ADVERTISEMENT
It looked exactly like the cutter Frank had used every Sunday of my childhood.
“Where did that come from?”
Caroline lifted it with both hands, as carefully as if it were made of glass. “It belonged to Frank.”
“No. His cutter is in my kitchen.”
Her eyes softened. “There were two.”
She reached beneath the cutters and removed a photograph.Anatomy
In it, a little girl stood beside a kitchen table, beaming over a plate of star-shaped apple pancakes. She could not have been older than five. Behind her stood Frank, decades younger, his hands resting on her shoulders.
I had seen thousands of expressions on my father’s face, but never that one. His happiness in the photograph was bright and unguarded.
“Who is this child?” I asked.
Caroline sat across from me.
“Her name was Miley,” she said. “She was Frank’s daughter.”
Part Four: The Daughter Before Me
The kitchen seemed to tilt.Doors & Windows
“His daughter?”
Caroline nodded. “Frank was married years before he met your mother.”
I stared at the smiling child in the photograph. She had Frank’s eyes and his crooked grin.
“Where is she now?”
Caroline lowered her gaze. “Miley died when she was five. There was an accident during a family day at a lake. It happened very quickly. Frank blamed himself, although everyone who knew the circumstances understood that he could not have prevented it.”
The words settled between us with terrible quietness.Kitchen & Dining
I lowered myself into a chair because my knees had begun to shake. “Why did he never tell me?”
“After Miley was gone, his marriage fell apart beneath the grief,” Caroline explained. “Frank withdrew from everyone. I had been his closest friend since school, and even I could barely reach him. He packed away the photographs, the toys, and anything else that reminded him he had once been someone’s father.”
My attention returned to the metal star in her hand.
“The pancakes were hers,” I whispered.
“Yes. Apple and cinnamon, shaped like stars. They were her favorite.”
Suddenly, my happiest childhood memory no longer belonged only to me. The realization stung in a way I could not explain. I felt grief for a child I had never met, jealousy toward a memory, and shame for feeling jealous at all.Home Furnishings
Caroline seemed to understand.
“He did not give you a life that had been meant for Miley,” she said. “And you did not take her place.”
I looked up.
“Then why repeat everything with me?”
“Because you brought the memory back to him in a way he could bear.”
She told me about a morning I could not remember. Not long after Frank married my mother, I had climbed onto his lap while he was reading and fallen asleep against his chest. When I woke, I had asked if he knew how to make pancakes shaped like stars.Bathroom
“You must have seen the cutter,” Caroline said. “Perhaps it was in a drawer, or perhaps your mother had found it in a box. No one knows. But Frank made the pancakes for you.”
Caroline placed the photograph on the table between us.
“He telephoned me that afternoon. He could hardly speak through his tears. He said he had made star pancakes for the first time since Miley died. More importantly, he had spoken her name aloud. He realized that remembering her did not have to destroy every new moment of happiness.”
My eyes burned. I thought of all those Sunday mornings: Frank humming at the stove, pretending to be offended when I criticized a burned edge, choosing the best star for my plate.
I had assumed he created that tradition for me.Family Law
Now I understood that, in the beginning, the tradition had created a bridge for him.
“You helped him open a room in his heart that he had sealed shut,” Caroline said. “Not so you could replace Miley, but so he could carry her memory without closing himself to you.”
I pressed my fingertips to the little girl’s photograph.
“If that is the secret, why did he speak as if he had betrayed me?”
Caroline’s face changed. She folded her hands on the table and took a slow breath.Baked Goods
“Because there is another part. It concerns the night after your mother’s funeral.”
For illustrative purposes onlyPhotographic & Digital Arts
Part Five: The Night He Nearly Left
I saw the kitchen table of my childhood in my mind. I saw my four-year-old self beneath it, waiting for Frank to tell me whether I would lose another parent.Anatomy
“What about that night?”
“Frank packed his truck,” Caroline said.
The sentence was quiet, but it struck with enormous force.
“No.”
“He believed your aunt could give you a more stable home. He thought leaving before you depended on him completely would be kinder than failing you later.”
“He came here?”
“A little after midnight.”Parenting
Continue on the next page.
ADVERTISEMENT
