The Family Recipe

“I need you to take this to Grandma.”

With that instruction, Mom handed me a yellowed piece of paper, folded up in fourths. I unfolded it. There were stains on the page, maybe of water, or oil. The handwriting was in cursive and, admittedly, I could not read cursive. The words were loopy and even angling my head sideways and squinting didn’t result in them being anything other than squiggles.

Mom held the phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder. She talked to a friend as she diced vegetables for dinner on the cutting board. She was clearly too busy to handle the task herself.

I put it in my pocket.

I walked out the door and headed for Grandma’s house. The air was thick and heavy, burgeoning with the humidity that came with summer. It wasn’t quite summer break yet. I was only in eighth grade, and soon I would be in high school. The change somehow felt both too early and yet long awaited.

I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply. The air was pungent with jasmine and mint growing out of front yard gardens. I hummed something I’d listened to on the radio but couldn’t place the name of. Cars rolled past me and a dog barked in the distance. It was a perfect day. The kind in which memories were created, when families barbecued and played games.

The walk to Grandma’s wasn’t too terribly far. I pushed open the front gate of the three-foot-tall red fence surrounding her house. Her car wasn’t in the drive. I walked up the front steps, knocking. No one answered. The window was open, just a crack, so I walked out into the grass and slipped it through. The grass needed to be mowed. Maybe I would do that the next day after school. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and went home.

Mom was just settling the food on the table when I walked in. Dad sat there, the two conversing over their day. I sat before being scolded to wash my hands. When I came back, wiping them on the front of my pants, Mom stopped eating, brows scrunching as she looked at me.

“Where did you go?”

“What do you mean?”

“Earlier, you left. Where did you go?”

I frowned, “I went to Grandma’s, like you said?”

Her brows then shot up, a panic in her tone, “You walked to Edith’s house?”

“Yes?”

I was beginning to grow frustrated. Where else would I have gone?

She sprang out of her chair, grabbing the keys off the counter, “Was she home? She should still be at bingo.”

Dad’s words were muffled through his food, “What’s happening?”

“I told Jenny to take the bread recipe to her Oma but-” Her mother then gestured wildly, a desperation in her voice, “Was she home?”

My heart dropped into my stomach. The bread recipe.

There was Oma Ruth and Grandma Edith. Oma Ruth was Mom’s mom. Grandma Edit was Dad’s mom. She had wanted me to return the paper to Oma when she took me to my piano practice the next day. However, Mom said Grandma, so I took the recipe to Grandma Edith’s.

I was eager to defend myself, “We never call her grandma!”

“Jenny!”

The bread recipe was something that had been in the family for several generations. Oma Ruth had never once trusted my mother to borrow it. Apparently, she’d changed her mind. If Oma Ruth ever found out Grandma Edith got it, an entire fight would ensue. In an almost mystical way, Oma always found out.

“No, she wasn’t home! I slid it through her window.”

Dad looked down at his watch, “She’ll be on her way out of bingo by now.”

With that, Mom and I shared a look. One of wide-eyed panic. One of primal instincts. The kind you share right before you commit a small crime. Potentially trespass. Is it really trespass if you have a spare key?

We ran for the car. Mom rolled every stop sign and went ten miles over the limit. She slammed on the brakes as we saw, from down the street, Grandma pulling into the driveway.

Mom fixed me with a look, voice bordering on murderous, “We pull up to the house. We act like we’re stopping to say hello. When we get in there, you get that recipe, and neither of them ever finds out about this. Understood?”

I nodded, because I knew a single uttered word would get me in deep trouble. Even though it wasn’t my fault.

We got out quickly. We walked up.

“What’s my favorite girl doing here?”

Grandma was talking about me, not my mother, which always made my mother want to punch her mother-in-law in the throat. An understandable impulse. I smiled as she hugged me, but my heart was slamming. I was almost sure she could hear it.

Mom said, “We thought we’d stop by and see you.”

“It’s cold.” Grandma Edith headed for the door with her keys, even though it wasn’t at all chilly, “Have you both eaten? It’s dinnertime. What about Roger? Did you feed him?”

Mom spoke through a gritted teeth smile, “He’s a thirty-year-old man, but yes, I made dinner.”

We went inside. Mom followed her into the kitchen. I didn’t. The living room was right there. I looked at where the recipe would’ve fallen. Right on the couch.

Only, it wasn’t there. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The breeze must’ve blown it. I got down on my hands and knees, searching underneath furniture. The couch, the coffee table, the end table, the-

It was under the end table.

I pulled it out, just as I heard Grandma say, “Where’s Jenny?”

I plunged the recipe into my pocket just as she rounded the corner to see me on my hands and knees. She frowned.

“What are you doing?”

Her cat emerged from under the couch to rub up against me. Now, I was raised not to lie. But as my mother peered over my grandma’s shoulder, a fury in her eyes, I understood that sometimes in order to not have all your beloved electronics confiscated, you must lie. I opened my mouth, preparing to save my mother.

Grandma said, “If you wanted to pet the cat you could’ve gotten a treat. You know he loves those.”

I laughed nervously, “I will next time.”

We made it back to the car a half hour later. Mom exhaled, visibly deflating. I pulled out the paper and held it out to her. She took it. She pinched the bridge of her nose.

She said, “My Mutti would’ve killed me.”

German, for mom. Then, my mother looked at me. Her daughter. I smiled at her and bit down the words I wanted to say. I know the feeling. As mother and daughter, their relationship was tenuous. As mother and daughter, we had our bad days too. However, that day was a day of making memories. She knew what I was thinking, and unlike her mutti before her, she didn’t reprimand me.

She laughed.

The sound escaped me, and suddenly we were both gasping for breath. It was a delirious sound, but it was warm, and I was okay with that.