Whispers (28 page)

With a tug, the tissue came out, along with a dried out object that fell on her lap. Teri blinked hard and tried to pick up the curious item. It was a pressed flower of some sort. She wiped her nose and turned the brown, squashed flower in the palm of her hand. It was an orchid.

Now where did I get an orchid, and why did I save it?

Suddenly a dam broke in her mind, and memories wildly spilled into her heart.

“Strange, isn’t it?” she heard Gordon’s voice whisper inside her heart. “The flowers don’t resist blooming at their appointed time. Why do we?… I think four is good. I’d like even numbers. Six would be better than five … I could wait.… Does he embrace your heart with one arm or two? Answer that, and you’ll know.… Frail humans we are, fumbling with the eternal … That great marriage feast of the Lamb.… I shall run into his open arms!”

The airplane began to roll back ever so slightly.

“Stop the plane!” Teri shouted at the top of her lungs. She released her seat belt, grabbed her purse, and yelled again, “Stop the plane!”

One of the flight attendants came rushing back to her aisle.

“I have to get out,” Teri said frantically to the large man seated between her and the aisle.

“You can’t get out now,” he barked.

“I
have
to!” she hollered and crawled over the top of the man’s knees, dragging her purse behind her. She was aware that every eye in this section of the plane was on her. She didn’t care.

“Please take your seat,” the flight attendant said, gently pressing her hands against Teri’s shoulders.

“You don’t understand! It’s an emergency! I
must
get off this
plane. Right now! Can’t you just open the door and let me out? We haven’t gone anywhere!” Teri sounded as frantic as she felt.

“But we’ve secured all the doors,” the woman said.

Another attendant arrived and said, “It’s all right. I received clearance from the captain. We can release her.”

Teri bolted down the aisle, her hair waving wildly as she ran. Another flight attendant stood by the now open door and asked, “Do you require medical assistance?”

“No!” Teri shouted over her shoulder. She ran toward the terminal, her mind and emotions sprinting right along with her legs. She had left Gordon a full twenty-five minutes ago. He could be halfway home by now. She would get a cab. Or rent a car. Or hitchhike. She didn’t care. She had to reach him.

The moment she burst into the waiting area, Teri stopped. Gordon was standing where she had left him. He hadn’t moved an inch since his final words of, “I’ll wait right here until …”

Teri stood frozen, panting hard, her eyes locked onto Gordon’s. She said in one look with her eyes everything that had been hidden so deeply in her heart for so long. He stood there, smiling, absorbing every bit of her message loud and clear.

Lifting both his arms toward her, Gordon invited Teri into his embrace. She ran as fast as she could, wrapped her arms around him, and held him so close it felt as if her heart were beating in time with his. Neither of them let go.

“Gordon,” she whispered, her tears soaking his shoulder, “I love you.”

He drew back slightly and lifted his finger to brush the tears from her cheeks. “I take it then your answer is yes?”

Teri looked into his unflinching eyes. Tears brimmed on his eyelids. She remembered when he had proposed at Kimos and had told her the angels were watching. She could almost
feel them now, hovering close, holding their breath, waiting with Gordon for her answer.

Teri whispered just loud enough for Gordon and the angels to hear. “Yes.”

Slowly drawing her close, Gordon tilted his head, ready to give Teri the kiss he had saved for his one and only woman.

She closed her eyes. Gordon’s lips met hers. And inside her heart it was the Fourth of July.

Making tamales energized Teri Moreno. The long, familiar process connected her with the other women in her family. She participated in family tamale parties ever since she was a young girl and now the recipe as well as the kitchen advice from her female relatives were treasures she held in her heart.

When my sister-in-law, Kate, married into the Medina family, she was invited to join the tradition of their “family tamale party.” Grandma Ruthie taught her how to select the best chilies (New Mexico Chilies) and how to hand roll the corn husks just right.

I’ll never forget the first Christmas Kate showed up with freezer bags stuffed with tamales and told me they were a special gift from her new family to ours. Strange gift I thought. Then I had my first bite. Everything the characters in this book said to describe Teri’s tamales is true. They are “muy delicioso!”

In case you’d like to host your own tamale party, here’s the Medina family recipe:

(Ingredients are for 100 tamales since Grandma Ruthie says, “If you aren’t going to make at least 100 tamales, then it’s not worth getting the kitchen dirty.”)

Take all 3 roasts and put them in a large roaster or baking pot. Rub 2 tsp. salt into the meat. Add 3 whole garlic cloves, crushed, and 2-3 sliced onions.

Bake at 300 degrees until meat falls apart when poked with a
fork (estimate 30 minutes per pound each).

After the meat cools, drain fat from the juice and save the juice. Remove all fat from the meat. Shred cooled meat into strips of about 3-4 inches long.

