The Cake Therapist (19 page)

But my other senses started to betray me. He smelled like Luke. Like clean shirts and that aftershave he had worn since college. He looked good.

He tenderly slipped a stray curl behind my ear. Slowly, seriously, he bent to kiss me.

“Luke,” I protested, and took a step backward.

I sat down on the barstool that Roshonda had just vacated, changing tactics. “I’m serious. What brings you all the way from New York to Finnegan’s, of all places?”

“Shhh.” He sat down on his barstool, but leaned in and placed a finger on my lips.

“Luke, I’m not—”

“Shhh,” he whispered again, stroking my cheek with the back of his big hand that can be oh, so surprisingly gentle. “I need to talk to you, Claire. Okay, Roshonda was right. I am up for this commercial and they do want a guy with a wife and, preferably, a kid or two. But if I don’t get it, there will be others. That’s not why I’m here.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and waited.

“The Whyte Trash Wedding story was in the
New York Daily News
this morning.”

“What, in a ‘News of the Weird’ column, strange goings-on in the hinterlands?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that when I read your name, it hit me. ‘Claire Davis. My wife. My wife who is living a life without me. Who is doing things that I don’t know about unless I read the goddamn newspaper.’ I got the first flight out. And here I am.”

Neither one of us said anything for a moment.

Luke’s temper always flared hot, then cooled down fast.

The new bartender came back from the kitchen and served a cheeseburger and fries to a customer at the other end of the bar. “Another beer?” he asked the guy, but eyed us.

“Can we go somewhere quiet?” Luke asked, throwing a hundred-dollar bill on the bar.

Somewhere quiet.
I wasn’t letting him in my house. I didn’t want to be alone with him in his car. I just wanted to get this over with. “Let’s walk. It’s nice out for March.”

As we left Finnegan’s, I gestured to an alarmed Roshonda that it was all okay.

For two lovers just starting out, the soft air and the moonlight would have worked its magic. But we weren’t starting out.

“I can’t do this anymore, Claire. It’s not working for me,” he said, looking at me with that same green-eyed intensity I remembered so well. We had stopped at the corner under a streetlight. I was grateful for the traffic noise and the glare from the headlights.

“It’s not working for me, either.” Maybe this was going to be easier than I thought.

“I’m sorry I was such a jerk. I’m sorry I caused you pain.” He leaned down and tried to kiss me once again, but I turned away. “You’re not making this easy. But I probably deserve that.”

I was just getting ready to say, “I can’t be married to you anymore,” when he turned toward me and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“I love you.”

Those magic words.

Not “Love ya,” the offhand good-bye he usually tossed my way. This sounded serious. This sounded real. I felt myself soften. I tried to put my invisible shield up again, but he got there first.

Maybe . . .

He wrapped himself around me and kissed me like there was nothing else in the world, nowhere else to be. I felt the lean, muscled contour of his body, the passion that had always been Luke. My thoughts looped around again.
I shouldn’t do this. I don’t love him anymore. I don’t. We’ve been through this before. They’re just words to him.

In the old days, the “no” in my head would have gotten fainter as those old, powerful feelings swept everything else away. This was what love with Luke felt like. We’d back into the indigo shadows, entwined and needy again, just like the first time. And it would start all over again.

But those were the old days.

This didn’t feel right.

I pushed Luke away. Now I understood what people meant when they said “estranged.” He felt like a stranger to me.

“I can’t do this anymore. Any of it,” I said.

“But I love you. You love me. We can work this out.”

“We can’t work it out this time because I don’t want to.”

“You can’t forgive me one last time?”

“We both know it wouldn’t be the last time. I just don’t have it in me anymore.”

Luke crushed me to him, trying to kiss me again, but I moved my head from side to side.

“Stop. Stop.” He loosened his grip on me and I pulled away, breathless. “Just stop. I can’t do this. I mean that. I don’t love you like that anymore. It’s over.”

He stepped back from me, his shoulders slumping. I saw a look on his face that I had never seen before—sadness.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m different now and I can’t go back. I’m sorry,” I said again as I turned away, running toward home.

I thought he might run after me, begging, pleading, cajoling—all of his old tricks that I used to fall for. I let myself in the front door, locked it behind me, barricaded myself in. I had to grip my phone with both shaking hands to read the text from Ben:
OK to come over?

