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  The buckle, for one.

  Maybe it's because the top is like a streusel, which gives it a crumbled appearance. But then why not call it a crumble, which is actually more like a crisp?

  I make buckles when nothing else is going right. I imagine some beleaguered Colonial woman bent over her hearth with a cast-iron pan, sobbing into the batter - and that's where I imagine the name came from. A buckle is the moment you break down, you give in, because when you cook one, you simply can't mess up. Unlike with pastries and pies, you don't have to worry about getting the ingredients just right or mixing the dough to a certain consistency. This is baking for the baking impaired; this is where you start, when everything else around you has gone to pieces.

  * * *

  BLUEBERRY PEACH BUCKLE

  TOPPING

  1/3 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

  1/2 cup light brown sugar

  1/4 cup all-purpose flour

  1 teaspoon cinnamon

  1 teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and grated BATTER

  11/2 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

  Pinch of salt

  3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature 3/4 cup dark brown sugar

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  3 large eggs

  2-3 cups wild blueberries (can substitute frozen if fresh are not available) 2 ripe peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced [?]

  Butter and flour an 8 by 8-inch pan; preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

  First, make the topping: in a small bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and ginger until it resembles coarse meal, and set aside.

  Then, make the batter by sifting together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set this mixture aside, too.

  In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, combine the butter and brown sugar until creamy and soft (3-4 minutes). Add the vanilla. Beat the eggs into the flour mixture one at a time until just combined. Fold in the berries and peaches. Spread the batter in the prepared pan and crumble the topping mixture on top. Bake for 45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean and the top of the buckle is golden.

  [?] The best way to peel peaches is to cut a small cross at the base of each peach and drop the fruit into a pot of boiling water for 1 minute. Remove it with a slotted spoon and immediately place the peach in ice water. Peel the peach--the skin will come right off--and slice into thin wedges or small pieces for the buckle.

  Charlotte

  I

  think you can love a person too much.

  You put someone up on a pedestal, and all of a sudden, from that perspective, you notice what's wrong - a hair out of place, a run in a stocking, a broken bone. You spend all your time and energy making it right, and all the while, you are falling apart yourself. You don't even realize what you look like, how far you've deteriorated, because you only have eyes for someone else.

  It is not an excuse, but it is the only answer I can give for why I would find myself here, by your bed; you with your wrist bandaged and broken from where the doctors had to press down to stop the bleeding; you with your broken ribs from the CPR they began when your heart stopped.

  I had been used to hearing that you'd broken a bone, or needed surgery, or would be casted. But there were words that had come out of the doctors' mouths today that I never would have expected: blood loss, self-harm, suicide.

  How could a six-year-old girl want to kill herself? Was this the only way I'd sit up and take notice? Because yes, you had my attention.

  Not to mention my paralyzing regret.

  All of this time, Willow, I'd just wanted you to see how important you were to me, how I would do anything within my power to give you the best life possible . . . and you didn't want that life at all.

  'I don't believe it,' I whispered fiercely, even though you were still sleeping, drugged to rest through the night. 'I don't believe you wanted to die.'

  I ran my hand down your arm, until my fingers just brushed the gauze that had been wrapped around the deep cut on your wrist. 'I love you,' I said, my voice hollow with tears. 'I love you so much that I don't know who I'd be without you. And even if it takes my whole life to do it, I'll make you see why yours made a difference.'

  I would win this lawsuit, and with the money, I'd take you to see the Paralympics. I'd buy you a sports wheelchair, a service dog. I'd fly you halfway around the world to introduce you to people who, like you, beat the odds to become someone bigger than anyone ever expected. I would prove to you that being different isn't a death sentence but a call to arms. Yes, you would continue to break: not bones but barriers.

  Your fingers twitched against mine, and your eyes slowly blinked open. 'Hi, Mommy,' you murmured.

  'Oh, Willow,' I said, crying hard by now. 'You scared us to death.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  I lifted your good hand and pressed a kiss into the palm for you to carry like a sweet, until it melted. 'No,' I whispered. 'I am.'

  Sean stirred from the chair where he was sleeping, in the corner of your room. 'Hey,' he said, his whole face lighting up when he saw you were awake. He sat down on the side of the bed. 'How's my girl?' He brushed your hair away from your face.

  'Mom?' you asked.

  'What, baby?'

  You smiled then, the first real smile I'd seen on your face in ages. 'You're both here,' you said, as if that was what you'd wanted all along.

  Leaving Sean with you, I went downstairs to the lobby and called Marin back; she had left multiple messages on my voice mail. 'It's about time,' she snapped. 'Here's a news flash, Charlotte. You aren't allowed to leave a trial in the middle, especially without telling your lawyer where the hell you're going. Do you have any idea how foolish it looks when the judge asks me where my client is, and I can't answer?'

  'I had to go to the hospital.'

  'For Willow? What did she break this time?' Marin asked.

  'She cut herself. She lost a lot of blood, and some of the intervention the doctors had to do broke some bones, but she's going to be all right. She's here for observation overnight.' I drew in my breath. 'Marin, I can't come to court tomorrow. I have to stay with her.'

  'One day,' Marin said. 'I can get a continuance for one day. And . . . Charlotte? I'm glad Willow's okay.'

  My breath tumbled out in a gasp. 'I don't know what I'd do without her.'

  Marin was quiet for a moment. 'You'd better not let Guy Booker hear you say that,' she said, and then she hung up.

  I didn't want to go back home, because there, I'd have to see the blood. I imagined it was everywhere - on the shower curtain, the tiled floor, the drain of the bathtub. I pictured myself using a bleach solution and a damp cloth and having to wring it into the sink dozens of times, my hands burning and my eyes scalded. I imagined the water running pink, and even after a solid thirty minutes of cleaning I would still smell the fear of losing you.

  Amelia was downstairs in the cafeteria, where I'd left her with a cup of hot chocolate and a cardboard boat of French fries. 'Hey,' I said.

  She came halfway out of her chair. 'Is Willow--'

  'She's just waking up.'

  Amelia looked like she was going to faint, and I couldn't blame her - she was the one who'd walked in on you, who had called the ambulance. 'Did she say anything?'

  'Not a lot.' I reached out and covered her hand with mine. 'You saved Willow's life today. There is nothing I can say that would possibly make you understand how much I want to thank you.'

  'I wasn't going to just let her bleed to death,' she said, but she was trembling.

  'Do you want to see her?'

  'I . . . I don't know if I can yet. I keep picturing her in that bathroom . . .' She curled into herself, the way teenage girls do, like fiddlehead ferns. 'Mom? What would have happened if Willow had died?'

  'Don't even think about that, Amelia.'

  'I didn't mean now . . . not today. I meant, like, years ago. When she was first born.' She looked up at me, and I realized she wasn't trying to