Chapter Thirty-Two
Allie
We didn’t speak much as we rode back to the house that night. I wanted to tell Curtis how much I respected him and how much my perspective on him had changed now that I knew his secret grief. But it wouldn’t have been true, anyway, or at least not entirely. I wouldn’t have loved him the way I did if I hadn’t sensed the wisdom and quiet gravity at his core, a wisdom that only comes through grief.
We parted ways at the door of my house that night after stabling the horses. There was so much we both wanted to say to the other, but words were inadequate. I had to content myself with the sad smile I gave him as he tipped his hat and loped off into the saffron twilight. After I fed the animals, I flung myself down on the sofa, wishing I could talk to someone about what I was feeling, but I wasn’t sure even the normally empathetic Lindsay would be able to understand. What had just passed between me and Curtis was like a secret known only to us.
I awoke the next morning just after dawn and headed down to Curtis’ house for breakfast. But I had only walked about halfway when I ran into him walking in the opposite direction.
“Just got a call from my mom,” he said in a tone of mild irritation. “Apparently, she wants us to head over there and help her make breakfast.”
By now it had become a running joke between us how much his mother loved making breakfast. She brought a zeal and energy to it that she never displayed towards other meals and other tasks. The upside of that was that it made her unusually good at it.
“That’s fine,” I said, trying to sound at least a little disappointed. “You and I can make breakfast together some other morning this week.”
“I guess,” said Curtis as we turned and began walking back toward his mother’s house. “But I was all ready to make you honey biscuits and white gravy. Had the ingredients laid out and everything.”
We entered the house to find Darren standing beside his mother drying dishes with a red hand towel and placing them on the dry rack. Although Mrs. Savery looked decidedly gloomy, she perked up at once when Curtis slapped a package of bacon down on the counter.
“Now that y’all are here,” she said, “we can actually start cooking. Curtis, I’ll need you to whisk the eggs for the omelets, and I’ll need Allie to make the pancakes.”
I hated to tell her no, but I was also hesitant to admit that I had never made pancakes successfully. My one attempt in college had set off the sprinklers and the smoke alarms and forced our entire dorm out into the snow at three in the morning. Chris Gephardt had called me “Pancake Allie” for the next two and a half years.
“Could you teach me?” I stammered, my face turning a bright shade of red. “I don’t want to get it wrong, not when the rest of your meal is probably going to turn out perfect.”
Mrs. Savery turned toward me, beaming. “Of course I will. It’s the easiest thing in the world once you’ve figured out how to mix properly.”
While Curtis whisked the eggs for the omelets, she showed me how to mix the butter, eggs, milk, and pancake mix into a bowl so that they were neither lumpy nor runny. “Half the battle is knowing when to pour the batter into the skillet,” she explained. “You’ve gotta give the skillet a few minutes to heat up before pouring it in, otherwise they’ll come out wrong.”
“That may have been my mistake before,” I said. “Same with omelets—I’m always in a hurry and never wait until the frying pan is warm enough.”
“That’s the real trick,” said Mrs. Savery. “You need precise timing if you want to be a halfway-decent cook.”
Under her guidance, I was able to make the pancakes without setting off any alarms. Only one of the pancakes turned out looking like a sodden, shapeless mess; the other two were perfect, crisp circles of butter and dough. I had no idea how it had happened, and knew if I ever tried to do it again, without Mrs. Savery to help me, I would be courting disaster.
Maybe it was because of the talk we had had last night, maybe because I had been included in making breakfast, but I could feel a shift in the air as I sat down at the end of the table that morning. Somehow overnight, my relationship to the rest of the family had changed. For the first time, I actually felt like part of the family. No one questioned my right to be there, and when my eyes met Curtis’ for a moment as Darren said grace, I felt like I belonged there.
The feeling was cemented after breakfast when I asked if anyone wanted to play dominoes, and Mr. Savery immediately said yes. Darren and Curtis looked thunderstruck.
“I think that’s the first time Dad has ever agreed to play a game with us,” said Darren. “Did you put somethin’ in his soda?”
“I don’t think you realized how many years I spent playing dominoes in the service,” said Mr. Savery mildly. “If you want to be destroyed, that’s your business.”
As it turned out, he had given us fair warning. We played five rounds, and Mr. Savery prevailed in each. At the end, he was eager to play another one, but Curtis and Darren had had enough. “It gets boring when there’s no hope,” said Darren sagely.
“Besides,” said Curtis, “me and Allie have got things we want to do this afternoon.”
“Do we?” I asked, giving him a puzzled look. “For the record, this is the first I’ve heard about it.”
“Yeah, we’ve gotta make dinner,” said Curtis as he rose from the table. “In lieu of the breakfast I was supposed to make you last weekend before we got interrupted by horse emergencies.”
“Well, don’t let us keep you,” said Mr. Savery with a ghoulish laugh. “If you ever feel like being whooped again, you know where to find me.”