Ben. Was it just a few hours ago that I wanted him in my bed? How could I smell spring in the air, hear an old song, and almost fall for Luke again? What was I doing?

I texted him back:
Luke stopped by. I need to be alone right now.

Ben replied:
Take care.

After a long soak in the tub that still left me feeling restless, I thought about taking a sleeping pill and falling into welcome oblivion again.

But I needed some kind of closure.

The old-fashioned way.

In my robe and slippers, I grabbed my iPod from its charging station.

What was on my Spotify playlist that sounded like I felt? I started my heartbreak hit parade with Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” and the raw pain in Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” I churned up all the old “he done me wrong” feelings.

At my desk upstairs, well after midnight, I took out paper and pen and wrote Luke a long letter, crossing out words, underlining others. I could have used the computer, but I needed the physicality of pressing pen to paper. Tapping on the keyboard was too gentle for heavy-duty venting.

Luke also deserved more of an explanation than what he had gotten tonight. I needed to explain it to myself, as well, and I wasn’t doing a very good job. I crumpled another sheet of paper and threw it in the wastebasket.

As the music played, I had imaginary conversations with him, envisioned scenes in a movie with us as characters, he as the charmer, me as the wronged woman.

What it came down to, in practical terms, was this: Luke couldn’t be faithful. I couldn’t be with a man like that anymore. God knew, I had tried. But he wouldn’t change, and I couldn’t. So somebody had to bow out or we’d both continue with this old sad song, this broken record.

I sat back in the chair and sighed. I searched Spotify for “Something” and played it. The memories, the yearning, came drifting back. But I realized something as the song finished. What I yearned for wasn’t Luke.
It wasn’t Luke.
I didn’t want him, but more important, I didn’t
need
him.

So, what had I clung to all this time, if it hadn’t really been Luke? Why had I let myself get so stuck?

The last question made me think, somehow, of my dad. I rummaged in the desk drawer and took out that snapshot from my fourteenth birthday again, the one with Dad’s arm around my shoulders. He had the look of someone pulling away. I could see it clearly now.

My dad hadn’t left us all at once, although that was how it had seemed at the time. He had left us by degrees. It had started with the silent treatment at home. He had seemed wrapped up in his thoughts, as if he were miles away. Then he’d had a couple of “lost weekends,” when Mom didn’t know where he had gone; when he returned, he had acted as if nothing had happened. At first they had argued about it, but then Mom got really scared. She didn’t know what to do, so she didn’t do anything. Pretty soon, Dad was gone for good.

In a subconscious way, I must have been determined not to repeat family history. I must have dug in my heels to prevent Luke from leaving, as my dad had left. When Luke strayed, it must have brought back all of Dad’s lost-weekend stuff. That fear of abandonment. Unlike my mother, I had held on. I hadn’t been helpless.

No. That seemed logical, but it didn’t resonate.

That wasn’t it.

What felt true was this: It had been hard to stay in my marriage, the hardest thing I had ever done. After our head-over-heels courtship and early married days, it had hurt like hell to be the un-fun person in a romantic triangle, the ball and chain. It had taken everything I had to weather the tears, recriminations, frosty silences, and then the slow thawing and getting back to normal. Three times that I knew about. How many more that I didn’t?

The easy thing for me would have been to call it quits after the first, or even the second time that Luke had played around. A clean break. Admit the mistake. Move on.

So why
had
I stayed?

I didn’t want to repeat our family story. That felt true.

And then I realized: I had the story backward.

I hadn’t been keeping Luke from leaving me. I had been preventing
myself
from leaving him. I had been trying so, so hard not to be the one who was gone for good.

But, like my dad, it happened by degrees. First in my mind, when I said enough was enough. Then in body, when I moved back here. And, finally, in my heart.

Whew.

I put the pen down, then sat back in the chair and sighed with relief.

My emotional cupboard was bare. I had cried it out of me, written it out of me. Now I had room for whatever or whoever was coming next.

I was beginning to taste it. Something bitter, but warm.

A flavor that woke me up and let me see things clearly. A flavor that made me feel safe, so I could let those things go. A flavor that held my hand and walked me across to the other side of loss, and assured me that one day, I would be
just fine
. A flavor for a change of heart—part grief, part hope.

Suddenly, I knew what that flavor would be. I padded down to the kitchen and cut a slice of sour cream coffee cake with a spicy underground river coursing through its center, left over from an order that had not been picked up today.

