Thursday night. Worse, they had discovered the strawberries, which had arrived weeks late but now, finally, were just about ripe for the picking, and then ravaged the leaves on the raspberry bushes. This meant there would be no strawberry shortcake—or strawberry soup or strawberry smoothies or strawberry pasta—made with their very own strawberries while he was here this week, and there might be no raspberries ever this summer.
Spencer hadn’t anticipated a huge crop from the transplants this season, but he had expected enough for the family. And so now he was repressing his profound disappointment with food. With waffles.
Around him there was chaos: Mrs. Seton was telling her daughter that the girls’ suits had to be hanging outside on the line, but still no one could find Charlotte’s suitable Speedo (including Charlotte); John was emptying day-old coffee grounds from the stovetop percolator his mother had used since the Eisenhower administration into the paper grocery bag (already tearing at the bottom from something gooey and wet that had been deposited there the night before after dinner); and his nephew was howling like a police siren while Sara, reduced almost to despair, walked the baby back and forth in the living room. Willow, according to fast-developing family lore the only antidote in the world to a full-blown Patrick Seton tirade, was outside somewhere, searching with Charlotte for the missing swimsuit.
Spencer knew that if he focused on anything other than the physical act of cooking, he would become involved in the bedlam around him and grow angry. Angrier, actually: Already he was exasperated, maddened by the sheer disorganization, by the annoying way everyone was speaking at cross purposes, and (most certainly) by the mess.
Finally Willow appeared, rescuing her mother from her younger brother—a child who had been sobbing for so long with Sara that although he had stopped crying, he now had hiccups that were heart-wrenching—and Spencer was able to concentrate on breakfast. With a decided effort to be serene, he pulled up the top of the press, trimmed away the half-cooked stalactites of batter from the sides, and deposited onto an antique china plate a waffle at once so perfectly square, evenly browned, and supernaturally fluffy that it looked like it belonged in a gourmet cooking magazine. There was not a corner of this house that did not hold for him a memory of what it was like to be a teenager, away from home and college for the first time in his life, making real money—or what seemed like real money at the time—and spending his days hiking and swimming and hitting tennis balls with the lovely young woman he knew even then he would marry. Why, he told himself as he savored the sight of this oh-so-perfect waffle, should a little chaos here trouble him now?
Willow brought Patrick over to the plate on the counter and said to her brother, “This, little man, is what a waffle is supposed to look like. Pretty good, huh?”
The baby hiccupped then gurgled.
“Then this one has to be yours,” Spencer said. “I picked up some Soy-garine at the health food store on the way home from the club yesterday afternoon.”
“The waffles my parents make always pop out of the toaster, and they look like burnt toast,” she said.
“Please, enjoy it. Ask Charlotte if she’s ready for one, too, okay?”
The girl nodded, stepped around the dishwasher door that hung open like a shin-level metal shelf—a bruise-inducing ledge from another era—scooted past her grandmother, who was saying something about everyone’s lack of time if they wanted to get to the club at a decent hour, and called out the front door to her cousin.
JOHN STOOD in the lambent sun of the morning before the vegetable garden in his wing tips, holding a paisley necktie in his hands. He was relieved that he and Sara had planned on his going straight to work after breakfast on Monday, because it meant that he actually had a
Spencer hadn’t anticipated a huge crop from the transplants this season, but he had expected enough for the family. And so now he was repressing his profound disappointment with food. With waffles.
Around him there was chaos: Mrs. Seton was telling her daughter that the girls’ suits had to be hanging outside on the line, but still no one could find Charlotte’s suitable Speedo (including Charlotte); John was emptying day-old coffee grounds from the stovetop percolator his mother had used since the Eisenhower administration into the paper grocery bag (already tearing at the bottom from something gooey and wet that had been deposited there the night before after dinner); and his nephew was howling like a police siren while Sara, reduced almost to despair, walked the baby back and forth in the living room. Willow, according to fast-developing family lore the only antidote in the world to a full-blown Patrick Seton tirade, was outside somewhere, searching with Charlotte for the missing swimsuit.
Spencer knew that if he focused on anything other than the physical act of cooking, he would become involved in the bedlam around him and grow angry. Angrier, actually: Already he was exasperated, maddened by the sheer disorganization, by the annoying way everyone was speaking at cross purposes, and (most certainly) by the mess.
Finally Willow appeared, rescuing her mother from her younger brother—a child who had been sobbing for so long with Sara that although he had stopped crying, he now had hiccups that were heart-wrenching—and Spencer was able to concentrate on breakfast. With a decided effort to be serene, he pulled up the top of the press, trimmed away the half-cooked stalactites of batter from the sides, and deposited onto an antique china plate a waffle at once so perfectly square, evenly browned, and supernaturally fluffy that it looked like it belonged in a gourmet cooking magazine. There was not a corner of this house that did not hold for him a memory of what it was like to be a teenager, away from home and college for the first time in his life, making real money—or what seemed like real money at the time—and spending his days hiking and swimming and hitting tennis balls with the lovely young woman he knew even then he would marry. Why, he told himself as he savored the sight of this oh-so-perfect waffle, should a little chaos here trouble him now?
Willow brought Patrick over to the plate on the counter and said to her brother, “This, little man, is what a waffle is supposed to look like. Pretty good, huh?”
The baby hiccupped then gurgled.
“Then this one has to be yours,” Spencer said. “I picked up some Soy-garine at the health food store on the way home from the club yesterday afternoon.”
“The waffles my parents make always pop out of the toaster, and they look like burnt toast,” she said.
“Please, enjoy it. Ask Charlotte if she’s ready for one, too, okay?”
The girl nodded, stepped around the dishwasher door that hung open like a shin-level metal shelf—a bruise-inducing ledge from another era—scooted past her grandmother, who was saying something about everyone’s lack of time if they wanted to get to the club at a decent hour, and called out the front door to her cousin.
JOHN STOOD in the lambent sun of the morning before the vegetable garden in his wing tips, holding a paisley necktie in his hands. He was relieved that he and Sara had planned on his going straight to work after breakfast on Monday, because it meant that he actually had a
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