Linda Lee - The Glass Kitchen: A Novel of Sisters

But ten years after their parents’ deaths, three years after Cordelia married, Portia woke up knowing she had to bake a five-layer cake with perfect fondant icing. Once the cake was finished, Portia stood back, her heart twisting, and knew Cordelia was leaving Texas. No one was surprised when Olivia followed her to New York six months later.

Portia missed her sisters, but her days were full. She became the main cook at The Glass Kitchen while Gram sat out front doling out advice and food choices. And still no lessons on the knowing.

One day Portia whipped up a mixed-up mess of sweet potatoes and asparagus, two items that never went together. But somehow, the way she made it, had people ordering more. Just as she served up the last portion, in walked the young lawyer and up-and-coming Texas state senator Robert Baleau, and her world shifted. Despite being born and raised in Willow Creek, he was as foreign to Portia as if he’d moved there from Greece. He was from the opposite side of town, from a world of debutante balls and heirloom pearls. With his sandy blond hair and laughing blue eyes, he charmed her, moved her with his devotion to serving the people, not to mention her.

Soon he began taking her with him as he traveled around the county to political functions. People all over the region loved Portia and said that she made a pretty boy more real. All she cared about was that she adored Robert.

The day he proposed, she threw her arms around him before she could think twice. “Yes, yes, yes!” she said as he laughed and twirled her around.

Surprisingly, Robert’s wealthy parents approved. It was Gram who didn’t.

“They’ll hurt you,” Gram said, scowling. “You’re not part of their world, and you never will be.”

But with every day that passed, more and more of Robert’s world embraced Portia Cuthcart, the girl who grew up in a double-wide—even if the fancier people weren’t particularly comfortable talking about The Glass Kitchen or the legendary Gram.

As the wedding grew near, another shift began, as slow as thyme breaking through the earth in spring. Robert began to notice that Portia knew things. At first, he laughed them off. But soon he began to tense every time she knew she needed to bake or cook something—like his mother’s favorite lemon bars just before she invited Portia over for tea. Or tuna casserole in a tinfoil pan, the kind perfect for freezing and giving to someone in need—just before a neighbor’s wife died.

One morning Portia woke knowing she had to make long, thick strands of pulled taffy that she wove into thin lengths of rope. Robert walked into the kitchen and came to a surprised stop when he saw the braided candy spread across the kitchen counter along with everything else she had known she needed. “This is unnatural,” he said quietly.

Confused, Portia blinked. “What’s unnatural about whipped cream, Saran Wrap, and ropes of taffy?”

She was almost certain Robert blushed and looked uncomfortable. “Portia, sweet, normal women don’t know things that other people are thinking.”

“My grandmother knows.” Portia kept her hands moving, twisting the taffy before it could stiffen.

“I rest my case. If anyone isn’t normal, it’s your grandmother.”

Her hands stilled. “Robert. There is nothing wrong with Gram. And there is nothing wrong with me.”

He blinked, then blurted, “You’re telling me that after I had sexual thoughts this afternoon, and you went out and put together the very things I fantasized about, that that’s normal?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, his eyes widened. Portia was shocked, too, but then she laughed. “You were fantasizing about me? Me and ropes of taffy and whipped cream?”

She let her laughter turn into a sexy smile; then she wiped her hands and walked over to him. For half a second, the good Christian politician started to succumb, but then he took her hands and gave them a reassuring little squeeze, placing them against his heart. “I want to marry you, Portia. But I need you to be like other women. I need you to … not bake pies before the church announces a bake sale. I need you to be normal. Can you do that for me?”

Portia was stunned into silence.

Robert kissed her on the brow and refused to discuss it any further. She knew to his mind it was a simple yes-or-no question.

Since it was Monday, The Glass Kitchen was closed. As soon as Robert left, Portia went in search of her grandmother, needing to talk. Something had been off with Gram recently. Great-aunt Evie had died only a month before, leaving the town house to the girls. They all missed her, but with Gram it was as if a piece of her had died along with her sister.

