The Christmas Table (Christmas Hope #10) - Donna VanLiere Page 0,6
hold the sifter and I will put flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and…” She reads the recipe again to make sure she’s grabbing everything. “Salt!” She measures each ingredient into the sifter and helps Gigi hold it while she turns the handle, sifting the ingredients into a bowl. “So far, so good!” Joan says, reassuring herself. When she smells the pecans, she opens the oven door and gives them a quick stir before closing it again.
“The bee-annas look bad,” Gigi says, pointing.
“According to Grandma, that will make them taste really yummy.” Joan combines the eggs and the sugar, and Gigi stirs the mixture as Joan adds the oil and vanilla. Reading from the card again, Joan pulls out a potato masher from a drawer and begins mashing the pineapple.
Gigi reaches for another piece. “I love this apple pie!”
Joan laughs. “Pineapple!” She adds the crushed pineapple to the batter and when the timer goes off, she runs to the oven, pulling out the pecans. “Ugh. They look too dark.” She sighs. “Please don’t be ruined.” She sets the timer for another five minutes for the bananas.
“Who are you talking to, Mommy?”
“The pecans.”
“I don’t think they can hear you.”
Joan sets the pan down on a hot pad, laughing. “Well, if they can, I’m hoping they will cooperate.” She stirs the batter just until everything is incorporated; she is sure not to overstir, just as her mother cautioned on the recipe. After pouring some pecans into the top of the nut grinder, she lets Gigi turn the handle. Christopher reaches up, wanting to help, and Gigi sets the grinder on the floor in front of him so he can turn the handle, too.
“He can’t do it,” Gigi says, disappointed or flabbergasted at her brother.
“Put your hand on top of his,” Joan says, pulling the bananas from the oven. “This just seems so wrong to do to these. They’re black.” She uses a knife and fork to open the peels and then scoops the mushy bananas into a bowl, where she mashes them with the potato masher. In order to complete the batter, Joan asks if she can finish crushing the pecans and takes the nut crusher from Gigi and Christopher, making him cry. She adds the bananas and one cup of the nuts to the batter and stirs it with a spatula.
“Looks like vomit,” Gigi says, squinching up her face.
Joan agrees but knows if she says it out loud that Gigi will never try a bite. “Oh, this is just part of this cake’s walk. Wait till you see what the cake looks like at the end of its journey!” Joan lifts the recipe card again, realizes she forgot to prepare the pans, and groans, wondering if she’ll ever get the hang of cooking.
May 2012
Lauren waits inside the small patient room at the walk-in clinic and flips through the same magazine she’s been reading for the last thirty minutes. When she hears someone opening the door, she looks up to see Debra, the physician assistant who was helping her earlier. “Your urine test results came back,” Debra says, leaning up against the exam table, smiling. “You’re pregnant.”
Lauren’s face drops. “What?”
“Pregnant.”
“Pregnant.” Lauren says the word as if she’s trying to pronounce it for the first time.
“Is this good news?”
Lauren shakes her head as if rattling it so an answer will spill out. “I guess! I mean, yes! We just didn’t plan it.” She looks down at the floor and back up at Debra. “I thought it was food poisoning! Then I thought I had a virus! Did you suspect that I was pregnant when I came in here?”
Debra chuckles. “Do you know how many women I’ve asked if there’s any chance they’re pregnant who have said, just like you, ‘Nope. Not possible’? With the kind of symptoms you had, I knew it was a good possibility, but we always need to make sure.”
Lauren leans her head back against the wall. “I actually think Andrea knew before me!”
“Who’s Andrea?”
“A woman I just met a few days ago. She must think I’m a dope.”
Debra laughs and hands Lauren a prescription for prenatal vitamins. “If you don’t have an ob-gyn, I can recommend some for you.”
Lauren looks down at the prescription. She’s pregnant. There’s a baby growing inside of her, and she’s her mother. Or his mother! The thought terrifies and exhilarates her as she slips the prescription into her purse.
FIVE
May 2012
Travis is using a Weed Eater around each pine tree that was planted in October on the