“To go to her paaarrrtttyyy!”
Shelby looks at me with a wink. “Yes, honey, to go to her party. Why don’t you pop back downstairs and practice your letters.” The hours between when the kids get home from school or their various activities and when dinner is served are generally relegated to homework or reading. Shelby says once they get dinner in them, it is hard for them to focus, so as soon as everyone is home from school they are banished down to the basement rec room, which has one wall set up with a long table that serves as four side-by-side workstations. The older kids help the younger ones, sort of, and Shelby checks in if things get noisy. Geneva doesn’t exactly have homework from pre-kindergarten, but Shelby wants her in the habit as much as possible, so she has some worksheets and books down there and G is supposed to keep herself occupied like the rest. She is not so good at that, and most days will eventually find her up in the kitchen yapping at me for at least some part of “homework time.” I can’t say it disappoints me.
“Okay. ’Bye, Eloise! Have fun at your party!” She skips out of the room, and Shelby takes up residence in the abandoned chair.
“You know you didn’t have to be here today,” she says, her meaning clear.
When I told her Monday that I would need to leave a little early she tried to get me to just not come in, but I need to be working and keep my mind off of things as much as possible. I’m still feeling enormously sad and guilty and ashamed, and I’m not so good at dealing with deeper feelings. I’ve spent the last few days working on recipes at home, testing things late into the night, thinking up new challenges for Ian’s training, and relying on a nightly small glass of warmed bourbon with a trickle of honey to help ease me into sleep.
Lawrence wasn’t home when I went to drop off his weekly rations yesterday, so instead of the two hours of chat I usually get with him, I had eerie and unsettling quiet. It kind of paralyzed me for a moment. I didn’t really want to go home and I didn’t have any logical errands to do, so I just organized everything in his fridge and freezer, threw out anything that was old enough to be questionable, and made a list of basic pantry items that he was running low on. Once I ran out of busywork at his house, I went home and took Simca on as long a walk as her tiny little stumpy legs would allow, then had a long wallowy afternoon at home. I binge-watched the original British House of Cards and ate my way through my fridge, well stocked with the detritus of my recipe testing. Not coming to work today was not an option.
“Oh, no, I definitely did. This is exactly where I needed to be today.”
I don’t say more and Shelby doesn’t push. “Okay, well, then, what do I need to know about dinner? Something smells amazing.”
“You’ve got braised short ribs in the big oven, and that potato, leek, and prune gratin that Brad loves in the warming drawer underneath. There is asparagus prepped in the steamer—Ian can just turn it on and set it for eight minutes.” When I helped redesign their kitchen, the Gaggenau rep convinced me to put in two warming drawers, since I’m usually leaving them food that is fully prepared but won’t be consumed immediately, and an in-counter steamer, which has been a total game changer when it comes to getting a simple green vegetable on their plates every night, not to mention making the weekly pasta night a cinch.
“The perfect thing for a chilly fall night like tonight.”
“That is what I figured. And there is a chocolate ginger sticky toffee pudding on the counter for dessert. The coffee caramel sauce is in the other warming drawer.”
“That sounds interesting, a new one?”
One of the recipes I’ve been working on this week, sort of an update of the English classic. I’m loving how the dark chocolate and sweet heat of the ginger take the cake out of the cloying realm, and the bitterness of the coffee in the caramel sauce sets it all off beautifully. “Something I’ve been playing with.”
Shelby gets a look in her eyes, and I know she is just gearing up to say something. “Look, I know you don’t like to talk about your personal life too much, and I completely respect that, but I know that this must be a difficult time, and if you need a break, or someone to talk to, or . . .” She trails off, probably because she can see the look of embarrassment on my face.
“Thanks, Shelby, really, I’m fine.” I’m not, and she knows I’m not. But we both silently agree to pretend that I am, because to do anything else would cross a line neither of us wants to cross.
That is one of the things about my job, the danger zone. Because when you feed a person day in and day out for an extended period of time, you get to know them sometimes more intimately than friends or family. You know their deepest wants and desires, the things they crave, what heals them when they are sick, and what soothes them when they are sad, and what makes a celebration a celebration for them. But while you might feel like a weird combination of friend and family, you are neither. Not really. You are, at the core of things, the help.
“Personal chef” has the word “personal” right in there, and it is the personal part that can make things awkward. Shelby might think I need therapy—clearly does think it if she is bringing it up—and probably not only wants to find the therapist but also to pay for it. But this is not a discussion we can appropriately have, and while she is devil-may-care enough about conventions to attempt to open the door, she is smart enough to shut down those impulses when I close it. Which is the hardest thing to do. Because there is a huge part of me that wants to bust out crying, and collapse in her arms the way I’ve seen her kids do, and let her comfort me. To let her be the sister I never had growing up. But for all of our sakes, one of us has to be strong about keeping some boundaries, and lucky for all of us, I’m really, really good at boundaries. Which, while I know in my heart is good for my work, is starting to feel like it might just be the way I am in my life in general, and I’m not really sure that is a good thing for my life, however much it might suit my livelihood.
I think we are both grateful for the sudden eruption of loud chaos from downstairs, some yelling and a crash, and Geneva’s air-siren wail. The kids might be pretty great, but they are still kids and siblings, and when World War Three launches, as it does with all the frequency one might expect of a large family, it is passionate and loud. Shelby shrugs in a resigned fashion, gives my hand a quick squeeze, and winks at me, then heads downstairs to wipe tears, soothe bruised feelings, make people apologize, and supervise the cleanup and reconciliation processes. I take a relieved breath and wipe down the counter so that I can leave before I have to feel one more damn thing today of all days.