How to Bake a Perfect Life Read Online Free PDF

blessing.”
    “Is there anyone there with you? Do you have a place to stay?”
    “Yes, it’s all very well organized. There’s a house nearby that’s run by a private organization, and I have a driver assigned to me.” She strives for good cheer, but I can hear the terror in her voice. “The Soldiers’ Angels gave us a quilt that’s just beautiful, and they have this little backpack they give to soldiers because they might not have their stuff with them, you know?”
    “That sounds great.” I would have spared her this. Don’t love a soldier , I would have said, or a policeman, or a smoke jumper . In this moment, though, I want only to offer her something to buoy her. “He’s lucky to have you there, sweetie.”
    “They aren’t going to move him for a few days.” Her breath hitches. “I don’t think they expect him to live, Mom.”
    I say the only thing I can. “They don’t know everything. You have to have faith.”
    “You’re right.” Her voice takes on some color. “I will.” She clears her throat, dons her armor again. “Did Katie get there safely?”
    “She did. She is sound asleep in the orange bedroom. Her dog, however, is not here yet.”
    “A dog?”
    “She found him on the train tracks the night her mother was arrested. He sounds like a total vagabond. If he were a man, he would be your stepfather—amoral and utterly charming.”
    Sofia laughs, that helpless reaction-style giggle. “Oh, Mom! Thank you so much for all of this.” Suddenly there are tears twining through the laughter, and—finally—she lets down her guard and sobs, the sound shattering over the tiny nerves on the bridge of my nose. “I’m so scared. Tell me I can do this.”
    “You’re stronger than you know, Sofia. You can do anything. And I’m always right here.”
    “Thank you.” She takes in a big breath. “Kiss Katie for me. Tell her I’ll call her tomorrow. But, Mom, don’t tell her too much about Oscar, all right? Downplay it.”
    “That’s a mistake.”
    “Just do it my way, will you?”
    “No, sorry.” I can’t stand it when people lie , Katie had said. “I promised her I’d tell her the truth.”
    “Then don’t say anything.”
    “You’re going to have to trust me to do what’s right.”
    “Mom!”
    “Sorry. I won’t lie to her. Call her tomorrow—our tomorrow here—all right? And, in the meantime, you need to get some sleep.”
    A pause. “You’re right. Okay. I’ll call tomorrow.”
    When I hang up, a middle-of-the-night stillness muffles all sound. I lie on my back, phone warm in my hand, and think about her in a hospital halfway around the world, alone withthis. I want the details of the place—are the hallways white or green? Modern or old? What kind of chairs are in the waiting rooms? When she was in college, I had her snap photos of apartments I had not seen so that I could easily visualize her moving around her environment.
    She’ll have pulled her hair into a sensible ponytail, and her makeup will have worn off by now, and she’ll be wearing tennis shoes, very white, with jeans. To accommodate her belly, she’s been wearing batik peasant blouses, colored like tapestries, which makes her look like a medieval woman. I imagine her settling a hand on her belly, putting her forehead against the wall, letting go for a minute.
    Then I know what she next will do: She will straighten, square those narrow shoulders, and march back to Oscar’s bedside.
    Oscar. Burned; an amputee. I think of his beautiful hands, his curly hair.
    Their lives will never be the same, in ways she can’t even envision now. My chest feels hollow with grief, with knowing all that she has lost.
    Next to me, Milo starts to purr, very quietly. His body is bumped up against mine, and a paw reaches through the darkness to land on my forearm, a tap. Idly, I run my hand over his forehead, down his back, scratching the place beneath his ears that he loves so much. His fur is as silky as mink. A