Page 3 of The Wandering Season

By mid-January I was convinced the DNA result would come up as part bear, so adept I’d become at hibernating. I’d spent the entire afternoon in my favorite faded flannel pajamas, eating ice cream and watching the most recent season of The Great British Bake Off, which I’d largely missed due to the holiday rush. As I binged, my mind wandered to Jonathan, who always seemed irritated that I had my low season when he was heading into tax season.

When my work was too busy to accommodate his plans, he had a tendency to pout about how the other wives and girlfriends in his office were able to schedule their vacations to coincide with their partners’. All of them were either stay-at-home mothers, had otherwise flexible jobs, or were in finance themselves, making the sync easier.

Unless I left the food business altogether, there was no way I could have been that accommodating. And the truth was that he shouldn’t have expected me to be. Of course, it wasn’t Jonathan who designed the fiscal calendar or set the timetable for Tax Day, but there was no denying that his schedule in finance and mine more closely aligned with retail, were always—and by design—at odds. It made sense that the retail and finance sectors would have complementary calendars so each could serve the other, but it didn’t facilitate the running of a relationship at all.

For four years, we’d been a bird and a fish trying to build a home together. We’d always told each other that we’d find a way to make our disparate lives mesh, but it was a ridiculously optimistic notion. The more I considered it, the more foolish it felt.

But despite being only responsible for half the implosion of our relationship, I still felt like a failure.

And the naked truth was that I missed Jonathan. Or at least the idea of him. Something was unsettling about feeling isolated in the world, and even if the rational part of me knew that our relationship had a lot of barriers, I couldn’t help but wish we’d been able to sort things out.

On the fifth episode of Bake Off, my attention began to wander as they fumbled over an ice cream–based dessert. Ice cream episodes were usually painful to watch as the challenge always seemed to fall on the hottest day of summer. The result was soggy desserts and lots of tears on what was usually a low-drama show. I hated seeing good bakers set up for failure. I thought about clicking it off to go test some recipes in the kitchen, but I just didn’t feel up to it. I let myself tune out for this segment of the show and pulled out my phone. An email dinged on my screen from my business account:

Hi Veronica,

The bespoke vanilla was a genius idea, and it was an absolute hit. Record profits for the restaurant. Please thank your vendor for us. We’ll be in touch about a consult for the late spring and summer menus. Looking forward to hearing more of your ideas—you’ve got great instincts there, Stratton.

All .the best,

E. Fairbanks

Edward Fairbanks was the chef and proprietor at his restaurant, 540 Blake, which was fast becoming one of the trendiest restaurants in the city. And, like every restaurant in town, Fairbanks used Valentine’s Day as a lure after the January slump. Denver Restaurant Week, on the other hand, was its own special mess. The first week of March, every restaurant worth its real estate showed off its best moves to the local crowd of avid restaurant-goers in an event designed to bolster the dining scene. It was when chefs tested new dishes and experimented with new menus for the upcoming tourist season.

I loved and hated Restaurant Week. It was great for business, and it was an opportunity to entice people to try new restaurants in hopes they’d become regulars. But the constant one-upmanship between the restaurants, all trying to outdazzle one another, was usually exhilarating but occasionally mean-spirited. The latter grew tiresome, and I was in the thick of it. They all wanted the inside track on the best, the freshest, and the most innovative ingredients. And I’d done just that for Edward. I’d procured a massive stock of homemade vanilla in all sorts of flavors from Mom’s cache and sold it to him at a premium. Mom pocketed the bulk of the profit, but my cut had helped see me through December.

But more than that, I’d spent weeks with Edward creating an innovative menu for Valentine’s Day and Restaurant Week. Everything from sauces for the savory dishes, decadent desserts, and some of the best cocktails I’d ever had. Landing that consulting gig had been a huge opportunity, and it seemed like it could lead to more work in the coming months. If my luck held, it could snowball into a long-term contract—and a long-term paycheck. And once Fairbanks began to thrive, my business would hopefully ascend to the next level.

It was something to cling to when my personal life was basically a dumpster fire. And like everything else in the restaurant business, there were no guarantees. Fairbanks could find a fresh new consultant, and I’d be exactly where I was now . . . watching reality TV and waiting for the January doldrums to come to an end.

I was about to switch off Bake Off and search for something entirely nonfood related to keep me from dissolving into a puddle, when I was pulled from my fog by the sounds of a rustling at my door and a key in the lock. For a moment I thought it might be Jonathan and was more than a little relieved to hear Stephanie’s voice in the entryway. Time to get my key back from him.

