The space was small and brightly lit, a little cluttered with heavy books and an entire wall of shelves displaying mementos from her travels. She was steeping green tea at the tiny table for two, a sudoku puzzle book open before her.
“Tea?” she asked.
“No thanks. I’m making coffee over at the house.”
She gestured to the other chair. “Sit, please.” It was more a command than a request.
I sat.
“You’re probably wondering why I summoned you.” She gazed at me a little imperiously.
“A little.” I shifted in the hard chair, eager to get back to the kitchen. The coffee was calling my name. Aunt Gert went over to the shelves and rummaged in a small, ornately carved silver box, then came back to me and held out her hand. She was wearing several large, exotic rings. A heavy gold one with a cabochon ruby and one in the shape of a peacock with jeweled feathers caught my eye. “Here, a gift for you. Call it an early birthday present.”
Surprised, I held out my hand. Her fingers were cold and bony and strong. She dropped several small objects the size of marbles into my open palm and stepped back. I stared at the gift. In my hand sat three dime-store lemon drops—the bright yellow candy shaped like lemons and sanded on the outside with sugar. The kind of candy grandmas keep in jars for years because no one ever eats them.
“Oh... thank you.” I glanced up at her, trying to hide my surprise. What a strange gift.
“They’re not what you think.” Aunt Gert sat down in the opposite chair. She met my eyes, her own gaze intent. “These are special. They can show you the life you could have had. They can show you your true path.”
I blinked. Mytrue path? What was she talking about? As she studied me I had the unnerving suspicion that she could read my thoughts. I wouldn’t put it past her. There had always been an edge of the transcendent about her, a whiff of something slightly mystical, and it wasn’t just the sandalwood incense she burned in a little tray in her bathroom.
Aunt Gert leaned across the table and gripped my hand so hard it hurt, but, by contrast, her expression was unexpectedly soft. “These were a gift to me when I was a young woman feeling stuck in my life. They can change everything.”
I looked down at the little candies in my palm. I knew the taste and texture of them, had sneaked them from my own grandmother’s dusty candy jar when I was a child. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Change everything how?”
Was Aunt Gert struggling with the early stages of dementia and it was just manifesting now? The thought was frightening.
“You think I’m crazy,” she said, smiling enigmatically, then sat back and bobbed her tea ball in her teacup, the liquid a pale green. The scent was gorgeous, jasmine and green tea. “My dear, life is not defined by the limits of your own experience. The reality of the universe far transcends the paltry boundaries of your own understanding. As the great Saint Augustine once said, ‘Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.’ He was right. Miracle, magic, whatever you want to call these.” She nodded at the lemon drops. “I am giving you a chance to glimpse your life more fully, to perhaps change your path and arrive at a better end. I am giving you a chance tofollow your bliss.”
I was completely bewildered.Miracles. Magic. Follow your bliss.How did all that relate to the three lemon drop candies she’d given me?
“Try it,” she urged me. “See what happens.” The steam from her tea wafted up, lazy and fragrant. I felt like I was sitting with a fortune-teller or fairy godmother, if the fairy godmother was just a little bug-eyed and more than a little intimidating. “Suck on one of the lemon drops before bed and say aloud a thing you wish you could change, a regret from your life. Then go to bed, and when you wake up, you will live one day of your life as it might have been if you’d made a different choice. Don’t be alarmed. The effects are only temporary. The following morning, you’ll return to your normal existence as if nothing has changed.” She paused and took a sip of scalding tea. “But, of course, in one day, everything can change.”
“Okay, um.” I scooted the chair back and stood, concerned by Aunt Gert’s statements. She was a genius and eccentric, but this all sounded downright crazy. If she really was starting to suffer from dementia (and frankly, what else could this be?), how were we possibly going to cope? We were barely handling things as it was. I shrank at the thought.
“Thank you for the gift,” I said, eager to make my escape. I needed coffee and a few minutes alone to collect my thoughts.
“You don’t believe me, but it doesn’t matter. Just promise me,” she said, her tone commanding. “Promise me you will try one tonight. Do exactly as I told you. Humor an old woman.” There was a peculiar glint in her eye that made me uneasy. She gestured toward the door, shooing me out. “Tell me all about it tomorrow.”
I nodded. “All right, I promise.” I tucked the lemon drops in the pocket of my joggers and made a mental note to try to remember to suck on one tonight just so I could assure her I’d done it when she asked tomorrow.
She followed me to the door to usher me out, but paused with herhand on the knob. “Be careful. Make wise choices.” Her eyebrows, so pale they were almost translucent, furrowed into a deep, portentous V. “You never know what will happen, what you could gain or lose when you alter your own life story.” And then she opened the door and stepped back without another word.
9
I forgot all aboutthe lemon drops until the next evening, after a particularly frustrating conversation with Dad at our weekly state-of-the-diner meeting.
“So we’re making it, still keeping afloat.” Dad eyed the financial papers splayed out between us on the stainless-steel prep table with a touch of weary relief. He stood across from me in the kitchen, the sleeves of his white T-shirt rolled up, a chef’s apron tied around his middle. As I watched, he dumped two pounds each of ground veal and pork into a giant bowl and started mixing them by hand. On his bicep his navy tattoo, an anchor with the initialsUSNwoven in rope, flexed with his movements. He was making frikadeller, Danish meatballs, for the dinner special while Aunt Gert presided over the last of the lunch customers. In front of the deep stainless-steel sink, Julio was peeling potatoes. Angel, Julio’s younger brother, was prepping the dish cart, getting ready to start bussing tables. The Eagles, Dad’s favorite band of all time, wailed faintly from the radio/CD player, a crackly rendition of “Tequila Sunrise.”
“Barely,” I corrected, tapping red-circled figures on the papers withmy pen. Bending over the figures, I pushed my vintage cat-eye glasses up higher on my nose. They were my favorite pair, sassy aluminum frames set with fake rhinestones at the swoopy corners. They had the annoying tendency to slip whenever I looked down, but I loved them anyway. “We’re just barely keeping our heads above water. We have fewer customers than last year, and expenses are higher. Dad, the next thing, big or small, could sink us.”
I sifted through the papers, bills, and spreadsheets splayed out between us, feeling discouraged. The news was bleaker than usual. The Hobart dishwasher had broken down last week, and the repair had been essential but costly, eating into our already-meager profit. It had been touch-and-go every week for the last few years, and the trend was not looking promising.
Dad blew out a breath and nodded, pushing back a strand of thinning black hair with the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. “Okay, we’ll just have to figure something out.” He dumped a cup of grated onions and a cup of whole milk into the ground meat mixture and stirred. My eyes stung at the acrid onion scent, and I blinked back tears. In the bright light of the kitchen Dad looked tired, with bags under his dark deep-set eyes. Frankly, I couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t looked tired.
At sixty-five, Marty Blanchard was the hardest-working man I knew. Small and whipcord lean, he’d grown up roping cattle on a ranch in Wyoming and then served a ten-year stint in the navy. After he married Mom, he’d worked ceaselessly at the diner, acting as the head cook, janitor, and general handyman. Although I was the first one at the diner in the mornings, he was the last one to turn out the lights at night. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a vacation or even gone to see a movie. Not since my mother died and our finances and the Eatery had begun a slow downward slide. He was a man of few words, but of deep loyalty and care. He’d been devoted to my mom andher death had gutted him, yet he had persevered, tirelessly working for Daphne and me.
“Dad, we really need to think about making some major changes around here if we’re going to keep our doors open,” I pressed gently. It was a sore subject, one we did not see eye to eye on. “Did you read any of those articles I printed out for you on the success of the local and organic food movement along the West Coast?”
