“Hi,” a middle-aged woman says, opening the front door. “Can I help you?”
Lauren smiles at her. “Well, I’m not sure, but I hope so. I’m trying to find a dairy farmer named Bud.”
The woman walks down the steps of the home to her, petting the top of the dog’s head as she walks. “A farmer named Bud?” Lauren nods. “I don’t know a farmer by that name, but let’s ask my husband. Come back this way.” She leads Lauren toward the red barn and begins to wave her arms and shout out her husband’s name when she sees him leaving the barn driving a tractor. “Jason!” she yells, running so she can get in his line of vision. “Jason!” A man around forty, wearing jeans and a short-sleeve work shirt, sees his wife and turns off the tractor.
“What’s up?” he says, noticing Lauren and taking his ball cap off to scratch his head.
“This woman is trying to find a dairy farmer named Bud. Do you know him?”
He gets off the tractor and stands in front of them. “Bud?”
Lauren nods, smiling. “I’m so sorry to bother you. You didn’t have to stop your work.”
“It’s always here,” he says, sticking a hand in his jeans pocket. “You say he’s a dairy farmer?”
“I think so. He sells milk. Or at least he used to sell milk.”
“The Coys sell milk,” his wife says, thinking out loud.
Jason nods. “They do. They haven’t been farming long. Maybe five years. But nobody there is named Bud as far as I know. Has Bud been farming long?” he asks, looking at Lauren.
“I think so. I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s been several years.”
“The Hermans have been farming for years. Corn and soybeans. But they have sold milk in the past. They have a few cows on their farm. They don’t sell in stores. Just on their farm. I don’t think there’s anybody named Bud there, either, but you could stop and ask.”
Lauren raises her hand over her eyes to keep from squinting. “Thanks so much! Where is the Herman farm?”
Jason points west. “Stay on this road headed west for four miles until you come to Glade. Do you know where that is?” Lauren shakes her head. “You can’t miss it. There’s a flashing yellow light and a small antiques shop on the right. Turn left onto Glade and about three miles up on the right you’ll see what’s left of a crop of corn. The house, the barn, and the silos sit back off the road, like ours. You can’t miss it. Jim Herman owns it.”
Lauren extends her hand. “Thank you so much. Again, so sorry to bother you.”
He shakes his head. “No bother.” He smiles. “If it’s organic milk you’re wanting, Clauson’s and other grocery stores carry it.”
She smiles. “I’m actually not wanting the milk. I’m hoping Bud can help me find somebody.”
September 1972
Joan sits at the kitchen table and riffles through the recipe box filled with recipes from her mother. She is wearing a bright, multicolored scarf around her head; her arms are slender sticking out of her shirt and her fingers are bony, but she wants to cook. Friends and family have been so kind to bring meals to them following her surgery, but she can’t bear to look at one more casserole. She and John have secretly called the meals “hospital food,” because it was all given to them following her stay in the hospital and the thought of eating one more hospital meal nearly takes her appetite away. The surgery was nearly three weeks ago and little by little she is regaining strength and wants to cook again.
When she first came home, Gigi and Christopher would play atop her bed or on the floor of her bedroom to be near her. As Joan’s strength returns, she lies on the sofa as the children play in the living room, drifting in and out of sleep. Each day before work and before going to bed each evening, John sits on the edge of the bed and holds Joan’s hand. “Thank you, God, for what you’re doing inside Joan’s body today,” he says. “Thank you for making her strong.” She still isn’t sure what to think about this, but it can’t hurt, and John seems to believe in a way that she can’t quite wrap her mind around.
She finds a recipe for white chicken chili, one of her favorites as a child growing up, and begins to look over the card. How we all love this white chicken chili! Her mother wrote. Remember the trip we took out west one summer and we ordered this at a restaurant that exclaimed, “Voted best white chicken chili ten years in a row!” You finished your bowl and said, “The people who voted for this obviously don’t have any taste buds. Yours is much better, Mom!” How many meals did we eat around our kitchen table together? How many arguments did we get in? How many tears did we wipe off our cheeks from laughing? How many problems did we solve? I can’t imagine what our lives would’ve been like without those mealtimes. No matter what you’re going through, always come back to the table with your family.
Tears fill Joan’s eyes as she reads her mother’s writing, and she sighs with the disappointment in not taking an interest in cooking until a few months earlier. Christopher is too young to remember this time in the kitchen with her, but will Gigi? She looks over her shoulder and calls, “Kids, do you want to help me cook?” She can hear Gigi rustling to her feet in the living room.
“Are you cooking today, Mommy?” The little girl asks,