One bite and I was sure. A familiar flavor that now seemed utterly fresh and custom-made for me.

Cinnamon.

The comfort of sweet cinnamon. It always worked. I felt better. Lighter. Not quite “everything is going to be all right,” but getting there. One step at a time.

Back upstairs, I texted Ben:
Breakfast? Late morning?
I hoped the ping of my message didn’t wake him from a sound sleep.

And there was one more thing before I was finally ready for bed.

I took down the postcard from the memory board above my desk and read it again: “Sorry for all this. Miss you. Love you. Dad.” I brushed my fingers over the signature and tried to imagine what my father looked like now. I wondered whether he was still in Kansas City.

Maybe my father had been having a change of heart, and I just hadn’t realized it. This was the first postcard from him that had a return address.

He had left a trail that I could follow.

Maybe it was time for me to be the grown-up who reached out instead of the child left behind.

I took out another piece of paper.

“Dear Dad . . .”

“Thanks so much for meeting me here. I’m glad Sunday afternoon worked for us all.”

I shook hands with Sam and Ellen Whyte, just back from their honeymoon, and old Mr. Whyte. We gathered for a moment near the nurses’ station on the fifth floor of Queen City Rehabilitation Hospital.

Since the flood of insights that hit me on the night of Jett’s assault two weeks ago, I hadn’t experienced the tiniest glimpse of someone’s story, an unpleasantly sour taste in my mouth, or a bad night’s sleep.

I felt much better. But I was still recovering from an intuitive’s hangover. It took a while for the energy overload to dissipate.

Now only one lingering shadow remained.

Edie. The former Shemuel Weiss and Olive Habig needed to connect again. Maybe something lodged in their memories—or my visions—could provide a clue to her disappearance. And bring them both some sense of closure.

“Marriage agrees with you,” I said to Ellen and Sam.

They smiled at each other, then looked at me expectantly.

“I’m glad you all agreed to visit Mrs. Amici—Olive Habig, as you knew her growing up,” I said to the older Samuel. “After the disruption she and her daughter, Diane, caused at your reception, I wouldn’t have blamed you for saying no.”

“I still don’t understand what all of that was about,” said Sam.

“Maybe Mrs. Amici can tell us,” I said. “I spoke with her grandson, Bobby. She is dealing with head trauma and still goes in and out of consciousness. The doctor told Bobby she has delirium—when an older person has been in one hospital after another and is disoriented. But when she is lucid, she can remember the past.”

“Maybe we should wait out here, then,” said young Sam. “Grandpa was the one who knew her a long time ago.”

“No. There are things we all need to get cleared up,” the elder Whyte said.

“Let’s have a piece of cake together in Olive’s room,” I suggested, holding up a pale turquoise cake box tied with chocolate-brown ribbon. “And then maybe Sam and Ellen could wait out here until you and Olive have finished.”

As we walked to room 522, Shemuel mused, “I’ve been thinking about Frankie Amici. He was a quiet, unassuming fellow. Pretty shy. I don’t think I ever said five words to him the whole time I lived in Lockton. And to marry someone like Olive . . . Opposites attract, I guess.”

I smiled wistfully.

I understand that better than he realizes.

In the small, drab room sat a tiny woman with an IV pole and a portable oxygen tank attached to her wheelchair. Olive listed a little to the left, her eyes closed, almost lost in a maze of plastic tubing and a hospital gown much too big for her. She had a thermal blanket tucked around her lap and hospital socks on her feet.

I gestured to a chair for old Mr. Whyte. Sam, Ellen, and I would have to stand. I put the cake box on the rolling hospital bed table. I stacked the pale pink plates, napkins, and forks next to it. Then I pulled the drapes to let in a little more light. With people and color and sunshine, the room became more cheerful.

I knelt down to take Olive’s hand, something I never would have attempted before her accident. It felt dry and cool. If I held it up to the light and spread her fingers, I thought I could almost see through her hand, like parchment paper. The line between here and not here was thinning, no question.

“Your old friend Shemuel is here to visit you, Mrs. Amici. We’re going to have a piece of cake, and then we can talk.”

A tall, white-haired lady in powder blue pants and an embroidered white sweater entered the room with the help of her walker. It took me a moment to realize who it was.

“Sister Agnes,” I said, “you’re just in time for cake.”

