Page 8 of When Lemons Give You Life

Today’s search was a low point: the side effects of eating a scented candle. I wouldn’t wish those on anyone. Not even Allison. So I’ve settled on Number 13: The Sleeping Meds. But I still need to find out if that will stuff up my organs. A good chef uses all parts of the animal: liver, heart, kidneys. I’ve made a mess of this life; the least I can do is leave something good behind.

A heavy feeling settles in my empty stomach, words lodging under my ribs as chilling as the days they were first said.

Please, Griff. Please, do this for me.

He wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for you.

There’s nothing left for me here now. No restaurant, no cooking, no relationship with Lisa, no better half. All I have is my legacy, and that only lives on if I die. If I come clean, it vanishes just like everything else.

I peel open my eyelids and look to Beau for comfort. He weighs almost nothing and can easily sit on the small side table, although he always thought it impolite to sit on anything but a chair. Yet he doesn’t care anymore, or can’t, at least.

Beau’s urn is the color of Manuka honey, just like his eyes. It’s covered in a gold geometric design that he, being such a math nerd, would have loved. The world hasn’t absorbed the loss of him yet, and I don’t think it ever will. I sigh. The ache is still raw, tender as a fresh bruise.

He was an unusual man, mainly because he was one of the few people in Australia who adored Canberra. He wanted our ashes to be scattered there, in our capital’s center—even had an old map of the place framed and hung in our bedroom. He loved the city’s geometric motifs, long axes, and crisp alignment, which he would stare at as if the place were one of the seven wonders of the world. Seven blunders of the world, if you ask me. It has only a handful of good restaurants, and everything closes early, but I agreed to his wish. I’m not sure if I believe in any kind of afterlife, so what will it matter if my final resting place is the Seine or Lake Burley Griffin?

I catch my reflection in the mirror.

Beau always saw good in things that nobody else did. He made me see a proud future rather than a shameful past. Now his steadying hand, his reassuring voice, are gone.

His smile illuminates my darkened mind, the top row of teeth slightly whiter than the bottom after he gave up halfway through his teeth-whitening quest. He had many smiles: the chuffed little grin when he was proud of himself, the sly one when he pretended to take the last slice of chocolate torte just to hand it to me anyway. But my favorite was his butter beam, the one that appeared after the first bite of every meal I made. It meant more than any five-star rating and melted me every time, hence its name. I lived for that smile, and I no longer care to be in a world without it.

Our wedding photo mocks me from the wall. Ontario had only just recognized marriage equality when we jumped on a plane to Canada. What could be better than marrying the love of my life and a honeymoon filled with poutine and Saskatoon berry pie? The Rockies stood as witnesses then, majestic and full of promise, cradling those first days of marriage. Today, they loom like shadows, towering over a past I can never reclaim.

How many times have I wanted to throw the pictures out, to get rid of the evidence of a love so great it outshone every dark thing in me? Even now, I can barely believe someone like him fell for a person like me. But pretending Beau’s love didn’t exist is like pretending the sun isn’t real. It was too big, too warm, too shockingly beautiful to be erased. Funny how love lasts far longer than a lifetime.

My stomach growls at me, and we argue as we do most nights. I always win. I’d rather be hungry than suffer through the graying “beef stroganoff” (emphasis on the “off”) that has just appeared on my dinner tray, I could cook better than this before I hit puberty. If only I could taste real food again before I go. Preferably a lemon tart. Death-row inmates get a final good meal; shouldn’t I be afforded the same courtesy?

I slap my hand to my forehead. There’s a whole bloody commercial kitchen here. I could just . . .

A knot turns to ice in my stomach as I recall the day I stopped cooking, after the tragic chicken pâté incident.

I pull my serviette over the stone-cold slop, the thought of the tart lingering on the tip of my tongue. Dinner service will be long over now. Ingredients wouldn’t be hard to find: flour, lemons, eggs, sugar, butter, cream. I run through the steps in my head: the pastry, the curd, the timing, I could do it in my sleep. I can be in and out before anyone knows I’ve gone. All I have to do is get through the door.

This is my last chance. Bugger it. If we can’t go out with a bang, my tastebuds and I will go out with a tang.

I wait until I’ve been put to bed. Ignoring my creaking knees, I get up and tentatively open the door; the empty nurses’ station fuels my suspicion that no one actually works the night shift. I punch in the code to open the door out of the dementia ward, which I committed to memory when I first arrived. My mouth, salivating at the thought of lemon, pushes me along the shadowy hall.

The kitchen door is locked. Another keypad sits beneath a large white sign that reads STAFF MEMBERS ONLY. Well, technically it says ST FF as the A is missing. So maybe it said STIFF MEMBERS ONLY, and since my diagnosis of arthritis in my shoulder last year, I think I qualify.

My hands tremble as I push each number, sending up a silent prayer that the code is the same. The green light goes on. Bingo—the only kind I’m interested in here.

The smell of bleach socks me. Stainless-steel countertops reflect moonlight from the windows, looking eerily like autopsy tables in crime shows. I picture my own body there, still and pain-free. But that wouldn’t be fair to the kitchen staff, or hygienic. A good chef must always be hygienic.

I switch on the lights to reveal a decent kitchen, not that dissimilar to the one I headed up at my restaurant, Lorraine. A row of hairnets, chef whites and aprons hang to my right. It’s mere white cotton and thread, but as I put them on, I feel important for the first time in ages.

Freezing air greets me as I open the doors to the large walk-in fridge to gather ingredients. I wash my hands thoroughly and then stop. If I get lethal food poisoning, I’ll kill two birds with one stone—well, one bird and one grumpy old bugger. I glance back at the fridge, briefly remembering the last time food went wrong.

I measure the flour, butter and sugar straight onto the clean steel countertop. The kitchen closes in like a tomb, a place where joy died long ago. I don’t have to do this; I can walk away, just like I have every other time I tried to cook again. But this time, something keeps me here. Maybe the memory of Beau, of how his eyes used to light up when I served him a perfect petit four. Maybe it’s knowing that this is my last chance. A deadline is always a sure-fire way to get people to act, and this is quite literally a deadline. It’s not like I’m making chicken pâté again.

My chest tightens. It’s now or never. I plunge my hands in. As I work the creamy yellow cubes into the flour, something shifts; my hands stop shaking, the rhythm of my wrists becoming familiar again. Hesitation slips away, replaced by something I haven’t experienced since I moved into this place: control.

My movements are slow, careful, but there’s something electric about them. The weight of the sadness is still there, but in that moment, it doesn’t feel quite as heavy.

This is what I know. This is who I am. A mixer would be faster and kinder on the knuckles, but I want to feel the process.

I take a sip of cold water from the tap, add a dash to bring the dough together, and it’s done: a ball of buttery yellow perfection.

Some would say I know this recipe like the back of my hand, but it’s never a phrase I use. I wouldn’t recognize my own hand if it slapped me in the face. I don’t know the precise number of freckles or hairs or whether my veins are more green or blue. No, I know this recipe like the left side of Beau’s face, the one I woke up to every morning. The dimple an inch from the corner of his mouth that appeared in so many smiles it became permanent. The faded white scar on his jawline from the one, and only, time he tried fencing without a helmet. The fuzzy white peach of an earlobe that he could masterfully wiggle on command. I know this recipe like that.