Life From Scratch (13 page)

Innocent Abr
o
ad

A
BOUT A WEEK AFTER
M
ICHAEL
’
S DEATH
, Toni, Patricia, Pierre, and I sat around the breakfast table for the first time in weeks. It was 1992. President Bush had vomited on the prime minister of Japan, Mike Tyson pleaded guilty to rape, and at age 16, Tiger Woods had just become the youngest PGA golfer in 35 years. The spring air felt thick with Michael’s absence, yet the sun slid up to the windowpanes and spilled down onto the table, sparkling with the promise of a normal day.

Oh, I still sneaked into the girl’s bathroom at school to unload my tears, but this was to be a day without hospital visits or the staggering weight of impossible hope. My brother was gone; nothing could change that.

No longer a rock against the current, I tumbled back into the rhythm of normal life. I returned to school in time for homeroom and fell back into my studies. But now, the “pity stares” cast in my direction by the popular kids ended. For weeks their eyes had followed me through the halls, my very presence silencing their chatter. If they would just start teasing me again, I knew I’d be OK, that I could get through this. And then maybe I could start breathing again.

But first I had to get through breakfast. Fresh-squeezed orange juice, rolls, peach jam, and thick blocks of Irish butter dotted our large white plates. I slumped into the routine of the meal with relief, letting it prop me up and carry me through another day without Michael. But as I placed a soft, shiny roll onto my plate, everything changed.

“Pierre has a new job opportunity in Paris,” Patricia said. “We’ll be moving in August.” The words were exhaled, more confession than revelation. She looked at Toni and me weakly, the corners of her mouth briefly drawn up into a half smile, as though she wanted to comfort us, but didn’t have the emotional strength to pull it off. She shook her head, too—almost as if she were saying sorry.

Her words rattled me. We’d barely been in Atlanta two years. I felt a crumpling, a balling up; I held my breath, willing my eyes to stay dry. Like Patricia and Pierre, I was learning to wait until I was alone in my room to unfasten the harnesses of polite composure.

Pierre looked from Patricia to me, then added, “I—I got the offer a month ago, right when …” he trailed off, looking at his untouched roll. “I was going to tell you when I came home, but the timing wasn’t ri—”

“You mean Paris,
France?
” I asked, feeling the words drop from my mouth like marbles. France sounded far away and dreamy, like a fairy tale … or an idea, nothing more than the Mona Lisa or the Eiffel Tower, firmly fixed to the pages of history and geography class.
Not
real life.

Pierre nodded.

“You’re going to learn to speak French. You’ll go to a French school.” He looked at Toni. “Toni will finish her last semester of high school there.”

Toni sat back in her chair. “Why can’t I just finish school here?” she cried. Her hand played with the necklace her boyfriend had given her on Valentine’s Day.

Patricia stared down at the brocade tablecloth, an intricate swirl of rust, mustard, and plum ornamentation that recalled Aladdin’s carpet. “Can you please pass the rolls, Sasha?” She didn’t look up, slowly tracing her finger along the designs.

“Sure.” My words felt louder than usual. I sat taller. “No problem,” I added, a new edge to my voice.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be able to spend your 13th birthday here. We won’t leave until August. You’ll have a month and a half to say goodbye, Sashita,” Pierre added, using the Spanish nickname they often called me, meaning “Little Sasha.” “Even though we’re going to be in Europe, we decided to let you spend your summers with Connor, Tim, and Grace in New Jersey.” He looked over at Patricia, then back to me. “We’ll make sure of it. You can keep up your horseback riding, too … or maybe you’ll find something else you’d like to do once you get there.”

Since Michael’s hospitalization, the Dumonts had made a considerable effort to make sure I spoke more regularly with my half siblings. As I considered spending several weeks in a row with them, I wondered why I couldn’t just
live
with them. But I knew the truth. At 24 years old, Grace had her own budding family. Finances were incredibly tight. Tim was in film school; when he wasn’t studying, he was working. Connor was about to get married, wrapped up in his own new beginning.

Who the hell moves to France at a time like this?
I thought, shocked by the violence with which the words spun in my head. Feeling like an ingrate, my cheeks flushed with shame. Why couldn’t I just be happy for the opportunity to see the world? I looked up the stairs, past the landing, toward Michael’s bedroom.

“What about my mom?” I spoke up, working to flatten the tremor in my voice. “Will I see her?”

I felt the air leave the room. Patricia pressed her lips together. No one had heard from Mom since her last letter, not even Connor, Tim, or Grace. It was as if the emotional vortex of Michael’s death had finally battered my mother’s spirit past the point of no return. She was gone, physically and emotionally.

“Here, have some juice,” Pierre said. He splashed a little into my glass, his eyes fixed on the rush of orange swirling up to the top. “You can always write her any time you want.”

There was a pause.

“Finish up your breakfast, Sasha; it’s almost time for school,” Patricia said quietly.

