The Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club by Julia Slavin

Author:Julia Slavin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504048620
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

Pudding

I made it from scratch. I melted the chocolate, beat in the egg, and stirred over low heat with a wooden spoon until it thickened, just how my mother would make it. What a lovely idea, I thought, homemade pudding for my family.

“It’s got scum on the top,” our son Phin says.

“I’ll peel it off for you.”

“It tastes a little weird, hon,” my husband Dan says quietly.

Phin leaves the table, slouching defiantly over a frame that seems too small to hold up his newly developed man’s shoulders.

“Why can’t we have a normal dessert?” our daughter Miranda asks. “Like Pepperidge Farm cookies.”

I tell her Pepperidge Farm cookies are expensive. And they get eaten too quickly.

“That’s what cookies are for,” Miranda says. “They’re for eating.”

“What about you, Anastasia?” I ask. “Do you like the pudding?”

Anastasia is three, with an advanced sense of empathy. She is as concerned with not hurting anyone’s feelings as she is with not taking sides, and now I’ve put her on the spot. She holds her spoon tightly in her fist. Her eyebrows pucker. Her breathing quickens.

“Well? Do you?”

“I don’t like pudding,” Dan says, as we’re cleaning up the kitchen. “Instant or regular. I never have.” He wraps leftover tacos, one at a time, for the kids’ lunches. I deposit the plates in the dishwasher and decant the pudding into a clear storage bowl. “What have I done that’s so wrong?” he asks.

I take over making the lunches, polishing apples and dropping packs of raisins in each bag. Miranda will forget to take hers and have to borrow money, and Phin won’t be seen carrying a lunch bag.

“It’s a bowl of chocolate pudding, for Chrissakes.” Dan is unable to get off the subject. “Who gives a good goddamn?”

We crash into each other in the narrow part of the kitchen and I drop the bowl. The pudding hits the floor with a slap. We watch the viscid mixture quiver on the white linoleum. The bowl is still rattling under the center island as I leave the kitchen.

“Who’s going to clean up the pudding?” Dan calls after me. “If you think it’s me, the answer’s like hell I am.” I head up the stairs. “Well?” I won’t answer. “Fine, let it grow legs and walk out on its own.”

I close the door of the study. Dan goes out on the deck to smoke.

Pulling up to our house, an expanded Cape Cod in Edge-moor, fills me with deep satisfaction. Especially now while it’s still light when I come home from work. Dan’s left the Caravan in the driveway instead of pulling into the garage, so I park the Volvo on the street and sit and take in our yard for a little while. The tulips we planted in October are up—the Lilac Perfections, the Burgundy Lace—and Anastasia’s paper whites are doing well by the boxwood.

I hear someone playing the piano as I stroll up the front walk. Through the kitchen window I see the table set for dinner with the Bennington pottery, and Dan is cooking.

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.