“Yeah, I’m here. Give me a minute to get set up.”

Stephanie angled the phone away from her mouth. “Get out your laptop and fire up FaceTime. It’s Avery.”

“Great to see you too. No, I didn’t have plans for the evening. Would be thrilled if you could stop by. So glad you let yourself in. I don’t regret giving you a key at all.”

She rolled her eyes. “Glad we have that established. Your results are in. Chop-chop.”

I blinked, having expected that the results would take at least a month, perhaps two, before they landed in my inbox. Then again, Avery’s charms were . . . formidable. I motioned for Stephanie to join me at the kitchen table that served as the only real dining space in my tiny one-bedroom downtown apartment. I willed the less-than-speedy machine to hurry along and clicked through a pile of menus until Avery’s face took over my laptop screen. She wore an evening dress and sparkling fake eyelashes. They would have been garish on anyone else, but she had the gravitas to pull them off. She was on her way to some posh fashion gala, one of many, but was unfazed by taking a call in her office in formal wear.

“The document should be in your inbox, totally secure,”

Avery said. “I had them send it directly to you so I wouldn’t be tempted to peek.”

“So you’re going to just read over my shoulder remotely from New York?”

My tone was dry.

“No, you can read it for yourself, but we’ll be here for moral support.”

Stephanie nudged me with her elbow. “You shouldn’t be alone for this. Avery and I planned it.”

Of course they did. I exhaled. Really, I probably would have preferred to be alone to read it over and begin to process whatever the report contained. But they wanted to be here for me, and it wasn’t something I should take for granted. Stephanie scooted her chair so she couldn’t easily see my computer screen but was less than an arm’s length away if I needed her.

I shoved the window for the video call off to one corner and proceeded to my email, where a complicated set of instructions logged me into a website with all sorts of medical data, lists of relatives, and ancestry reports all waiting for me to begin clicking. It was almost overwhelming in scope, and I could have been there for hours.

I started with the easiest. The medical reports were favorable. A slightly increased likelihood for glaucoma and a higher-than-average predisposition for restless leg syndrome didn’t seem too bad a fate for my old age. No markers for various cancers, Alzheimer’s, or any of the really nefarious conditions they tested for. I filled Avery and Stephanie in on those details, to which they seemed appropriately pleased, though their impatience for the juicier details was thinly veiled.

I then clicked over to the ancestry. Very Western European. I was very fair skinned and was not surprised to see the result, but I’d perhaps hoped for something a little more unexpected. A family line that traced back to some remote corner of the Middle East or Africa?

But no. “One hundred percent euro mutt,”

I declared to the girls.

“Not unexpected,”

Stephanie said. “You could get a sunburn in an indoor shopping mall in February.”

I rolled my eyes in her direction. “Gee thanks. It shows mainly like Irish, Danish, and French ancestry with a small trace of Italian.”

That last bit was perhaps the most interesting. I could very well imagine that Mom and Avery had some Italian heritage, perhaps Dad too, though his surname was classically English.

“I’d have laid odds on Ireland with that hair,”

Avery mused. “And the rest makes sense too. You certainly cook and eat like a French or Italian woman. Some Danish bone structure too.”

“I can see it.” I nodded.

“Okay, how about the last tab?”

Stephanie prodded.

My hands shook as I dragged my index finger over the track pad. I clicked on the final tab to see a list of names and how closely the genetic data believed we were related. It was still blank, and relief rushed through my veins. Over the years I’d considered the possibility of a whole other family out in the world, but the prospect of meeting them didn’t hold much appeal for me. I didn’t need to hunt down distant relatives in a desperate hope to kindle a relationship built on tenuous genetic bonds when my own family loved me more than they ever could.

I angled the laptop so Stephanie could see, a sign of trust. “Nothing at all.”

Avery waved her hand. “They warned me that was likely. The database keeps growing and you’re an early adopter. But the rest is interesting, isn’t it? To know where your ancestors came from at least?”

I scanned the map that showed the countries in various shades of pink and red, based on how likely it was that my ancestors had originated there, with large swaths of the globe left gray. It did feel strange to see the small corners of the world that were . . . mine. In a manner of speaking anyway.

I shrugged. “I guess it feels like a few small pieces of the Veronica puzzle are coming together.”

I had in my head a vision of a jigsaw puzzle jumbled in a box. You could only see bits and fragments of the picture; most were obscured or flipped over to the brown kraft paper backing. We’d just begun flipping the pieces and testing the fit of thousands of knobs and sockets of the intricate puzzle that formed my life. I hoped against hope that I’d like the image once we began to make sense of it.

