Life From Scratch (32 page)

Thunder cracked and rolled the morning of our wedding. Over my first cup of chai, I sat at the bay window and watched black clouds dump torrents onto Tulsa. At 10 a.m., my brother Connor, our volunteer photographer, reported that the earth around the old barn we’d rented for the occasion was thick with mud. But by early afternoon, a scalding sun had beat the water back. By 5 p.m., the ground was dry again.

Mom guided me from the old barn, down the hill, between the trees. We were a vision of moss and cream. My lace, corseted gown ballooned out from my hips, while her crocheted shift hung straight to her knees. I wore my hair long and straight, held back with a ribbon and punctuated with a veil. She wore an airy woven hat the color of sand.

Mom squeezed my arm gently as we stepped between 45 family and friends onto the runner I’d made from a bolt of burlap. They weren’t the 300 she’d wished for me, but love is love, and they were enough. Grace, my maid of honor, and my dear friends, Katya and Rebekah, stood to the left in coral sundresses. Keith’s brother, Daniel, my brother, Tim, and Ryan stood to the right in pistachio shirts and sand-colored linen slacks. Connor flitted about, taking photos—his wedding gift to us.

In the middle was Keith, stunning in his linen ensemble, his snow-white shirt set in relief against the shimmering pond behind him.

As I approached, I saw that Keith’s eyes were wet with tears. With each step closer to him, my smile grew.

Mom kissed my cheek and handed me over to Keith. Fifteen minutes later, he kissed me. I felt the most curious feeling burst through my core: an expanding, a bubbling, an overwhelming shortness of breath. And then it hit me.

This must be what it feels like to be full. Content—a hundred percent happy.

CHAPTER 20

Cinnamon Ey
e
s

T
HE ACHE BEGAN AT 4 A.M.
, three months after our wedding and an unlikely eight weeks after Keith’s reversal procedure. My hand flitted to my abdomen: It felt different, somehow. I was pregnant. There was no test, no doctor to confirm it, just the brazen confidence of intuition. In this foggy awakening, I even imagined that this baby would be a girl.

My sister, Grace, phoned me early that same morning.

“Are you asleep? Sorry. But the most amazing thing just happened,” she gushed. “I was sitting in my office, doing some paperwork. You suddenly … popped into my mind. I looked up at the bookshelf across the room, at your picture. At that exact same moment, it tilted, and get this, a baby grasshopper jumped in front of it. What do you think it means?”

I sat up against the headboard. “What time did it happen?”

“Maybe 5 a.m.?”

It was an hour later on the East Coast. “I woke up at that exact same time,” I chuckled. “Grace, I’m pregnant!”

“Are you serious!? Congratulations! How far along are you?”

“I have no idea. No more than two weeks; that’s the soonest Keith could—you know—after his procedure. It sounds crazy, but I just know it. I think it’s a girl.”

Keith did his best to accept my premonition with cautious hopefulness. When the doctor who performed the reversal heard our happy news, he gave Keith a high five. It takes six weeks to heal post-op. The doctor had never had someone show up for a three-month follow-up appointment with a wife nearly two months into her pregnancy.

This would be our miracle baby.

By my five-month checkup, I’d sold my bike, my boots, and my leather jacket. I even gave away my back protector. There was no way I was going to risk a miscarriage by taking my little miracle on a bumpy ride.

Baby things soon took the place of my motorcycle paraphernalia: a borrowed crib, a flea market rocker spray-painted white, and a Craigslist changing table. Even my nightstand became a pregnancy shrine, spilling over with
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
and
Your Self-Confident Baby
.

One day I grabbed my diary and settled into the couch for a moment of reflection. From the kitchen, doughy ravioli bloomed on the air, mingling with the tomato sauce Keith had promised to make earlier that day. The pasta was frozen and the sauce jarred, but the rising scent of that simple dinner made my mouth water. I’d taught Keith how to cook the pasta on a gentle bubble. It all felt so ordinary, so comfortable—so right.