Portia walked into the kitchen and realized that Gram wasn’t there in the same second that another bout of knowing buckled her over at the waist.

Heart pounding, she started to prepare the meal that hit her so hard. Her famous cherry tomatoes stuffed with chile, cheese, and bacon, along with pulled pork, endive slaw, and potato pancakes with homemade catsup. She cooked, knowing she could do nothing else, though she was surprised when she realized she needed to set the table for only one.

Gram must have gone out for the day without telling her. But ten minutes after Portia sat down to eat, Gram walked into the kitchen from the back parking lot. At the sight of the meal and single place setting, Gram had to steady herself on the counter’s edge.

Portia leaped up and started gathering another plate and silverware.

“No need,” Gram said, setting her handbag down, then headed out of the kitchen.

Portia raced after her, but at the doorway to her grandmother’s bedroom, Gram turned and pressed her dry hand to Portia’s cheek. “It’s time. I should have known you’d learn the knowing whether I taught you or not.”

“What are you talking about?”

Gram smiled then, a resigned smile. But she didn’t answer. She shut the bedroom door.

Portia returned to the kitchen and paced, hating that she didn’t know what the meal meant. An eerie sense of dread rushed through her. She decided that if Gram wanted to go somewhere, she wouldn’t let her take the car. She wouldn’t allow her near the stove or the knives. She would keep her safe from whatever might be coming, anything that could have been predicted by the single place setting.

It was summer and hot, the painfully blue afternoon sky parched by heat and humidity. Gram didn’t return to the kitchen until nearly four o’clock.

Portia jumped and ran across the hard-tile floor. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s time for you to take over The Glass Kitchen for good.”

“What? No!”

Portia kept trying to solve whatever was wrong. But that ended when Gram stepped around her and headed for the back door of The Glass Kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

Gram didn’t retrieve her handbag or keys. There was nothing Portia could take away to keep her from leaving.

“Gram, you can’t leave!”

Gram didn’t listen. She walked out the door, Portia following, pleading, “Gram, where are you going?”

But what Portia hadn’t expected was that her grandmother would stop abruptly underneath the suddenly stormy Texas sky and raise her hands high. Lightning came down like the crack of God’s hand, quick and reaching, striking Gram.

Shock, along with electricity, surged through Portia, knocking her off her feet like a rag doll thrown to the dirt by an angry child. Her blouse ripped at the shoulder, blood marking the white material like a brand.

The rest was a blur—people hurrying to them, the ambulance screaming into the yard. What stood out was that Portia knew she was responsible. If only she hadn’t cooked the meal. If only she had set the table for two instead of one. If only she hadn’t allowed her grandmother to walk out the door. If only she had never had even a glimpse of the knowing.

But if onlys didn’t change anything. Gram was gone, all because of a meal Portia hadn’t even begun to understand but had prepared.

Standing in the dirt lot, The Glass Kitchen behind her, Portia promised herself she wouldn’t cook again.

A month later, she married Robert, then began shaping herself into the perfect Texas politician’s wife, erasing everything she could of herself until she was a blank slate of polite smiles and innocuous conversation. She slammed the lid shut on the knowing.

And became normal.

THE SOUND OF TRAFFIC woke Portia.

Minutes ticked by before she realized where she was. New York City, on the Upper West Side, in the garden apartment of Great-aunt Evie’s old town house, three years after her wedding, a month after her divorce from Robert Baleau.

Portia rolled over, covering her head with the pillow.

For the last three years, she had closed the door on visions of food until she had practically forgotten her unnerving ability was there. She’d worked hard to be like everyone else.

To be normal.

She groaned into the pillow. The only way she could be called normal was if normal meant stupid, not to mention naive. Why hadn’t she realized that her husband didn’t want her anymore? Why hadn’t she figured out that the only real reason he wanted her at all was to make him seem more appealing to voters? More than that, why hadn’t she known he would be so callous in getting rid of her after he’d come home and told her he wanted a divorce?