Stay Sweet(63)

She only opens one box herself, one marked Serving Pieces. Inside is a sterling silver tea set, each tarnished piece cloaked in dark felt.

It takes only fifteen minutes before Grady finds the ice cream maker in a box labeled Antiques 3. It’s a heavy wooden bucket with a cap that is clamped on. A white crank handle is attached to the top, and though the mechanisms are likely old, they still spin with ease.

Grady gives it a shake. Inside they hear papers fluttering around.

He holds on to the base while Amelia unscrews the cap. At the bottom they find a wedding card.

Dear Pat and Diana,

I hope you’ll forgive a spinster for sharing some unsolicited advice on your wedding day, but this saying (a favorite of my father’s) has proven itself true for me, time and time again.

The fruits of hard work are sweeter than the sweetest of nectars.

Though life may not always be easy, it still can be plenty sweet.

With love,

Aunt Molly

Folded up in the card is one oversaturated paper photocopy, the contrast turned up so high that every wrinkle and fold on the original casts a deep shadow on its duplicate. Just like the ancient photocopier at the Sand Lake Public Library, Amelia thinks. Four index cards have been copied onto the page, with Molly’s handwritten ingredient amounts for her commercial machine. Not that it says so explicitly, but Amelia can tell by the measurements, which Molly has annotated in pencil, sizing them down for the hand-cranked ice cream maker.

Where are those cards? Still in the house somewhere? How could they have missed them?

There are no step-by-step instructions. That’s okay, though, because Amelia’s played around with the machine and read enough other recipes to know. She can see exactly how her experiments fell short. In Molly’s vanilla, she used less white sugar and more of the barley syrup the vanilla beans are soaked in, which Amelia thought was used only to preserve them. Amelia came closest with the proportions of the chocolate, though she never allowed it to cure for the correct amount of time in the batch chiller. Amelia’s attempts at strawberry were way off.

Her heart catches when she sees the card for Home Sweet Home.

Wild honeysuckle flowers, at least three handfuls, steeped overnight in cream

And it’s as if the secret is now in her mouth, making immediate and absolute sense. Sweet, floral, like honey, but milder. All the honeysuckle growing wild in the old cow pastures.

It’s the taste of home.

Amelia feels euphoric, but Grady is somewhere on the other end of the spectrum. It’s as if all the adrenaline that propelled him this far tonight has burned off, run dry. He leans against a stack of boxes and gives a deep exhale.

She steps closer to him, puts her hand on his arm. “Do you want to stay awhile? Look through . . .”

He closes the boxes and begins to stack them back up carefully. Amelia helps. “I could just leave it a mess, he’d never know I came in here,” he says. But he continues to straighten them anyway.

“If you told him, would he be mad?”

“I honestly don’t care.”

She’s not sure what she prefers—Grady’s desperate need for his dad’s affection, or this sudden icy detachment. Hopefully the latter is just temporary, a response to emotions being so raw. Amelia would hate to think she played any role in breaking a family apart.

Grady shuts the door to the room, turns off the lights in the house. Amelia slips her shoes back on at the door.

He must have so much going through his mind right now. But he doesn’t share any of it.

*

Grady slides from one lane to the other and back again. Whichever lane they pick goes slower than the other. Holiday traffic. He lays on the horn.

It’s a little after eight o’clock and they are barely halfway to Sand Lake.

Amelia’s phone battery is almost gone. She tries sending a text to Cate, letting her know they’re on their way back, but stuck in traffic. It dies in the middle.

Grady fiddles with the dial. Nothing comes in super clear on the old Cadillac radio, and the scratchiness gives the music a sort of faraway sound. Amelia tells herself not to fall asleep. Falling asleep is the worst thing you can do to a driver on a long road trip.

*

“Amelia.”

She is curled up next to him. She sits up, slides over to her side of the front seat. They are finally back in Sand Lake. It’s nearing midnight.

“Oh no!” Amelia says, breathless.

“Where do you want me to drop you off?” Grady asks.

She shows him the way.

The headlights shine in the trees, the car rocking over the sandy path, evergreen branches scraping at the sides. Amelia keeps waiting to see the back bumper of a parked car. Cate’s truck, or one of the other girls. But it stretches, empty, all the way to the water.

Amelia climbs out. She can see where they built the fire. It’s died out, just a pile of ash. The sand is smoothed from blankets, and there are shreds of colorful papers from fireworks lit and exploded.

Grady’s out of the car. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry. I drove as fast as I could.”

“I know you did.” Amelia presses her lips together. This isn’t Grady’s fault. Amelia made the choice to go with him. She will have to deal with the consequences.

“Should I take you home?”

Amelia nods. “But I need to make a quick stop first.”