* * *

“Well this certainly is nice,”

Mom said, placing the crisp white napkin across her lap.

“I’m glad you came down,”

I said. It had been months since Mom and Dad had made the trek down the mountain to see me, and she’d never made the trip solo before. But lately the unexpected wasn’t the rarity it once had been.

“I just wanted to see your face. You’re so good about calling, but it’s not the same.”

She beamed across the table before scanning the menu. Her eyes flashed wide when she noticed the prices next to the entrées.

I leaned in, conspiratorially. “Don’t worry, Fairbanks says it’s on the house as a thank-you for the vanilla. And a veiled bribe for you to sell him more.”

When Mom had said she was coming down to Denver for the day and wanted to get together for lunch, I’d immediately thought of taking her to 540 Blake so she could sample what Fairbanks and I had done with her handiwork. As the vanilla additions to the menu were doing so well, he was glad for the chance to play host.

Mom shook her head, a wry exasperation sacred unto mothers. “Well, of course I’ll sell him more, for your sake. No bribes necessary.”

I placed a finger to my lips and winked. “Not too loud or he won’t comp the table.”

Her eyes flitted back to the menu. “Fair point. Your father isn’t a frugal man, not these days, but my heavens, this would cause even him to go pale.”

I shot her a knowing look. Fairbanks was a hell of a chef, and his concept was solid, but he forgot he wasn’t in New York anymore. Denver was growing younger, hipper, and a lot more expensive . . . but Manhattan we were not. I’d gently raised the issue with him, but he waved it off with a trite explanation that he didn’t want to lose cachet by becoming “too accessible.”

Mom’s eyes took in the room. “Anyway, it does seem like a nice special-occasion place. I can imagine lovely rehearsal dinners here. And power lunches to boot.”

“Definitely. It’s got the white linen thing down.”

And it did have the feel of a place one would take an important client or a date one really wanted to impress. The ambiance was a little bland for my liking: The same minimalist décor and clean lines one saw at any high-end restaurant. There wasn’t any creativity in the crisp white linens, the plain bone china with a gold band on the edges, or the art on the walls that might have come from any random furniture store. I knew what Fairbanks was doing. He was trying to minimize the distractions from his food. Given that his nouveau-industrial venture in New York had been a colossal failure that was still chuckled about in the inner circles of the restaurant world, it was probably best that he play it safe.

But my gut told me he was taking that impulse several steps too far. In trying to avoid his previous mistakes, he had taken the soul out of the place and boiled it in bleach.

Fairbanks himself emerged a few minutes later, bringing us each a glass of a light white wine meant to tantalize the palate and entice the appetite. He was a tall man, broad chested, with just the barest hint of silver at his temples. He greeted my mother like they were old friends, though they had only ever communicated through me.

Fairbanks pulled out the spare chair and spoke in low tones as if conveying a state secret. “I wonder if you ladies wouldn’t let me prepare you something off book today? I’ve been playing with some new ideas Veronica and I’ve been tossing around, and I’d really love your feedback.”

“No such thing as a free lunch, am I right?”

I said to Mom, put upon, as if he were asking us to wash dishes instead of sampling whatever marvel he was concocting.

Fairbanks smiled, a sight I’d rarely witnessed, given how high tensions ran in his kitchen. “You know it, Stratton. Are you game?”

I crossed my arms in defiance. “Always, Fairbanks. Impress us.”

He gave a mock salute and headed back to his kitchen

“Trust me, this will be good,”

I assured Mom. “But if there is something on the menu you really wanted to try, we can let him know.”

“It’ll be wonderful, darling, I’m sure.”

She had her hands laced in her lap, and I saw the telltale jiggle of her knee, which always bounced when she was nervous.

“Everything okay?”

It was a stupid question, really. The DNA test had shaken the foundation of our family after more than a decade of my trying my best to keep everything stable by keeping the whole thing to myself. I reached a hand across the table. “You know a little cardboard box and a plastic tube of spit doesn’t change anything, right?”

She squeezed my hand. “It does, Veronica. Whether we want it to or not. It doesn’t change the things that really matter, but we can’t pretend that having the whole thing out in the open won’t take some adjusting.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

I knew it was asinine, but I felt the pricking in my gut, like a dozen tiny daggers whenever I’d indulged in the worry that my parents might think of me differently—love me less—if my status as an adoptee was no longer a secret.

“Your sister called us after the results came in. She didn’t tell us much, to respect your privacy, but she, your father, and apparently Stephanie cooked up a scheme. One I want you to consider.”