I cracked open my diary and wrote: “I have my happy ending. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Just then my laptop chirped on the coffee table, announcing new email. “My name is Phoenix,” the message read. “I’m your sister. We have the same father. I’ve been looking for you for a long time. I’m writing to let you know that our father died last year.”

I gasped as I read and reread the words.

Keith ran into the living room, sauce-covered spoon still in hand.

“What is it? Are you OK?” He looked down and, seeing my hand on my belly, knelt by my side. “Is the baby OK?”

I pointed to the screen, hand trembling.

He leaned over and read the message. He looked up at me, tears in his eyes.

“Oh, Sasha, I’m so sorry.”

“I thought I didn’t care. Now I’ll never meet him.” I shook my head in tight bursts, willing the email away.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

I thought of Greg’s words:
No one can create peace for you
.

“The only thing I can do. Go to her.” Even while sniffling, I laughed. “And get a therapist.” Aside from a few halfhearted attempts, I hadn’t seen one since Michael died.

By my second therapy session in as many weeks, I was ready to call Mom.

“I got an email from Phoenix the other day.”

I could almost hear her hackles go up over the phone.

“Oh?” she said noncommittally.

“When were you going to tell me about her?”

“I
told
you he probably had kids all over the country! You need to stay away from those people. Please, you have no idea what I went through to get away from that man …” The fear in her voice was palpable.

“You mean Oliver? My
father?
” I paused. “That’s his name, isn’t it? Mom, you’ve never told me anything about him except that he was a charismatic con artist.”

“There’s nothing else to—”

“Let me finish. I’m going to do for you what you couldn’t do for me. I’m going to share some information you might want to know.”

“I want nothing to do with him, Sasha. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay as far away from him as possible.”

“He’s dead.” I winced as I said the words.

“What do you mean?”

“Phoenix gave me his full name. I went to the Social Security office two weeks ago to confirm it.” I gulped. “I can send you the paperwork. He died two years ago.”

Mom didn’t say anything right away, so I continued. “I’m going to California to visit Phoenix.”

“How did he die?” she asked.

“Some sort of cancer. Lung, I think.”

She sighed through the phone.

“Did you hear what I said, Mom? I’m going to California.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s my sister! I want to get to know her.”

“She’s a space cadet.”

“Wait a minute, Mom,” I yelled. “I thought you didn’t know her? For once in my life, this is
my
decision. I only told you as a courtesy.”

I hung up on her and was slamming open the refrigerator just as the phone rang.

“I’m sorry, Sasha,” Mom began, her voice softer than before. “He wasn’t all bad, you know. He was beautiful and smart, and always inventing something. If you ever want to know something about him, you don’t need to go to California—you can just talk to me.”

She spoke the way a prisoner speaks about a guard, even years after being released: with breathlessness, fear, and admiration.

I couldn’t bite back my sarcasm. “You’re ready to talk about him
now?
”

She chuckled, indifferent to my rising indignation. “Not really. It’s different with him … gone. You don’t understand what a relief it is.”

I gripped the handle on the refrigerator tighter, the cool air pressing onto my reddening cheeks.

“No, I don’t.”

Our flight landed in San Jose, California, a few weeks later on a dewy morning in February. The air was almost warm, the sun sharp. Our rental slugged through one sticky traffic jam after another, a grid of offices and retaining walls framing the mountains beyond. While Keith drove, I phoned Phoenix.

“We’re here! If you want, we can come straight to you—grab some lunch, maybe?”

“Oh, that’s great, honey! But the thing is, I’m in the middle of a few things. And at 3 p.m., I have a manicure. Why don’t I meet you later—say, 6?”

“Six
tonight?
” I stammered. “OK, where?”

Phoenix offered to take us to see her mother, Lotty, who’d been married to my father for two years back in the sixties. She clicked off with a cheery goodbye.

I put the phone in my lap and turned to Keith.

“She’s … busy.”

Keith tilted his head to the side and opened his mouth, then shut it again.

In the background, the GPS crowed: “Recalculating route …”