The Parting Glass by Gina Marie Guadagnino

Author:Gina Marie Guadagnino
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

* * *

Having spent the days after my altercation with Johnny at the Hibernian, I forbore to take my night off the first Thursday following my return. Instead, I spent the evening sitting quietly in the kitchen with a cup of tea while Mrs. Freedman told me stories about her girlhood and mixed dough for the next day’s baking. Meandering, good-natured stories, commonplace and comforting, sprinkled generously with advice on culinary technique. She reminded me of Da, training a skittish yearling: her low tones soothing. She talked of everything and nothing, interrupting her own tales to remark upon the ingredients she was adding, or the proper technique for kneading, before resuming as though she had never digressed. The table was covered in a fine dusting of flour, which was liberally smudged on her cheeks and apron. She drew absently in the flour dust, abstract spiral patterns that called to my mind the carvings you might see sometimes on the old monument stones back home in Ireland. As she went on drawing and erasing, her voice rising and falling, I felt lulled into the comfort of Mrs. Freedman’s kitchen, and when my head began to nod, she shook me gently by the shoulder and sent me up to bed.

The following Thursday, Charlotte abed for the night, I made my way down the stairs to the kitchen. Mrs. Freedman, who was assembling the ingredients for her baking, looked up as I descended.

“You all finished for the night?” she asked. I nodded assent. “Then you best dress warm. The breeze’s picked up again, and you don’t want to catch a chill so soon after you’ve recovered.”

I lingered at the bottom of the stair, my hands behind my back, pressed against the wall. “I wasn’t so sure I’d go out tonight,” I said, almost shyly. “If it’s getting breezy again.”

Mrs. Freedman turned to look at me, her hands on her hips. “I didn’t peg you for the type who’d let a little breeze stand in her way. It’s all well and good to rest up when you’re needing rest, but if you let every stir of air keep you in the house, when you do finally set yourself outside again, you’ll be blown off course. Not,” she said, as I bit my lip, “that I mind your company. But you’re too young to hang about my kitchen for fear of what you’ll find if you head out-of-doors. Now, don’t you think that aunt of yours must be missing you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, fetching my cloak.

“Then there’s biscuits in the basket on the table, and a bottle of buttermilk for your aunt besides.” She raised her brows at me. “And you see you get that basket back to me tomorrow morning, hear?”

“Yes, Mrs. Freedman.”

“Young Frank is off down to Broadway later, if you’ve a mind to wait for him,” the cook said carefully. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind escorting you as far as Houston if you’re minded to the company.”

God help me, but I actually

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.