Lost Along the Way(35)

“No, there’s not,” Jane said, a familiar glint returning to her eye. “But I have a feeling there’s about to be.”

Jane and Cara headed east on the Long Island Expressway for the two-hour drive to the tip of Long Island. It took three hours to drive from Manhattan to Montauk if there was no traffic, and while it wasn’t quite as far as Jane would have liked to get from the city, it was a pretty good start. She lowered the window and let the cool air hit her face before she started fiddling with the radio, just like she used to when she rode shotgun in Cara’s car. The only difference was that now she struggled to find things to talk about. It seemed as good a time as any to try to get some answers.

“I know that I disappeared on you guys and everything, but now that I’m here, can you please tell me what the hell is going on?” Jane asked.

“What do you mean?” Cara replied.

“I know you know what happened between them. You have no poker face whatsoever. I can’t think of any reason on earth why the two of them would separate. None. She loved him more than anything in the world. Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t want to get into it.”

“Okay,” Jane said, tired of playing the will-you-or-won’t-you-tell-me game when they both knew Jane would make her crack. “This is stupid. I know you, and I know that part of you probably feels like you’re betraying Meg’s confidence by discussing it with me, but we’re on our way to her house and keeping secrets isn’t going to help anyone. Haven’t you learned that by now?”

“Fine,” Cara said. She paused briefly and then said quietly, “Meg can’t have children.” Jane was struck by her blunt delivery, but then figured that some things are impossible to sugarcoat.

“What do you mean? I remember she had two miscarriages, which is awful, but lots of women have a couple of them. Are you saying there’re more than the two I know about?”

“Yes. As far as I know, there’s nothing they can do to help her. Maybe things have changed . . . I don’t know . . . but I doubt it, if she left Steve. She tried everything, but nothing worked. My best guess is that the stress of it all became too much for her. It’s been chipping away at her for years. She wasn’t the same anymore. It broke my heart, to be honest.”

“I don’t even know what to say. Meg’s wanted kids for as long as I can remember. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for her to accept that it won’t ever happen.” Jane stared out the window for a minute and then fiddled with the radio again while she tried to process the information Cara had just given her. If her guess was accurate, then Meg would be devastated. It would explain why she left her marriage, but Jane still couldn’t figure out what it had to do with Cara. Finally, she asked. “I still don’t really understand why you guys aren’t talking anymore, though. What does that have to do with you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Jane. I really don’t,” Cara answered, a bit too aggressively.

“At some point you’re going to have to tell me. You can trust me. What did you fight about?”

“Everything and nothing.”

“Well, that’s specific. Thanks for clearing that up for me.”

“It’s complicated. Anyway, I’ve blocked out most of it.”

“Come on. Just tell me.”

“I don’t want to tell you. I’m not the one who started this pilgrimage for friendship atonement, you are. You’re too smart to have gotten wrapped up in a criminal investigation. I don’t understand how you let him drag you into his mess,” Cara said.

“Says the woman who’s explaining buying too much Uncle Ben’s to her husband. Do you really think you’re in a position to judge?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Me neither. If you don’t want to tell me what happened, do you want to talk about Reed?” she asked.

“Not even a little,” Cara answered.

“Okay then. I give up . . . for now.”

Jane turned up the volume on the stereo, and they rode the rest of the way in silence.





thirteen


Meg couldn’t remember when she’d started baking bread. She’d always enjoyed cooking and baking, much preferring to spend her time in the kitchen than anywhere else. In college she had a part-time job at a specialty foods store near campus where she learned about different kinds of cheese and imported coffee beans, and soon she discovered that food was her passion. She took an internship at a gourmet magazine the summer between her junior and senior years of college and immediately knew she never wanted to leave.

She started out as an editorial assistant and went to culinary school at night right after graduation. Now she spent most of her time testing recipes for the magazine, tweaking the spices or cooking time so that it worked best for home cooks. At some point over the past year, she’d begun to find the specific tactile nature of bread baking cathartic, and had asked her boss if she could focus on bread recipes that even a novice baker could master. She enjoyed the smell of the yeast as it fermented and worked its magic on the flour and water and sugar in a bowl, coming alive. It was chemistry that worked the way it should. She appreciated that dough required patience, time to rise, a warm environment, and a gentle hand to punch it down and reshape it and let it rise again. She loved that when it finally went into the oven it filled her entire house with comforting aromas that made her nostalgic for friendship and company. She hadn’t actually had company in a very long time, but somehow baking made her feel a little less alone.