Read Online Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times by Suzan Colón - Free Book Online Page B

or just a Sunday when we hadn’t seen each other in a while. Leg of lamb, or pot roast, or meatloaf—whatever the main dish, there were always mashed potatoes to go with it. (There is no memory of vegetables.) Here is my mother checking the lamb, smiling as she tastes a carved-off bite, while Grandpa’s strong arms work the potatoes. The kitchen is tiny, not much counter space, so the potato pot is in the sink.
    Another time, Aunt Midge brings Grandpa a glass of scotch, only she doesn’t know it should be two fingers in a tumbler, and she’s brought him a whole wineglass full of it. The adults erupt in laughter as Midge slowly, carefully brings the filled-to-the-rim glass to her father. “Well,
this
is going to be a happy birthday!” jokes my uncle Chick. I don’t understand why the grown-ups are nearly crying with laughter now, but my cousins Tommy and Sue and I giggle along anyway.
    Uncle Eddie laughs so hard he chokes on the sweet smoke from his apple pipe tobacco. This was before hegot Alzheimer’s and forgot everyone but Aunt Midge, forgot even that he smoked, before his long Irish clay pipe would gather dust in their basement. “You okay there, Pop?” asks my cousin Richard, who reminds me of Robin Hood in the old movie I watch on my grandparents’ black-and-white TV.
    And there is Aunt Marie in the kitchen, a long cigarette at her lips, listening to Nana tell a story about the farm—the one about the cow who never missed an opportunity to relieve herself on the threshold of the barn door. Nana mimics the giant step Grandpa had to take over the doorway, and Marie laughs and wipes mascara-stained tears from her cheeks. A few years later, Marie would get a blinding headache one night, and then she would be gone.
Just like that
, Grandpa would say sadly, with a snap of his fingers. I learned early on to appreciate people while they were in front of me. As time went by, we mashed fewer pounds of potatoes.
    And a couple of years after Nana died, there is someone new mashing potatoes in the kitchen: Doris, my grandfather’s new girlfriend. She has a loud
ho-ho-ho!
laugh and blond hair she wears pinned up like Betty Grable. She tries to teach mehow to make biscuits one day. “It’s easy,” she says, trying to coax me over as she breaks eggs into the flour. But I won’t go to her; I pout and frown, close but distant. She is not my nana, never will be. Mom is almost as bad as I am, polite but not warm. In the wake of Nana’s death, we ache so much that we inflict pain.
    “She’s gotten under my skin,” Grandpa says apologetically, as though it was his duty to us to remain alone. He coughs loudly and longer than usual. His emphysema, a souvenir from being gassed in the First World War, has gotten worse, and his plan is to move back to Florida with Doris. Mom and I disapprove, and we will feel ashamed about this when Grandpa dies a little while before he and Doris are set to begin their new life together.
    • • •
    “I have a potato masher,” Nathan says as he helps me unpack my boxes.
    “I know,” I tell him.
    “Mine is newer,” he says. “Do we really need two potato mashers?”
    I look at the utensil in my hand, and the sparkle from my engagement ring flashes brightly next to the dull, scratched silver of the masher’s handle.
    “I’ll see your new potato masher,” I say, “and I’ll raise you an old one.”



9

HAPPY WIFE, HAPPY LIFE

Butter Cookies
    1 stick and ½ of butter
    1½ cups of flour
    1 egg
    1 teaspoon of vanilla
    1 cup of light brown sugar
    ¾ teaspoon of baking soda
    A pinch of salt
    Sift the baking soda with the flour and the salt. Get egg and sugar and beat until light. Have butter at room temperature and add to the egg, sugar, and vanilla. Add the flour. You may also add ½ cup of coarse walnuts
.
Divide into two parts and roll in wax paper. Keep in freezer overnight
.
    Slice and bake 10 to 12 minutes. 350 degrees. Makes about 4 dozen
.
    • • •
    During our wedding