“How about that for good timing?” She smiled. “Sister Josepha usually makes the Sunday hospital visits, but she’s down with a bug, so I said I’d do it.”

“I didn’t know Mrs. Amici was Catholic,” I said.

Sister shrugged. “I don’t know if she is. Somebody must have marked that on her admittance papers. We offer spiritual comfort to Millcreek Valley patients in the hospital, whatever their faith.”

I introduced Sister Agnes to everyone, and then offered her my chair.

I opened the box and cut a slice of layer cake for each plate. “I think it might work best if I serve Mrs. Amici last.” I gave Sister Agnes and Shemuel a plate, a fork, and a napkin, then Ellen and Sam. And lastly, I laid a napkin over Olive’s lap and held a forkful of cake up to her lips.

She couldn’t see the homemade colored sprinkles, the tender yellow cake, or the pale pink frosting made with strawberry syrup enhanced with a little rosewater. Although our local strawberries weren’t in season yet, I had conjured the aroma and taste of juicy berries warmed by the sun. I hoped this flavor would help the two old people return once more to their youth and the carefree feeling of a summer day.

Slowly, with her eyes still closed, she opened her mouth. She looked like a hungry baby bird, ready for a worm. She took one bite after another, then smacked her lips like the ten-year-old Olive I had glimpsed.

When I looked across at old Mr. Whyte, he, too, was licking the frosting from around his mouth, smiling like the Shemuel who had treasured the few precious minutes he had spent in the Habig home each week.

“Would you like another piece?” I asked.

“Yes!” the older people said.

With each new bite of cake, the more years they seemed to shed.

“Don’t let Shemuel eat it all,” Olive muttered, and suddenly her eyes snapped open. “He always got the last of the milk.”

“Your mother was always feeding me, wasn’t she, Olive?” he said gently.

“Peanut butter sandwiches,” Olive recalled. “I remember stirring the peanut butter in that tin container it used to come in years ago. The oil always separated at the top and you had to stir it together again. And Ovaltine, lots of Ovaltine.”

“I always left your house with a cookie.”

Mrs. Amici snorted. “Maybe too many. You grew up to be a lot bigger than me. Doesn’t look like you missed too many meals.”

They each took another bite of cake.

Sister Agnes’ face softened, the years falling away. “There was a bakery when I was a girl—Oster’s—and they had the best strawberry cake. Oh, we hardly ever got to have cake. We didn’t have any money. But every once in a while, Mama would be paid by one of her Fairview ladies and we’d get a treat,” she said in a childish rush.

“You used to say ‘true show’ and not ‘trousseau,’” Mrs. Amici said, matter-of-factly.

Poor Mrs. Amici was really confused. But then I looked at Sister Agnes, and back at Mrs. Amici. I gasped.
Could this be?

I searched the nun’s face for the little girl I had glimpsed reading
The Princess and the Goblin
in the library. There was something of little Edie in her pale coloring, her quiet demeanor. Smiling, Sister Agnes set her plate aside, took off her glasses, and pressed the napkin to her eyes. “It’s all right, Neely. I’m sure I said many silly things as a child.” She welled up again. “Memories,” she whispered. “After all this time.”

Shemuel looked at Sister Agnes, too. Did he see what I saw?

Ellen finished her cake and delicately wiped her mouth with the napkin before putting her plate and fork aside.

“I’ve been thinking, Mrs. Amici,” Ellen said, in a kind and calm voice. “Sam and I are so happy together. And I love this beautiful ring that belonged to your family.” She twisted the sapphire ring off her finger and held it out in the palm of her left hand for the old woman to see. “But maybe this is not really mine to keep. If this will make you feel better, please know that it is yours. Again.”

Sister Agnes leaned forward in her chair to get a good look.

Mrs. Amici stared at the sapphire and seemed to consider it for a moment. “I forgot how beautiful it was.” She sighed, then shook her head and said softly, “Keep it, hon.”

When Ellen moved to offer again, Mrs. Amici said a little more forcefully, “Keep it.” She paused a moment. “And wear it. Wear it every day. My mother didn’t wear it near enough.”

“She didn’t,” said Sister Agnes, who began to cry, softly.

I gave the nun’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. I wasn’t sure how to proceed with someone who was just recovering her memory, so I just went with how I would want to be treated—with kindness and compassion, but without drama. We would take this slowly.

