“That’s at the heart of cooking,” he said, nodding.
Before long the entire thing was fully dressed, and it was bright red with fresh tomato slices and lots of white pieces of fresh mozzarella and fresh green basil leaves.
“It looks lovely,” she said.
He grabbed the salt and pepper, and then, for good measure, he tossed some parmesan all over the top. Afterward he said, “Now, this can rest like it is for a while, or we can put it into the oven right away, but, either way, we’ll need to heat it up.”
“The oven might still be a little warm from the cake,” she said. He walked over and turned it up to the temperature he wanted.
“Generally pizzas need high heat,” he said, “so we’ll put it up over 400 degrees because I think this one of yours runs a bit hot. I also brought some beer, and, if you don’t mind, I’ll put a couple in the fridge to get cold.”
She nodded. “It’s not like any were left from when the deck work was done.”
“Nope, and you can’t really expect guys who are working hard to leave any beer behind.”
“So does that mean you’ll be working hard tonight?”
“Heck no,” he muttered. “I need some time off. But beer and pizza are too good to pass up.”
When he had the beer in the fridge, he looked at the cake and then at her expectantly.
She shrugged and said, “Well, you showed me how to make pizza, so sure.”
He went and carefully cut himself a slice, poured a large glass of water, and together they went outside. They were only out there for a few minutes, when he heard the buzzer on the oven go off, saying it was up to temperature.
“Wow,” he said, “that preheat was fast. Let’s get that pizza in.” He walked back into the kitchen.
She traipsed behind and watched as he put it into the oven on a big hot stone he’d been heating in the oven. “Where’d that stone thing come from?”
“It’s one I saved for you out of Nan’s stuff.”
“Wow, I wouldn’t have known it was there.”
“Well, I remembered it,” he said. He closed the oven door and said, “Now we can go relax for a bit.”
“How long?”
“It’s a fairly thin crust, and everything else is more or less cooked,” he said, “so we’ll give it twenty to thirty minutes.”
She nodded and said, “Perfect. I believe I could be hungry by then.”
“Well, if you’re not,” he said, with an evil grin, “I’ve probably got room for your share too.”
She just snorted and said, “That’s not happening.”
“I was just pulling your chain anyway,” he said, as he headed out to sit on the one rocker she had on deck. “I’ll just close my eyes here for a bit. Oh, yeah,” he said, “I almost forgot.” Reaching into his pocket, he handed over a small roll of cash. “Here’s the money from doing Mom’s garden.”
She smiled and said, “Thank you. I’ll go put this in the bowl, if you don’t mind.” He nodded, and she walked back in and headed upstairs to where she now kept the bowl. As she put the money in it, she noted another roll and frowned. “Where on earth did that come from?”
She picked it up and removed the little elastic band around it. She quickly unrolled it and counted to find exactly twelve $100 bills. She stared at it in shock for a moment, and then she knew.
“Oh, Nan,” she said. Earlier today, when Nan had disappeared to go to the bathroom, it had taken a little longer than usual. Now Doreen knew why. She picked up her phone, called Nan, and, when she couldn’t reach her grandmother, Doreen left a message. “Thank you for the gift, sweetie. It is very much appreciated.”
She pocketed her phone and raced back to Mack. When she stepped outside again, he was sitting back with his eyes closed, gently snoring away. She stopped where she was, wondering if she should wake him, but then he’d probably had a pretty rough day, and maybe he needed the sleep. Deciding that she’d leave him for a little bit, she walked down to the garden and checked on her flowers. She hadn’t spent any time in her own garden, and it was starting to show. She bent down to pull off dead flowers from the marigolds and the petunias.
She quickly walked back inside, grabbed her gloves and a bucket, and got to work. The movement hurt her shoulder for the first few minutes, then eased back. Smelling pizza, a good fifteen minutes later, she got up and went into the kitchen and opened the oven. Immediately steam poured out. But the pizza was golden and melty and looked delicious. She frowned, wondering if this was long enough. She went back out and gently touched him on the shoulder. “Hey, Mack?”
Immediately he opened his eyes and stared up at her in confusion, blinked several times, then hopped to his feet. “The pizza?”
She nodded. “It hasn’t been as long as you said, but it looks pretty good, at least as far as I can see,” she said, with a shrug.
He took note of the gardening gloves in the bucket on the lawn and asked, “Have you been working?”
“I wanted to let you sleep,” she said, “and I haven’t had any time to work on my own garden for a while.”
He nodded and stepped into the kitchen. He took the pizza out, looked it over, checked the bottom of the crust, and said, “You’re right. It is ready.”
He quickly turned off the oven, and using a cutting board he got from the nearby cabinet, he brought out the pizza stone itself and transferred the pizza to the board, setting the stone back in the oven.
She smiled at the pizza and said, “That looks absolutely delicious.”
“It will be too, but it’s way too hot to eat yet. So, if you want to finish off whatever you were doing for a few minutes,” he said, “feel free.”
She nodded and skipped down the deck steps, her heart light, as she returned to pulling the dead blossoms off the flower bushes. At some point, he stood behind her, studying the garden. “Problems?” she asked, turning to look up at him from down on her knees.
“Did you do any of this thing when you were married?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I directed a bunch of gardeners to do it for me instead,” she said. “Sometimes my knees wish I had that option back again.”
He burst out laughing. “I imagine they do,” he said. “You can get knee pads, you know?”
She looked at him in surprise. “Knee pads?”
He nodded. “To protect your knees, when you’re working in the garden.”
“Well, I wish I’d known that,” she said in exasperation. She slowly stood, wincing as she straightened out her legs. “I need to get in here and do a bunch of weeding. I never did get anything else done, outside of all those plants I was given. I never had a chance to put anything else in here.”
“What about my mother’s garden?”
“I got a bunch from her,” she said, pointing out some of the plants along the garden. “And the grass needs to be mowed.”
“I can do that after dinner,” he said. She looked at him in surprise. He shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I do Mom’s anyway,” he said. “I rarely have time to do my own though.”