toward the cash register, Stan Wilensky pulled out a cell phone. “Forgot what I was supposed to get,” he said, chuckling, and dialed a number.

“But that’s why we’re here,” Alex told Muriel. “We’re going to cook for her and cheer her up.”

“Excellent idea,” Muriel said. “Put a few pounds back on those skinny bones. What are you going to make her?”

“Pesto,” Olivia said.

Muriel nodded approvingly. “If anything’ll bring back Lily’s appetite, that will.”

The cousins split up to find the ingredients. As Geneviève squatted to lift a bag of walnuts from a low shelf, she heard the doorbell tinkle. A moment later someone walked down her aisle and stopped, scanning the shelves.