Ellen put the ring back on her finger, cradling it with her right hand. “Thank you,” she said, to both Mrs. Amici and Sister Agnes.

“Won’t do me any good now anyway,” muttered Olive, snapping back to her old self. “What I want, I can’t have. Story of my life.”

Olive’s eyes narrowed at Shemuel. “Diane’s in jail.” She turned to Sam and Ellen. “It was all her idea, to go after the ring. She dragged me along.” She turned toward me. “You talked to Bobby?” she asked. “What did he say about Diane? He hasn’t been to see me since Christmas.”

Uh-oh.
It was April and Mrs. Amici had only been in the rehab hospital for a short while. I wondered if she was beginning to slip again.
I had better move this along.

“Diane can’t post bail,” I explained. “Bobby says she could be charged with assault. They have to wait until you are more yourself to decide whether they will press charges or not. Her public defender isn’t sure when the preliminary hearing will be. The municipal court docket is pretty full right now.”

Olive looked at Ellen. “Wish she had turned out more like you.”

“I’m sorry about Diane,” said the old man, clearing his throat.

“Well, that’s something,” said Olive, sarcastically.

“I’m sorry, too, Mrs. Amici,” Ellen said.

We reached another impasse in the conversation.

“Ellen and I are going to step out now to give you a chance to talk,” said Sam.

Olive watched them go, turning to Shemuel. “Are you happy now? You should be. You got everything.”

“Yes, I’ve been fortunate, Olive,” he said gently. “Thanks to Edie.”

“Edie?”

“Yes, Edie.” He reached over and took Sister Agnes’ hand and joined it with Olive’s. “Your sister.”

“Edie? Is that you?”

The sisters faced each other, trying to see beyond the white hair, the altered faces.

“You came back?” Olive said. “All these years, Edie. All these years.” She sobbed.

“I didn’t know I had been gone,” said Sister Agnes, stroking her sister’s hand. “I don’t know what’s happening.” She looked as troubled as Olive.

I firmly but gently touched her arm.

“If it wasn’t for Edie, I don’t know how my life would have turned out,” Shemuel said to the two sisters. “Edie wanted to run away. It just happened to be on December eighth, 1941, when everything changed. That was the day we declared war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor.”

Olive nodded.

Edie looked confused.

“Remember how people were running all around, not knowing what to do? President Roosevelt giving his speech? People looking for Japanese planes in the sky?” he continued.

“No.” Edie shook her head.

“I remember,” said Olive. “It was a Monday because I had to restock all the empty shelves that morning at Oster’s. I didn’t find out until somebody ran in the bakery late in the afternoon and made me drop a pan of sweet rolls,” said Olive. “Mrs. Oster said to just pick ’em up, dust ’em off, and put ’em back in the case. People would want something sweet after bad news. And she was right. We had a lot of customers. I could have eaten the whole pan myself after Edie didn’t come home that night.” She turned to Edie. “Why didn’t you come home?”

“I don’t know,” Edie whispered.

“Edie was sick,” the old man reminded her. “Remember, Olive? She was jumpy. Afraid of her shadow. Skin and bones.”

“I wish I had known what was wrong with you. You just clammed up,” Olive said.

They all sat quietly.

“We didn’t really have a plan,” Shemuel explained. “We were just going to let the train take us somewhere far away.”

“So what happened?”

“It started snowing so hard, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. I got on the first train car, and didn’t see Edie.”

“How could you miss her?”

“It was heavy, heavy snowfall. Like cotton batting dropping from the sky. Like someone holding up a white chenille bedspread to a window and you trying to look through it. I couldn’t see outside.”

“Maybe you didn’t want to see.”

“I don’t remember any of that,” said Edie, shrinking back inside herself.

Shemuel breathed deeply. “I walked through the train, looking for you, Edie. By the time I reached the last passenger car, the train was moving and picking up speed. I found the ring on the floor, wrapped up in that handkerchief you always carried.” He took a square of folded, embroidered handkerchief from the breast pocket of his blazer and passed it over to Edie. “It’s still smells a little like you, I think.”

Blankly, Edie passed it to Olive.

Olive raised the hankie to her nose, closed her eyes, and sniffed. “Lilies of the valley. Our mother’s favorite.” Her breath shuddered, and I thought she was going to sob, but she held herself stiffly.

“Can I keep this?”

“Of course, Olive.”