Absence of Grace by Ann Warner Read Free Book Online Page A

started cooking when I was twelve, after Mother died in childbirth. Helen was older, but she was useless in the kitchen. At first, there were only six of us, but then Father remarried. That meant more babies. Ended up we added three half brothers and two half sisters. An even dozen for dinner every night.
     
    “I liked it well enough, cooking for a crowd. Made for a change when I married Lou. Then we only had three children, so I never did cook for a crowd again. Lou was a good eater, though. He always said I was the best cook he ever met. That it was why he married me.” Mag rocked and chuckled, then went silent.
     
    Looking at the old woman, Clen held her breath.
     
    “He’s been gone five years now, but sometimes I still forget. Think he’s just in the other room, reading his paper, and when I remember, don’t feel much like eating.” Mag shook her head as if dislodging a pesky fly, then gave Clen a wry look. “Well now. Didn’t mean to get into all that. Nothing ever gets accomplished with whining. My stepmother was fond of saying that. Mostly to those of us weren’t hers, but true for all of that.”
     
    Mag returned to the kitchen, with Clen following, and removed the chicken from the skillet. Then she poured most of the pan drippings into a jar. “We’ll use this when we make bread tomorrow.”
     
    She added flour and a mix of milk and cream to the drippings still in the skillet, making a thick gravy that was one of the best things Clen had ever eaten.
     
    The next day Mag showed her how to bake bread and to cook ribs so they left behind crisp brown bits to flavor the potato dumplings she also taught Clen how to make.
     
    Clen stayed a week with Mag. When she left, she took with her a fresh-baked loaf of bread, a jar of homemade plum jelly, and notes about how to make the delicious dinners Mag cooked for the two of them. She also carried a book filled with sketches—Mag cooking, the old house in its frame of flowers with two shadowy figures sitting on the porch, the apple tree in the backyard, with its old-fashioned wooden swing hanging from one of the branches.
     
    “Looks like it’s just waiting for the next time a little one comes to visit,” Mag said, sounding pensive, when Clen showed her the sketches.
     
    After leaving Mag, Clen continued driving. Whenever she stopped, she sketched. Some subjects posed for her. Other times she captured a quick study of someone who was unaware—an old man reading his paper at the counter of the local diner, a small boy petting his dog in the park.
     
    In the small diners where she ate along the way, Clen chatted with cooks and waitresses, collecting recipes and cooking tips although she had no idea why she was doing it.
     
    Her best days were ones when she didn’t think about the past, as if that quick turn she’d taken a couple of days before had left the past wondering where she’d gone. But it always found her, eventually. And when it did, the bits and pieces she’d managed to avoid thinking about during the years in Atlanta buzzed around her, as relentless and irritating as flies—dive-bombing or sliding into the edge of her vision just when she’d begun to relax.
     
    She’d been on the road swiping at those memories for five months on the night she found herself in a small Montana town with a monastery. Walking back to the motel after dinner, she passed near the monastery walls and heard the monks chanting. The deep, rich voices wove together in a simple repetitive melody that was so muted and softened that it seemed like something she was dreaming.
     
    The last note faded into a moment of stillness before the voices began the next chant.
     
    Shaken, but uncertain why, Clen walked back to that night’s lodging, her thoughts once again turning to the dilemma of where she would spend the winter. There was already snow in the mountains. It meant the cold weather would soon reach the plains, and she didn’t want to be caught by it, her