Page 43 of Pieces of Ash
When I wake up, the sun is shining straight through my windows, lower in the sky, but twice as hot as before, and a new smell joins the others from before. Fire. But not just fire. I blink, sitting up slowly on the bed. Charred wood. The tang of burning metal? Or no. Probably glass. I stand up, walking across white-painted floorboards to the window and look out at the barn, where I expect to see smoke, but there isn’t any. My lips twitch with curiosity, and I’m tempted to go downstairs and tiptoeacross the gravel driveway to peek into the barn, but Julian’s furious words echo in my head.Stay out of my way.
My stomach growls, and I realize that if I’m going to stay out of his way, I should probably use the kitchen to make myself some food now, while he’s busy.
Leaving my shoes upstairs, I slip down the small, curved staircase to the first level of the house. I turn through the living room and dining room and smile as I step into the bright, modern kitchen.
There are white tiles on the floor, and the walls are painted a light yellow. In the center of the room is a slab of white and gray marble and a glass bowl holding oranges, lemons, and limes. I step forward and finger the bowl gingerly, staring at the swirling citrus colors melted into the glass, and instinctively I know that this is one of Julian’s pieces. From the window over the sink, I glance out toward the barn, but I don’t see my hot-tempered housemate, so I relax.
At my school, culinary arts and home economics are given the same weight as reading, writing, and arithmetic, and in fact, there are some sisters who insist that knowing how to keep a home and feed a family are skills more useful to a young woman than geometry or a comprehensive knowledge of Charles Dickens and the historical works of William Shakespeare.
I feel at home in a kitchen and am quite skilled, though I’ve never had my own in which to work. Mosier’s was off-limits; the milieu created by his house staff was not a place for me or my mother. And the kitchen at school was always filled with dozens of girls, all charged with a task to bring breakfast, dinner, and supper to the table.
The first thing I do here, besides celebrating the revelation that this kitchen is all mine for the next hour or so, is open every cabinet and drawer at the same time, then slowly spin around the room, memorizing the placement of everyingredient, utensil, pot, pan, sheet, colander, and storage supply. And I quickly realize that, while it’s a beautiful kitchen, it’s not exceptionally well outfitted. In fact, it’s missing quite a bit. There’s no slow cooker, a must-have for young mothers, or cake pans, with which to make hospitality sweets for new neighbors. Hmm.
There is, however, a good collection of basic items, which are high-end and seem almost new. Plucking a baking sheet from the skinny cabinet beside the oven, I place it on the marble counter, then add a heavy iron skillet, a rolling pin, two wooden spoons, a lemon squeezer, and a garlic press.
As I close the cabinets and drawers one by one, I take out other items I might need, adding them to the growing pile on the marble island, then turn to the refrigerator. There is no garlic, but there is a sad, solitary onion in the crisper, a package of two chicken breasts in the back, and half a container of whole milk.
In a cabinet of baking supplies, I find flour, baking powder, salt, and Crisco, all of which Gus told me I could use.
Working quickly, I grease the baking sheet, then mix the ingredients for simple biscuits, one of many recipes I know by heart.
Once I pop them in the oven, I remove the chicken from its package, pound out the cutlets until the membrane and muscle are broken, and rub them with lemon. Using the garlic press, I add minced onion, then set the breasts to the side. Just before the biscuits are ready, I’ll fry the cutlets in olive oil, andvoilà!chicken and biscuits. Not a perfect meal, but not bad for limited provisions. Sister Mary Claire would be proud, I think, grinning as I put away the ingredients I don’t need anymore.
As I wait for the biscuits to finish, I snoop around the kitchen and find an old cookbook in the back of a lower cabinet. I place it on the marble slab, flipping through the pages as the smell of warm bread fills the kitchen.
Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book.
Property of Annabelle Mishkin.
Hmm. Jock’s mother? Grandmother? Great-grandmother?
I glance at the copyright date: 1956.
Probably his grandmother.
I flip through the pages, my mouth watering at the recipes, which are illustrated with black-and-white pictures and cartoon sketches. Nineteen fifties housewives with perfectly coiffed hair, wearing aprons over their crinoline-poufed skirts, smile adoringly at their business suit-clad husbands as they present a turkey table side. It’s a version of family I never remotely experienced, but as I lean over the book, my elbows propped on the cold marble, I feel a familiar longing for something I’ve never known.
Suddenly I picture Tig in an apron and crinolines, and for the first time since my mother passed away, I’m neither angry nor bitter. I chuckle softly at the picture in my head, thinking about how much she would have hated that life, and wondering if all daughters end up wanting exactly what their mothers didn’t, wondering if women are like cuckoo clock pendulums, swinging back and forth with each successive generation.
The timer on the oven beeps, and I remove the sheet from the oven and place it on the counter, admiring the browned tops of my perfect biscuits. I light the fire under a burner and place the heavy skillet over the flame, adding a little olive oil. The flattened chicken cooks quickly, snapping in the grease, the lemon and onion adding another layer of delicious smells to the kitchen.
As I plate the food—two biscuits and a chicken breast with pan drippings on each dinner plate—I suddenly realize that, unconsciously anddefinitelyinadvertently, I’ve made two servings. Maybe it’s because I’ve never made a meal for just myself, or because there were two chicken breasts, that it onlymade sense to plate two meals, but suddenly I picture Julian’s angry face, shouting at Jock, yelling at me, the diamond flecks on his arms and the moody green of his eyes.
Maybe he’s hungry, I think.
Putting away the mitt I’ve been using, and rinsing the skillet in the sink, I gather my courage. I’ll run to the barn, place the plate on the stool just outside the door, knock, and run.
I cover the plate with plastic wrap, and with shaking hands, open the creaky screen door and make my way down the back-porch stairs. I grimace as my soft feet touch down on the gravel driveway between the house and barn, swallowing gasps as the tiny stones dig into my flesh.
Knock and run, Ashley. Knock and run!
My heart hammers as I reach the barn, and as quickly as possible, I place the plate on the beat-up stool, knocking twice on the door before turning and racing back to the house. I barely feel the gravel this time, but my lungs are burning as I scurry up the back steps. Bruno is barking by the time I reach the kitchen, but I don’t look back.
Once safely inside the kitchen, I lean against the wall, catching my breath. When I finally peek out the window over the sink, I notice the plate is gone and feel a tiny rush of victory that makes me giggle softly.
Then I take my own plate from the marble slab, grab a fork from the correct drawer, and hurry back up to my attic sanctuary.
Chapter 9
