Linda Lee - The Glass Kitchen - A Novel of Sisters

It was summer and hot, the painfully blue afternoon sky parched by heat and humidity. Gram didn’t return to the kitchen until nearly four o’clock.

Portia jumped and ran across the hard-tile floor. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s time for you to take over The Glass Kitchen for good.”

“What? No!”

Portia kept trying to solve whatever was wrong. But that ended when Gram stepped around her and headed for the back door of The Glass Kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

Gram didn’t retrieve her handbag or keys. There was nothing Portia could take away to keep her from leaving.

“Gram, you can’t leave!”

Gram didn’t listen. She walked out the door, Portia following, pleading, “Gram, where are you going?”

But what Portia hadn’t expected was that her grandmother would stop abruptly underneath the suddenly stormy Texas sky and raise her hands high. Lightning came down like the crack of God’s hand, quick and reaching, striking Gram.

Shock, along with electricity, surged through Portia, knocking her off her feet like a rag doll thrown to the dirt by an angry child. Her blouse ripped at the shoulder, blood marking the white material like a brand.

The rest was a blur—people hurrying to them, the ambulance screaming into the yard. What stood out was that Portia knew she was responsible. If only she hadn’t cooked the meal. If only she had set the table for two instead of one. If only she hadn’t allowed her grandmother to walk out the door. If only she had never had even a glimpse of the knowing.

But if onlys didn’t change anything. Gram was gone, all because of a meal Portia hadn’t even begun to understand but had prepared.

Standing in the dirt lot, The Glass Kitchen behind her, Portia promised herself she wouldn’t cook again.

A month later, she married Robert, then began shaping herself into the perfect Texas politician’s wife, erasing everything she could of herself until she was a blank slate of polite smiles and innocuous conversation. She slammed the lid shut on the knowing.

And became normal.

THE SOUND OF TRAFFIC woke Portia.

Minutes ticked by before she realized where she was. New York City, on the Upper West Side, in the garden apartment of Great-aunt Evie’s old town house, three years after her wedding, a month after her divorce from Robert Baleau.

Portia rolled over, covering her head with the pillow.

For the last three years, she had closed the door on visions of food until she had practically forgotten her unnerving ability was there. She’d worked hard to be like everyone else.

To be normal.

She groaned into the pillow. The only way she could be called normal was if normal meant stupid, not to mention naive. Why hadn’t she realized that her husband didn’t want her anymore? Why hadn’t she figured out that the only real reason he wanted her at all was to make him seem more appealing to voters? More than that, why hadn’t she known he would be so callous in getting rid of her after he’d come home and told her he wanted a divorce?

Not long after Robert had secured his place in politics, the supposedly good Christian politican developed a wandering eye, or maybe just gave in to it. Naturally, she had been the last to hear the whispers. But what she definitely hadn’t heard until after the divorce papers were set in front of her was that the real reason he needed a divorce was because he had gotten one of his aides pregnant.

When the surprisingly quick divorce came through, she had fled Texas in a storm of devastation and betrayal, finding herself shipwrecked on the island of Manhattan, with nothing more than the two hastily packed suitcases and her grandmother’s cherished Glass Kitchen cookbooks—thrown in even though she didn’t want them.

Rolling back over, she tossed the pillow aside. She had arrived in New York City a month ago, but she had been in Great-aunt Evie’s town house only since late last night, using an old key she had kept on her key chain. Before Evie had died, she had divided the town house up into three apartments, two of which she had rented out for income. Upon her death, one apartment had gone to each of the sisters.

Cordelia and Olivia had sold their floors. Before the divorce, Robert had wanted to sell her floor, too, with the garden out back, but she had never signed the contract. Thank God. While she was having a hard time imagining herself living in New York City, she wasn’t crazy. Staying in Texas, where Robert and his pregnant new wife had already started to rule her world, was an awful thought. Here in New York, she had something of her own. Everything was going as well as could be expected, given that her bank account was nearly as bare as Great-aunt Evie’s kitchen cupboards.

The early morning air in New York was far cooler than it would have been in Texas, especially in the ancient bathroom, where the windows barely shut out the chilly gusts. Portia braced her hands on the old-fashioned sink, looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were still a deep violet blue, but the circles beneath them hinted at the stress that kept her awake at night. A year ago, she’d had sensibly cut, shoulder-length blond hair—perfect for a Texas politician’s wife—tamed by a blow-dryer, hair spray, and a velvet headband. She scoffed. She’d been a cliché of big hair, sure, but what was she now? An even bigger cliché of the wronged wife kicked out of her own bed by her husband and the ex–best friend whom she herself had convinced Robert to hire as an aide. As her life spiraled out of control, so had her hair, growing and curling as it had when she was a child.

She turned on the old-fashioned spigot, the pipes clanging before spitting out a gush of water that she splashed on her face. Then she froze when her head filled with images of cake, thick swirls of buttercream frosting between chocolate layers. Her breath caught, her fingers curling around the sink edge. It had been three whole years since she’d been hit by images of food. But she knew the images were real—or would be if she allowed the knowing to take over.

She shook her head hard. She was normal now. The knowing was in the past. She hadn’t done so much as toast a slice of bread in the last three years.

But the feeling wouldn’t leave her alone, and with a groan she realized that the knowing was back, as if her move to New York, to this town house, had chiseled away every inch of normalcy she had cobbled together.

The images swirled through her. She needed to bake. Cake. A layered chocolate cake. With vanilla buttercream frosting.

The images were as clear as four-color photos from a coffee table book on baking. She could taste the mix of vanilla, butter, and cream whipped into a sugar frosting as if she had spooned it into her mouth. The chocolate smelled so real that a chill of awareness ran along her skin, pooling in her fingertips. She itched to bake.

But the last thing she needed in her life right now was to contend with something else she couldn’t control.

She fought harder, but another bit of knowing hit. It wasn’t just baking. She needed to cook, too. A roast.

She pressed one of her great-aunt’s threadbare white towels to her face, resisting the urge. She had devoted the last three years to being the perfect wife. She had let her grandmother’s Glass Kitchen go, closing the doors for good and selling the property for next to nothing to a developer who only wanted the land, splitting the money with her sisters. Her job had been to be at her husband’s side at any function. Given that she had signed a prenuptial agreement, and with the meager settlement Robert had yet to pay her, she barely had two pennies to rub together. The last thing she needed to do was to waste money preparing a big meal. But the need wouldn’t let go, and with a shudder gasp she gave in completely, the last of her crumbling walls coming down. Flowers, she realized. She needed flowers, too.