this with your parents?” she asked.
“My father is very independent, just like you, I suppose,” I said. “I learned a long time ago not to try to tell him what to do. It just irritates him, and it usually doesn’t make any difference what I say anyway.”
“See,” she poked Michael in the side. “She’s smart—you could learn something from her. And what about your mother?”
“Oh, Mom,” Michael started.
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I don’t know where she is. She left my dad many years ago, and I haven’t seen her for quite a while. I’m not sure exactly where she’s living anymore.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…You’re saying that she left your father and her child? When you were small, she left you behind? How does a mother do that? Was she having an affair? Where did she go?” she asked.
“Mom, really, that’s none of your business," Michael said. "Sorry, Cassie.”
“It’s really okay, Michael, it was a long time ago,” I said. “And I can sort of understand why she did it. I think she wasn’t cut out to be a mother or a wife, and she just had to get out. It took me a long time to figure that out, but now I get it. I’m not saying it didn’t hurt, because it did, but I’ve come to accept why she left.”
“Really?” she asked.
“She had to save her own life. So she made a choice. And I’m okay with that,” I said.
She looked at me hard for a minute, and I felt like I could see all the pain that was deep in her soul at that moment: the anguish of having a husband who chose suicide and the challenges she’d faced as a widow all this time. I realized that she had not yet come to terms with her loss, or forgiven her husband, or even dealt with the anger she carried from that event. Her chatty exterior was a very brittle shell.
“I think I’m going to bed now,” she said abruptly. “I’ll see you two in the morning. Michael, make sure your guest has everything she needs. Good night.”
She walked away and up the stairs before we could even react. In silence, we looked at the table and spooned melted ice cream from the bottom of the thick white bowls.
“You want any more?” Michael asked.
I looked into my bowl. “Got any chocolate sauce?” I waited while Michael scooped another ribbon of Rocky Road into my dish. “Tell me why you’re going to suck up to your uncle tomorrow—and don’t skimp on the cherries.”
“Peg is mortgaged to the hilt on this place and she thinks she has to kiss Uncle Oscar’s ass every holiday so that he’ll be sure to bail her out if she runs into trouble with the IRS or the banks.”
“I know this is none of my business, but why the big financial mess? What’s the deal there?” I asked.
“Oh, she bought the shop where she’d been working part-time for the last fifteen years, and in order to do that and get a line of credit, she had to mortgage this place to the hilt. I’m not in a great financial position right now, so maybe when I get tenure, I’ll be better able to help out. But I’d like to be able to afford a better apartment, too, and that seems like a really long way off for me if I want to stay in Manhattan…So it’s our tri-annual begging pilgrimage. We do an excellent one at Passover, and we seriously rupture ourselves prostrating before him at Yom Kippur.”
“Why don’t you just ask for help?” I said.
“Are you crazy? Peg offered him shares in the business. No dice. Silent partner. No way. He says, ‘It’s better not to mix family and business.’”
“So what’s he going to do with all his money if he has no other relatives?”
“Apparently, he’s planning to give it to charity. Nothing I have been able to find out about. Can you believe that?”
I shrugged. “I’m sorry. It’s two things that don’t mix well: families and money. If there’s anything I can do…”
“Well, unless you want to become a partner in a bakery, no, but I appreciate your broad shoulders. Just don’t mention this to Peg—she doesn’t like it when I tell anyone our family business,” he said. “And anyway, we have a big surprise for you tomorrow morning, so we’d better get to bed soon. It’s almost time to get up. Mom likes to get an early start to the day.”
I lay under the covers for a very long time, thinking about the anger and loneliness I’d seen in Peggy’s eyes. There was something not quite right about Michael’s mother, and I wanted to take some time to think about it. The way her mood changed so abruptly, the anger that almost bordered on paranoia—these seemed like signs of a looming mental health issue. I wondered if she’d always been this volatile, or if these changes were recent. Something was definitely not right with Peggy Simone. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from, and I was nervous about where it was going to lead.
Chapter 5
Michael was gone when I came downstairs. Peggy was rolling dough on the marble counter in the center island of the kitchen. Hot coffee was filling the pot and something glorious was baking in the oven.
“Cinnamon rolls will be coming out of the oven in about five minutes,” she said. “Help yourself to some coffee.”
“Thank you. It smells wonderful in here,” I said.
“Did you sleep all right? I hope I didn’t wake you,” she said.
“No, I’ve actually been up for quite a while,” I said. “I’ve been writing. But the smell overpowered my desire to write.”
“Oh, what are you writing?” she asked.
“I’m just journaling right now,” I said. “I wrote a novel last year and I’m trying to find a new subject to start writing about. It’s hard going until you get a new project to focus on.”
“I see.”
“I suppose that Michael told you about what happened, with the murder and all,” I said. “I was really sorry that he got caught up in it.”
“Mmm hmm,” she said. She seemed to focus more intently on the dough, not looking up at me.
Was she angry? I had no idea. “I never meant for anyone to get hurt, especially not Michael. He is my best friend, you know,” I said.
She stopped and wiped her hands on a towel. “You know he’s gay, right?” she asked, her eyes finally meeting mine.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “Of course.”
“Just checking.”
She turned and pulled a tray of perfect cinnamon swirls out of the oven. Snapping the door shut, she set them to cool on the stovetop. Taking a small bowl in her hands, she whipped a white icing and then drizzled it over all the buns. Finally, she picked up a wooden spatula and served a roll to me on a small china plate.
“Careful, it’s still hot,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“There are napkins in that holder.”
She returned to the dough that had been resting on the marble and started sprinkling a combination of nuts, spices, and raisins across the top.
“So, the novel that you finished, you’re just going to throw it away?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t really thought about it. I guess, since, you know, there was so much trouble, I thought maybe the best thing would be to put it in a drawer for a while.”
“All that trouble would have been for nothing, then, right?”
“Hmm, I guess you could look at it that way,” I said.
“Is it really a novel, or is it a memoir?”