I stared down at the roll on my plate, contemplating the stillness between goodbye and hello. It no longer mattered if the popular kids teased me. My life would never be the same. My hand floated over to my glass. I brought it to my lips slowly, on autopilot. As I chewed the cold pulp, my mom’s words skated through my mind:

All is well
.

All is well
.

All is well
.

Up until that moment, I’d taken all the turmoil of my childhood with the buttoned-up obedience of an innocent schoolgirl. Though I’d cried and prayed for different outcomes, at the end of the day I always did as I was told, no matter how sad it made me. But moving two months after losing Michael felt wrong.

Feeling
different does not guarantee a different result; one has to
act
to invite change. I had neither the power nor the will to speak out. Perhaps it was a bit of fatalism taking over; nothing I could do would stop the move. I certainly couldn’t call Mom or hope to return to her. She’d told me more than once during her visit that my best chance at a good life was with the Dumonts.

And I couldn’t talk to Patricia and Pierre. The mere mention of Michael’s name was met with averted eyes, as though I’d uttered a curse word. I knew that if no one wanted to talk about him, there was certainly no talking about Paris.

As the move approached, I didn’t bargain with the universe as I had in Rhode Island. I didn’t pray. In fact, I didn’t even pack my boxes, except to make sure my big white teddy bear made the trip. The movers took care of the rest. Instead of bracing myself for the inevitable tremors that would come with a cross-continent move, I simply laid myself open and waited for the earth to swallow me up and spit me out wherever it would.

Before I knew it, I was carrying my suitcase through the glittering glass tunnels of Charles de Gaulle Airport and out into the pulsing heart of Paris. That night, I wrote Mom a postcard, squinting through the jet lag.

September 7, 1992

Hi Mom,

I made it to France! I’m tired, so I drank a coffee on the plane to stay awake. (Ew, I know.) Paris is beautiful. But there are so many buildings all around me.

I miss you and Michael so much.

I love you.

The chipper tone was purely for Mom’s benefit. Without the comforting embrace of the familiar, I’d lost all my bearings, like a ship traveling through a moonless night. I washed up in Paris a hollow vessel. I could feel only one thing: complete, all-consuming emptiness.

When Mom didn’t write back, there was nothing to do but hole up in my room in our new, suburban town house and cry for hours.

Eventually Paris called to me, luring me out of my room and away from my self-pity. Trains, whistling along the track, delivered me from our quiet
banlieue
(suburb) into its bristling heart, near the Arc de Triomphe, the Tour Eiffel, and the Trocadéro. After the thick heat of Atlanta, the city’s foggy coolness slid over me, pulling me along damp sidewalks into cheery boulangeries loaded with macaroons, croissants, thick slabs of flan, and velvety chocolate truffles.

My first encounter with a baguette, torn still warm from its paper sheathing, shattered and sighed on contact. The sound stopped me in my tracks, the way a crackling branch gives deer pause; that’s what good crust does. Once I began to chew, the flavor unfolded, deep with yeast and salt, the warm humidity of the tender crumb almost breathing against my lips.

I inhaled entire baguettes while walking along those wide, tree-lined avenues, in awe that a country had developed bread so divine out of nothing more than flour, yeast, water, and salt. The key, I would learn, was giving the dough time to develop. After a slow, cool ferment, it was blasted with an inferno of heat and steam, giving the crumb chew and the crust crackle. This is why, if I were to believe my eyes, no French person deigned to muddle it up with a careless smear of butter.

Hundreds of baguettes later, I cannot understand how the French limit themselves to one trim slice with dinner (though perhaps that was unique to the families I dined with). I suppose it’s the result of having eaten good bread for an entire lifetime. In those early days I could never be so moderate; I ate as though the bread held some secret I could only uncover by obsessive consumption. Inevitably, I gained 15 pounds.

Artisan French Bread

It is possible to make very good French bread at home. Slow and cool yeast development is the secret to big flavor (no warmer than 65°F). I do this by mixing the yeast with a little flour and water ahead of time into a “poolish” starter. For a soft interior and thin, shattering crust, the French use steam-injected ovens. At home, a spray bottle and baking stone are the best tools for the job. This recipe—based on techniques learned at King Arthur Flour—takes three days, though there’s barely 30 minutes active work. (It’s certainly easier than packing a few bags and hopping on a flight to Paris!) Start on Thursday, and Saturday’s dinner will be
magnifique.

For the poolish:

2 cups flour

1 cup cold water

⅛ teaspoon active dry yeast

For the dough:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon yeast

2¼ teaspoons salt

Cold water (about ¾ cup)

Day 1 (5 minutes active):
Make the poolish around bedtime. In a large bowl, stir together 2 cups flour, 1 cup cold water, and ⅛ teaspoon yeast into a pasty mass. Cover with plastic wrap and set in a cool spot (60° to 65°F) for 16 to 24 hours. Try on a shelf in the basement, by a drafty window, or—if it happens to be summer—over a bowl of ice.