Delectable Mountain blocks have a set of increasingly steeper stair steps, up one side of the block and down the other. My plan was to make four blocks and stitch them around the big blank center block, to create a continuous ring of ascents and descents.
It seemed like that was the way things always were for Jamie and me. We’d conquer one mountain only to find another waiting for us. We didn’t know then that Jamie’s leg pain was an early symptom of osteosarcoma, the bone cancer that was quietly spreading through his body. It wasn’t discovered until, weeks before Jamie was to start his freshman year at Minnesota State, he collapsed in pain in his own living room, the leg broken.
At first, everyone in town was talking about Jamie and he was practically overrun with visitors. But when summer came to an end a lot of Jamie’s friends went away to college. Not me.
I came to visit every day. I played cards with him, read books to him, and watched movies with him. When he was too worn-out for that, I was just there, in the room, holding his hand or watching him sleep. When he went through chemotherapy, I shaved his head.
When he started radiation, Jamie asked me to marry him and I said yes. It was the happiest moment in my life, also the saddest. No one thought he would last more than a few months, including me.
Jamie had different ideas.
I won’t lie; there were days when we wanted to give up, but, fortunately, those days never occurred at the same time. We climbed that mountain, step by step and day by day, together. Three years later, when Jamie picked more apples than anybody else, I was so happy I felt like I was floating, because I knew it was over. He’d climbed the mountain and come down the other side, even stronger than before. It was Jamie’s moment of triumph. Mine too.
That’s the thing I’ve learned about mountains: the joy you feel at scaling them is in direct proportion to how high and impassable the peak appears to be once you’re on the other side of it.
“Maybe this will be like that,” I said again, thinking about Gavin Nutting as I set a final backstitch into the block.
Maybe.
But as I snipped the thread and looked up to see Jamie, eyes still closed, hands fisted and curled under his chin, I couldn’t help but recall that it was different this time. This time, I was climbing alone. It was up to me to carry Jamie safely over.
I had to keep going, no matter what. It was all on me. I couldn’t fail him.
Chapter 13
Grace
Restaurant Month, when local eateries offer a limited, three-course, value-priced menu, is a big deal in Portland.
“It’ll be our first year participating,” Monica said when she phoned, “and I need to audition potential recipes, make sure they’re up to snuff. Come to the restaurant on Monday night; I want you and Nan to taste test.”
This is one of the perks of being Monica’s friend. When she changes the menu or caters a special event, she tries out new recipes on us. I always look forward to it. But this time, a week after I’d started working as Gavin Nutting’s assistant, I didn’t think I could make it.
“But it’s support group night. We always get together on Monday.”
“But now I can’t leave until Nutting leaves. The earliest I’ve gotten home this week was eight thirty, and that was only because I was so exhausted that I skipped visiting Jamie. Maybe you’d better do it without me.”
“No way,” Monica said. “I need your opinion, and your finely tuned palate. We’ll just start late. Nan won’t mind.”
“You’re sweet, but I don’t think I should. Maisie will have been home alone all day. I’ll be tired and she’ll be starving.”
“So bring her. Zip by the apartment, grab Maisie, and come to the restaurant. We’ll bring all the dogs—have a puppy party. It’ll be fun.”
“Monica—”
“You’re coming,” she said. “I insist.”
When Monica insists, there’s no point in arguing. It was almost nine when Maisie and I arrived at Café Allegro. When I opened the door, the canine chorus was so loud it practically knocked me backward.
Desmond, Monica’s lumbering Newfoundland, carried the bass line in a series of deep, reverberating woofs. Blixen and Nelson took the tenor, barking in an oddly syncopated rhythm. Two dogs I’d never seen before, a pair of floppy-eared, paddle-footed basset hounds who looked as alike as a pair of bookends, sang the alto, baying in unison. Maisie, always the diva, started yipping in a piercing soprano and wriggling in my arms, anxious to get down and show the big dogs who was boss.
“Hey!” I shouted, trying to make myself heard over all the barking. “Sorry we’re late. New boarders?” I asked, indicating the bassets.
“This is Peaches. And this is Cream,” Nan said, pointing toward each hound in turn. “They arrived this afternoon. Their owner has gone into hospice, poor man. They’re sisters and very sweet, but I suspect they’ll be with me for a while. Bassets are hard to place—baying is an issue—but the owner said they can’t be separated.”
“Can I put Maisie down?”
“Oh, yes,” Nan said. “Their bark is definitely worse than their bite.”
I set Maisie on the floor. Mindless of their difference in size, she ran over to Peaches and Cream, gave them a yip and a sniff,
