Page 28 of In These Hills

“You want a cup of mint tea with honey?” Calla held up the bottle. “Happy to make you one.”

“No, I think I’ll wait for coffee. But thank you.”

“Already got it brewing. Be ready shortly.” Calla began cracking eggs into a large bowl.

Josephine watched. “You do that one-handed?”

“Just like my mama taught me. How’d your mama teach you?”

Josephine was hesitant to admit that her mother hadn’t known anything about cooking either. That they’d employed a cook for as long as she could remember. “I’ve always used both hands, but I’ll have to try it your way sometime.” When I have an hour to dig shards of broken shells out of a mess of eggs, she wanted to add, but didn’t.

Feeling guilty about trying to trick Calla into helping her, she continued nonetheless, the threat of being sent back to Atlanta all too real. “So you said the rest of what I need is in the larder? Would you mind showing me where everything is?”

“I would, but I need to get these eggs on the stove. Tenants’ll be down soon. Besides, everything’s labeled.”

Already knowing that from her earlier search, Josephine stepped into the larder. Biscuits weren’t a complete mystery, so she grabbed the flour tin and tried to recall how Lannie, their family’s cook, had made them. Flour, certainly. Buttermilk. What else?

She pictured Lannie kneading the dough, cutting biscuit with practiced ease. As a little girl, Josephine had stood at the table’s edge, watching every move. Sometimes Lannie would “accidentally” leave a scrap of dough within reach, and Josephine had gobbled it up, believing it a secret gift.

She hadn’t thought of Miss Lannie in years—or appreciated her skill nearly enough.

Dragging her thoughts back, she dumped flour into a bowl. It didn’t look like enough, so she added more.

“Oh, you’re making lots of biscuits!” Calla said. “That’s good, our tenants love to eat.”

Taking that at face value, Josephine poured in plenty of buttermilk, stirred, frowned, added more flour, and stirred again. Still a thick, soupy mess. Grateful Calla wasn’t watching, she added yet more flour until it finally resembled dough.

She dumped it onto the worktable and tried to knead. The dough stuck to everything. Then she remembered standing close to the table’s edge, watching Miss Lannie work, and ending up with flour on her nose. She dusted the table with flour, hoping to hide her mistake. After a few minutes, she almost convinced herself this wasn’t so difficult.

“You gonna use that skillet?” Calla asked.

“I can use whatever you’d like.”

“No, that one’s fine. Cast iron gives biscuits a nice crust.”

“You’re welcome to check what I’m doing, if you want.”

“Oh I’m afraid I can’t help when it comes to a cook’s interview. Miss Mary’s strict on that. She wants to see what a cook can do on her lonesome.”

Josephine crammed as many biscuits into the skillet as would fit, then slid the extras on a baking sheet. Not wanting to think about how long it would take Miss Mary to toss her to the curb if the woman discovered she’d lied to her, she turned to the sausage.

“You already got your biscuits in?” Calla asked.

“Sure do. Now I’m making the gravy.”

“Milk or water?”

Josephine froze, not sure what she was asking. But the gravy Lannie used to make was a creamy white. “I use milk. What about you?”

“Same. And Miss Mary likes both. She just loves gravy!”

Calla chuckled and turned back to the eggs while Josephine broke up the sausage with a wooden spoon. As it cooked, hot grease popped and splattered, burning her hands and forearms.

Calla gestured. “You can close the damper a little if the stove’s cooking too hot.”

Josephine reached for the cover.

“No, ma’am!” Calla said sharply. “Not with your bare hand!”