“Ever get the feeling our daughters were switched at birth, six years apart?” Sydney joked. Meaning to Claire: Ever get the feeling your child isn’t anything like you?
“All the time.” Mariah had no interest in cooking. Like Tyler, she didn’t seem to notice when doors opened on their own, or mysteriously stuck in their frames in the house. When she went out to play, it was always in the front yard, not the garden, though the tree loved her and seemed hurt by her inattention. It morosely threw apples at her bedroom window at night in the summer. And then there was this new best friend, Em. In a period of five days, Em had become everything to Mariah. Em told her what books to read and what games to play and to brush her teeth before going to bed and always to wear pink. It drove Claire crazy. In her mind, Em was a deranged ballerina-child who smelled like bubble gum and only ate McDonald’s Happy Meals.
But it was all misdirected frustration, Claire knew. Because Claire didn’t have time to meet Em. She didn’t know anything about Em’s parents. But Tyler probably did. Over the past few months, Claire had been so busy with Waverley’s Candies that Tyler had taken over most of the parenting duties. Tyler knew all the particulars that Claire used to. Homework. PTA meetings. Ballet and gymnastics moms by name.
Grandmother Mary had always had time for the day-to-day minutia of raising her granddaughters. She had memorized school schedules. She’d ordered notebooks and pencils and new shoes and sweaters when the sisters had outgrown their old ones, and the supplies had been delivered (back when downtown stores still delivered). She’d cooked and gardened and ran her back-door business and still made sure the girls were tended to.
Claire had always assumed the reason Grandmother Mary hadn’t branched out, hadn’t made more money with her special food, was her painful introversion. Now, Claire wondered if Grandmother Mary hadn’t wanted the public to know about her curious recipes because it wasn’t really about the recipes at all, it was about selling the mystique of the person who created them. She also wondered if maybe, just maybe, Grandmother Mary had taken into consideration the effect a growing business would have on her ability to care for her granddaughters, too.
Which made Claire feel worse.
And yet, how could she stop? She’d put so much effort into getting her name out there in the world, success making her like a crow collecting shiny things. There was so much to prove. Was it ever going to be enough? Giving up, especially now with all these doubts, would feel like conceding that her gift really was fiction, a belief contingent upon how well she sold it.
“Hey, are you okay?” Sydney asked when they reached Henry’s truck in the parking lot and Claire had fallen silent.
“Sorry. I’m fine.” Claire smiled. “You know what I thought of last night for the first time in ages? Fig and pepper bread. When I woke up this morning, I could have sworn I even smelled it.”
Sydney took a deep breath, almost like she could smell it, too. “I loved fig and pepper bread. Grandmother Mary only made it on our birthdays. I remember she always said to us, ‘Figs are sweet and pepper is sharp. Just like the two of you.’ But she would never tell us which one of us was fig and which was pepper.”
“I was obviously fig,” Claire said.
“No way! I was fig. You were pepper.”
Claire sighed. “I miss fig and pepper bread.”
“You’re burned out on candy. You need a vacation.” Sydney hugged Claire then got in the truck with Henry. “See you later.”
Tyler put his arm around Claire as they walked to his car, a few spaces away. When Tyler hesitated getting in the car, Claire looked up at him, his curly hair in need of a cut, his beloved Hawaiian shirt almost glowing in neon under his blazer.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, because sometimes he did that, just stopped and daydreamed. She loved that about him. Her own sense of focus never ceased to amaze him. She wasn’t magic to him. She never would be. What she cooked had never had an effect on him, either. Years ago, when they would argue, she would serve Tyler chive blossom stir-fry, because Grandmother Mary always said chive blossoms would assure that you would win any argument, but it never seemed to work on him.
Tyler gestured behind her. “I’m just waiting for Henry to start his truck. Do you think anything’s wrong? He was talking about winterizing his truck. I had no idea what he was talking about. Maybe he did it wrong.”
Claire looked over to Henry’s king cab. The windows were beginning to steam and a faint purple glow was emanating from inside. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Wait,” Tyler said. “Are they doing what I think they’re doing?”
“Voyeur,” Claire teased, getting in the car. “Stop looking.”
Tyler got behind the wheel and grinned at her. “We could give them a run for their money.”
“And risk getting caught by one of your students? I don’t think so. Stop it,” she said, when he reached for her. “Let’s go home.”
He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Home. Okay.” He started the car. “But I have plans for home now.”
“Oh no,” Claire said with a smile. “Plans.”
The road leading off campus was lined with hickory trees, their leaves so bright yellow they shone like fire, as if the road were lined with giant torches. Claire rested her head back as Tyler drove, his hand on her knee. Houses in town were decorated in full Halloween regalia, some more elaborate than others. Jack-o’-lanterns flickered on porches, and red and yellow leaves swirled. This wasn’t her favorite time of year, but it certainly was gorgeous. Autumn felt like the whole world was browned and roasted until it was so tender it was about to fall away from the bone.
Stop feeling so anxious, she told herself. It was just this time of year making her feel this way, making her have these doubts. First frost was almost here. If she could make it until then without a big drama, she felt sure everything would be okay, everything would fall into place and feel right again.
Tyler turned down Pendland Street with its winding curves, uneven sidewalks and sloped yards, which suddenly made Claire remember her grandmother Mary walking her and Sydney to school on this street on autumn mornings. Mary had become anxious in her old age, and she hated being away from the house for long. She’d hold the girls’ hands tightly and calm herself by telling them what she would make for first frost that year—pork tenderloins with nasturtiums, dill potatoes, pumpkin bread, chicory coffee. And the cupcakes, of course, with all different frostings, because what was first frost without frosting? Claire had loved it all, but Sydney had only listened when their grandmother talked of frosting. Caramel, rosewater-pistachio, chocolate almond.
Claire settled back in her seat, starting to relax a little from the wine that evening. She began to wonder, if she had the time, what she would make for first frost this year. Fig and pepper bread, because she’d been thinking about it. (Of course she was fig. Sydney was definitely pepper.) And pumpkin lasagna, maybe with flowers pressed into the fresh pasta before she cooked it. And—
She sat up straight when she saw him again, out of nowhere. The old man on the sidewalk. And not just his gray suit this time. She saw his skin and his eyes and the tiny smile on his lips. He was standing near the corner, his hands in his pockets, like he was on a summertime stroll.
Tyler drove right by him.
“Wait. Did you see that?” she asked.
“See what?” Tyler asked.
Claire looked behind her and he was gone, as if he hadn’t been there at all.
But if that was the case, how could he leave behind that scent, like a smoky bar, now coming through the car vents?