Grace-Notes #44, 11/19/06

Natalie Costanza-Chavez

Grace-Notes

grace-notes@comcast.net

 His Pies, Lemon Zest, and Sticky Floors

     He’s twelve this week. The first pie he made was lemon meringue. It sloshed and puddled inside its damp crust. The meringue covered the slightly soupy results. He carried it from the oven, set it on the table, beamed.

     Now, a year later, he’s more insistent on me scooting away, closing my mouth, not touching his cooking utensils. He urges me in a shadowy tap-the-toe-raise-the-eyebrow way. He throws the impatient glace, flutters his hand slightly and, almost imperceptibly, turns his shoulder to leave me on his outside, away from the butcher block, his flour, his butter, his knife.

     I walk away to rake shoes from under tables, pile papers, toss 5^th grade spelling lists from the week before.

    Next I twiddle my thumb on a light switch and listen toward the kitchen long enough. I bee-line back, show up at his side.

     “You need help?” 

     “No.” He gives me an exaggerated sprite grin, a go-away-like-you-were-just-gone look of near, but not quite, exasperation. 

     I linger. He has flour on his nose like a too-cute movie still. I itch to tell him, to take a picture. I don’t. The floor is a festival of mess, the dog’s nails click click click as she ducks beside my son; the two shift their balance for each other  – the boy cuts butter for dough, the dog licks the floor, amazed at the opportunity, the cache of sweet spillings, the sticky leavings. 

     I take a breath. This is the part of the story where I can make myself sound patient, wise, seer-like in my ability to grow and bloom a young cook. I’d be lying.

      I bite my tongue until it hurts and have to breathe once, twice, slap down my terrible desire to take the knife from him, fill the bowl with a flat-puff of flour, rock the pastry cutter back and forth over the butter – quicker, faster, practiced. I am not proud of wanting to say “Here, like this. Here, let me do it.’ 

     I say nothing. Not even about the dog. It’s a long stretch for me.

     He looks up. His glance says, “Go.”

     I’m gone. Again, not easy. I leave him with his crust, his cornstarch, his piles of lemon zest and a floor foot-stepped sticky.

     That night, he serves pie. It is solid – sharp, tangy, piled with swoops of barely browned meringue. We take a picture, and then eat the pie down. 

     Weeks later we are driving home. He is daze-quiet. To spark words, I tell him I need to do a Thanksgiving column and ask him what he thinks I should write.

     “I’m making Thanksgiving pies,” he says, “Lots of them. Why don’t you write about my pies?”

     We can take so much of what is budding in each other away with a pause too long, a hesitation too deep, a simple no.

     “That’s an idea,” I say.

     His suggestion leaves me twitching slightly and I recognize the poke and prod telling me I have some ick-hard lesson to learn over this one.

     I try to defend my hesitation, in my head, silently. He’s just learning how to roll out dough and he’s not quite tall enough to get a full push behind the pin without standing on a stool. His results are more patch-work than thin, flat, round. He once blew the top right off the double boiler nearly burning his fingers into swizzle sticks. His attempts with knives halt my breathing. The apples slide as he slices down.

     Of course I will write about his pies.

     In one way or another, on this day before Thanksgiving, we are each my son. We may or may not have the pies down perfectly.

     We’re learning, renewing, struggling through spurts, transition, realignment, growth. We are, after all, always stepping forward, trying again, getting better.

     His pies are good, are getting better, and – are his. They leave the floor sugared, remind me our lives are full of small and essential steps, and that all lessons linger and fill. 

     He’s making pies this week – lots of them. I’m thankful for each attempt, each beam, each bite. His pies are sublime.