Lauren extends her hand. “Thank you so much. Again, so sorry to bother you.”
He shakes his head. “No bother.” He smiles. “If it’s organic milk you’re wanting, Clauson’s and other grocery stores carry it.”
She smiles. “I’m actually not wanting the milk. I’m hoping Bud can help me find somebody.”
September 1972
Joan sits at the kitchen table and riffles through the recipe box filled with recipes from her mother. She is wearing a bright, multicolored scarf around her head; her arms are slender sticking out of her shirt and her fingers are bony, but she wants to cook. Friends and family have been so kind to bring meals to them following her surgery, but she can’t bear to look at one more casserole. She and John have secretly called the meals “hospital food,” because it was all given to them following her stay in the hospital and the thought of eating one more hospital meal nearly takes her appetite away. The surgery was nearly three weeks ago and little by little she is regaining strength and wants to cook again.
When she first came home, Gigi and Christopher would play atop her bed or on the floor of her bedroom to be near her. As Joan’s strength returns, she lies on the sofa as the children play in the living room, drifting in and out of sleep. Each day before work and before going to bed each evening, John sits on the edge of the bed and holds Joan’s hand. “Thank you, God, for what you’re doing inside Joan’s body today,” he says. “Thank you for making her strong.” She still isn’t sure what to think about this, but it can’t hurt, and John seems to believe in a way that she can’t quite wrap her mind around.
She finds a recipe for white chicken chili, one of her favorites as a child growing up, and begins to look over the card. How we all love this white chicken chili! Her mother wrote. Remember the trip we took out west one summer and we ordered this at a restaurant that exclaimed, “Voted best white chicken chili ten years in a row!” You finished your bowl and said, “The people who voted for this obviously don’t have any taste buds. Yours is much better, Mom!” How many meals did we eat around our kitchen table together? How many arguments did we get in? How many tears did we wipe off our cheeks from laughing? How many problems did we solve? I can’t imagine what our lives would’ve been like without those mealtimes. No matter what you’re going through, always come back to the table with your family.
Tears fill Joan’s eyes as she reads her mother’s writing, and she sighs with the disappointment in not taking an interest in cooking until a few months earlier. Christopher is too young to remember this time in the kitchen with her, but will Gigi? She looks over her shoulder and calls, “Kids, do you want to help me cook?” She can hear Gigi rustling to her feet in the living room.
“Are you cooking today, Mommy?” The little girl asks, looking at her from the hallway.
Joan holds up the recipe card. “White chicken chili!”
Gigi runs to the kitchen and Christopher toddles after her. “Are you feeling better?” Gigi asks, putting her hands on her mom’s leg and looking up at her.
Joan squeezes Gigi’s cheeks, kissing her forehead and then Christopher’s. “Just thinking about your grandma’s white chicken chili makes me feel better!”
“Mommy?” Gigi’s face is turned up and her eyes are wide.
“Yeah, babe?”
“Can you breathe?”
Joan smiles. “Can I breathe? I’m talking to you, so that means I’m breathing.”
“But is your breathing in half? And will it go down all the way someday?”
Joan realizes what Gigi is asking and pulls her close to her. “I will say that breathing feels different from what I’m used to, and I probably won’t be running any marathons, but that’s okay because I hate running anyway, but I’m breathing just fine.”
“And white chicken chili helps?”
“It helps and your dad helps, and you and Christopher especially help!”
Gigi smiles, wrapping her arms around her mom.
SIXTEEN
September 2012
After Lauren picks up the paperwork for the free condo rental in Florida for the Glory’s Place fund-raiser, she makes her way to the Herman farm, hoping to remember the directions. She turns left at the flashing caution light and slows down when she sees what remains of a large corn crop. Turning in to the drive, she wonders again if all of this is worth it. No dog greets her here and no one seems to be home when she knocks on the front door. She walks down the stairs of the porch and around the house, toward the barns on the property, waving when she sees a man carrying a bucket of tools.
“Hiya!” he says, setting the bucket down.
Lauren picks up her pace to get closer to him. “Are you Jim?”
“I am,” he says. He looks to be around forty-five with a stocky frame and blond, brush-cut hair. “What can I do for you?”
She stops when she’s a couple of feet away from him. “I’m hoping to find a dairy farmer named Bud.”
Jim shakes his head and his mouth turns down as he thinks. “I don’t know a Bud. A dairy farmer?”
She nods. “I think so.”
He keeps shaking his head as if the name or face will come to him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know him. But if you want fresh milk, we do sell it.”
Lauren smiles. “I’d love to buy some!”
He leads her to a small white building with a few refrigerators inside. “Two percent or whole?”
She thinks for a second. “One of each. I want to make yogurt again and use fresh, farm milk this time.”
He pulls a gallon of each from the refrigerator and sets them on a table. “Ten dollars.” She hands him the money and he turns back to the refrigerator, pulling out a Ziploc bag of shucked corn. “For you. On the house, or … on the farm.”
She reaches for the bag. “Thanks so much!”
He looks at her. “Does Bud sell something other than milk that you’re looking for?”
“I’m actually hoping he can help me find somebody.”
He lifts both gallons of milk off the table and walks with her to her car. “I can ask my wife when she gets home. Her family has been here forever. If she’s ever heard of him, I can let you know.”
Lauren writes her phone number on a piece of scrap paper she finds in her car and adds, “If you lose that, you can just call Glory’s Place and ask for the pregnant lady.”
“Will do,” Jim says, handing the gallons of milk to her. “And congratulations! We have four.”
“I’m not sure I can handle one, let alone four,” Lauren says, closing her car door.
“You’ll be amazed what you can do,” he says.
“Thanks for the corn!” she says as she turns her car around in the driveway.
Arriving home, Lauren removes a Ziploc bag of chicken pieces she had rubbed with spices and refrigerated that morning. She places the chicken pieces on a plate and picks up the recipe card, reading the ingredients for white barbecue sauce. Lauren reads the recipe: Our friend June in Alabama gave me this recipe when your dad and I were first married. It’s delicious on these grilled chicken pieces, pulled pork, even as sauce for coleslaw. When you find something you love, you stick with it. Guess that explains why your dad and I are still married! This is just exceptionally yummy! Lauren smiles reading the words and opens a cabinet to find the mayonnaise.