The Accidentals(29)

“Let’s adjust the rack…” Alice opens the oven. “Oh, heavens!” From inside she pulls a cardboard box. It reads: Accessories.

“Oh,” I gulp. It’s lucky that Alice had found that box. “I almost started a fire.”

Alice tosses the box on the countertop. Then she puts her head in her hands and laughs. “He’s never used his oven.” She looks up at the ceiling as if addressing him upstairs. “You are such a child, Frederick.” She laughs again, and then tears leak from her eyes.

Of course there’s no mixer. “We’ll just have to mash it with a fork,” Alice announces. “It will take some muscle.”

“I have a trick,” I offer.

Alice waits with liquid eyes.

“If you melt the butter first, it stirs together easily. But then you have to make bar cookies, because they spread.”

Alice hands me the butter. “I’m in your hands.”





The cookies cut from the edges of the pan are crisp, while the ones in the center are gooey. “We have rare, medium, and well done,” I say, choosing a soft one and taking a bite. “They’re good.”

Alice smiles. “Cheers!” She taps her cookie into mine. “You’re so skinny.”

“I’m not always hungry,” I admit. I’ve been on the lose-your-mother diet for over a month now, and it probably shows.

“Frederick eats irregular meals, I fear.”

“Actually, he eats plenty,” I say, defending him.

Alice shakes her head. “We can’t talk about him or I’ll burst.” She takes another bite, and then a sorrowful look comes over her face. “I’m so sorry about your mother, honey. I can’t even imagine.”

There’s a moment of silence while we chew.

“Rachel?” It’s Frederick’s voice, coming down the stairs.

I watch Alice’s expression harden.

“Something smells good.” He reaches the doorway and stops. “Mom.”

Alice’s mouth gets tense, but then her eyes fill with tears. “I’m so angry with you, Frederick.”

He leans on the door frame. “I know.” He looks beaten. But even as he stands there, his T-shirt askew, a few gray hairs glinting in the yellow kitchen light, he looks beautiful to me. It still shocks me every time he walks into the room.

“Frederick,” Alice says through her tears. “It’s not just your life! How could you?”

I hold my breath, because Alice has just asked the very thing that I’m afraid to.

But it doesn’t matter, because Alice doesn’t get an answer. “Where’s Dad?” he asks.

“I left him in Kansas City. Crying in front of the Royals game.”





Grandma Alice sleeps in Frederick’s room, forcing him onto the sofa.

“I’ll sleep downstairs,” I’d offered.

“Oh no you won’t,” Alice had replied.

Frederick didn’t even try to argue. In fact, he leaves us alone. When I get up the next morning, he isn’t home. Alice and I take ourselves out for brunch in Manhattan Beach. Then we poke into all the shops.

“Oh this! This is what we need.” Alice pushes open the door to a nail salon.

“Manicure pedicure?” asks a woman inside.

“Two, please.”

We’re soon seated side by side in pedicure chairs, with our feet in warm, soapy water. Until now, I’ve always considered the idea of paying someone else to paint my toenails a waste of money. As a technician massages my instep with skillful hands, I realize there’s a reason people pay for this.

“I’ve always found it easier to think with my feet in a tub of water.” Alice sighs.

“This is nice,” I agree. The pedicurist taps my foot, and I realize it’s a cue to remove it from the water. The woman rests my foot on the padded edge of the basin and begins buffing my toenails.

“Rachel, do you want to tell me about your mother? Only if you think you can.”

I take a deep breath and let it out. “Well, she was from Claiborne. But we moved to Orlando when I was two. She was a nurse at the hospital. On the pediatric ward…” I watch Alice’s widening eyes.

“A pediatric nurse.” She shakes her head. “That’s a tough job. She must have been a wonderful person.”

It buoys me to hear Alice say nice things about Mom. “She liked it most of the time. She said she never had to wonder whether her job made a difference or not.”

Grandma Alice puts a hand on mine. “That’s wonderful, Rachel. There aren’t many people who can say that. She must have seen some very sad things, though.”

It’s true. “One time the babysitter dropped me off at the hospital, because Mom and I were going somewhere together. And while I waited, I saw Mom give a white plaque to a crying woman.” I swallow. “When a child died at the hospital, one of my mom’s jobs was to make a plaster cast of…” I hold my own hands up, fingers splayed.

Alice dabs at her eyes.

“There were about a hundred nurses at her funeral,” I tell her as the manicurist pats my feet with a towel.

“It couldn’t have been easy,” Alice says. “Being a single mom.”