I took a fortifying sip of the wine, making a mental note to snap a photo of the label before we left. “Go on, then.”

She exhaled slowly. “We want you to go to Europe, our treat.”

I blinked. “Umm . . . Why?”

“So you can process everything, dear. This is not something small, no matter what you might tell yourself.”

I leaned back in my seat. “But why do I have to go all the way to Europe to process what’s happening here?”

I gestured between the two of us. “It seems rather counterintuitive.”

“Your father thinks you won’t deal with things if you’re at home. You’ll lose yourself in your work and sweep it all under the rug. You’re just like him in that respect. We think taking some much-needed time off will maybe give you the headspace you need to deal with this. Or start dealing with it, anyway.”

“I don’t know, Mom. A week or two in Europe sounds fun, but I don’t know if now’s the right time.”

She gave me the kind of pointed glance I hadn’t seen since my teen years. “There never will be a right time. And it’s a month, dear. Avery and Stephanie have it all sorted. Once I send them a text, the whole thing will be booked within a quarter of an hour. A week each in Ireland, France, Italy, and Denmark. Enough time to see the places properly.”

I gasped. “A month? Mom, that’s insane. I have work.”

“You can answer emails from Ireland as well as you can from your studio. Your clients won’t wither away without you for a few weeks. It will be a chance for you to see all the places your ancestors came from and get a change of scenery. It will be good for your soul, Veronica.”

“This sounds so very much like Avery. Why were you selected as family emissary if it was their idea? Avery has never been one to share the credit for one of her ideas.”

Which was part of the reason she was already so successful at her job.

She exhaled slowly. “Because Avery, Stephanie, and even occasionally your father, are far too free with their powers of persuasion. I wanted to honestly give you the choice to go without their bulldozing you.”

I scoffed. “You’re not exactly being impartial, Mom.”

She took a pull from her own glass of wine. “No, I’m not. I think it’s a brilliant idea, really. But if you truly don’t want to go, I won’t force the issue. I don’t think the others would extend you such courtesy.”

I snorted a laugh. Were Avery left to her own devices, it would have been booked on Dad’s Amex before she bothered to tell me where I was going. “You’re right about that.”

“I usually am, dear.”

Just then, Fairbanks emerged with our appetizer: panko shrimp served with a vanilla-infused beurre blanc. I’d spent hours in the kitchen with him fiddling with the right ratio of vanilla extract to vinegar in the beurre blanc and the right consistency of the breadcrumbs for the shrimp coating. The shrimp were the best to be had and were pan-fried to perfection, but there was no denying that the creamy vanilla butter sauce with the earthy notes and arresting tang had stolen the show.

Fairbanks stood silently, but as stoic as he was, he couldn’t keep the expectation from his face. What do you think? was all but etched on his forehead.

I decided to relieve him of his misery. “You used the Madagascar in bourbon for this . . . I told you.”

“As much as it pains me to say it, you were right. The Tahitian in the rum was too sweet. The Mexican in the whiskey was too overpowering. You’ve got good instincts, Stratton.”

I mused. “Use the Mexican in individual chocolate lava cakes at Valentine’s and you won’t have an empty seat in the house for the rest of the year.”

“Like I said, good instincts.”

He hurried back to the kitchen, presumably to prepare our main course.

I turned back to Mom, who was on her third shrimp, looking more pensive than the eating of crustaceans usually called for. “Don’t you like it?”

“Darling girl, it’s possibly the best thing I’ve eaten in my entire life.”

She didn’t speak with pride but rather remorse. She didn’t voice the words, knowing that they’d just lead to a rehashing of an argument more than ten years standing. What was the point in consulting with other restaurants and playing food matchmaker when I could be running a kitchen of my own?

As though picking up a discarded dream after a decade was as simple as riding a bike.

Mom focused back on me, swallowing the lecture she so longed to give. And I loved her for it. “Listen, darling, just think about going, please? I don’t know if it will even begin to help you sort through everything, but it will make me feel better knowing that you at least had some space to do it.”

I forced down a deep breath. “I promise, Mom.”

We continued the rest of the meal in amicable conversation, never really discussing how either of us was coping with the results from the little cardboard box and plastic vial of spit, but neither of us could summon the courage to ask. After all this time stifling my feelings, hiding them from her and Dad, to voice them now seemed contrary to my every instinct.

But nothing could ever go back to normal until I dealt with the maelstrom whirling in my head. And I wondered if just maybe Avery’s scheme didn’t have a bit of merit. But even if it didn’t, as I looked across at the woman beaming with pride at the recipes I’d helped a master chef create, I knew I owed it to her to try.