Clean out all the seeds and stems from the chilies. Wash them really well. A good trick is to wear a pair of clean gloves to keep the hotness from getting into your hands. If you don’t wear gloves, be careful not to rub your eyes! Cover the chilies in water and cook over medium heat until they are soft. Blend the soft chilies by filling the blender with chilies up to the 4-cup level. Add 1-1/2 cups of the water you just cooked the chilies in (more to make it spicier, less to make it more mild) and add 1-1/2 cups of the juice saved from the cooked meat. Also add: 1 tsp. cumin seed, 1 tsp. oregano (look for Mexican oregano with the big flakes), 1/2 tsp. cilantro, and 2 tsp. salt. Mix in the blender for two minutes until mixture is all one color.

Combine the chili mixture with the shredded meat. (You may need to make a couple batches of the blender chili mix, depending on the size of the roasts.) Meat mixture should not be runny once the chili mixture is added, so add just enough to cover all the meat. Save about 1/4 cup of the chili mixture to add to the masa.

Begin by taking out all the corn silk and soaking all the husks. Husks need to be soft and pliable. Stack soft husks on a cookie sheet until you are ready for the production line. You can use all different sizes of husks. The best size is about 5-6 inches wide.

Masa is the cornmeal that surrounds the tamale. It can be purchased in dough form at a store that carries Mexican specialty foods. Add a little bit at a time of the saved 1/4 cup of chili mixture to add flavor to the 10 lbs. of masa.

Grandma Ruthie always covers the largest table in the house with a plastic tablecloth to make clean up easier. Gather everyone around the table and get the production line going as follows:

Step One:
Spread the masa on the widest part of the corn husk using the back of a tablespoon. Spread it about 1/8 inch thick and only cover about 3/4 of the corn husk.

Step Two:
Spoon the meat mixture on top of the masa. Put in just enough meat mixture so that when you fold the corn husk around the meat there will be an overlap of the corn husk with masa on it.

Step Three:
Fold one side of the corn husk over the other side. Then turn the bottom (pointed end) of the husk away from the overlapping side. Stack the tamales with the open side up so the meat doesn’t fall out.

Step four:
Begin cooking the first few tamales while the others are being prepared. Place tamales in a steamer tray over boiling water with the open part of the tamale facing up. It takes about 30 minutes to steam 1-5 tamales. Make sure the water doesn’t run out under the steamer tray.

Tamales are done when the masa looks like firm, cooked cornmeal. It’s okay to unwrap a tamale and check to see if it’s done. If the masa isn’t firm, wrap it back up and let it steam some more.

Step Five:
Prepared tamales that have not yet been steamed can be stored in the refrigerator if they are going to be steamed within a day or two. All others should be packed in freezer bags, unsteamed, with the open side up.

When preparing the frozen tamales, let them thaw at room temperature for an hour or in the refrigerator overnight, then steam about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Dear Reader:

Above my kitchen sink is a wooden heart. It’s painted blue with tiny yellow flowers. In white letters it says, “Na ke Akua Ke Aloha.” My husband, Ross, bought it for me on our honeymoon in Hawaii eighteen years ago. We’ve been back to the Islands several times since then and even lived on Maui for a seven month stretch.

While working on this book I surrounded myself with pictures of Hawaii, listened to the island music and immersed myself in sweet tropical memories. It was torture because outside my window the gray, winter sky over Oregon refused to let the sun through and the leafless skeleton of an oak tree in my neighbor’s yard shivered whenever the east wind blew through it. Maui seemed very far away. Swaying palm trees seemed like only a dream.

I feel that way about the Kingdom of God sometimes. I know it’s real. I have proof. I believe. But the gray world around me refuses to let the Son shine through. It’s like Gordon’s line in this story, “Frail humans we are, fumbling with the eternal.” One minute I boldly believe I understand God, and the next minute, he’s shrouded with mystery and far beyond my comprehension.

Love seems to be the same way. I think I have it all figured out and then I blink and realize I don’t know the first thing about how to love others or how to let others love me. How intertwined these two truths are: God and love. How endless their secrets.

Perhaps love enters our bleak days when we surround ourselves with its truth—no matter how far away it seems in our winter world. We believe the dream and as frail humans, we welcome God’s presence, his love, into our days—even at the risk of fumbling it.

The evidence of God and his endless love are all around us.
We may not feel it in the earthquake, wind, or fire of our difficult days. But it comes in a gentle whisper; like the words on the blue, wooden heart above my sink. “Na Ke Akua Ke Aloha”—“God is love.”

Always,

Write to Robin Jones Gunn
c/o Multnomah Publishers, Inc.
601 N. Larch St.
Sisters, Oregon 97759