Compromise, Patience—I Forget the Rest

Bertha had the recipe for love. She found it once at a bake sale in California, but she only had fifty cents and the woman at the table wouldn’t budge. A dollar twenty-five, she repeated each time Bertha asked, so Bertha memorized the ingredients and went on her way. When she got home, she wrote them down exactly as they had appeared on the card with a pencil her father had left her when he went out for smokes. He never came back, and she only used the pencil in emergency situations.

Bertha kept the recipe close to her heart, in a locket designed by Post-It. She passed it on to her children and grandchildren, but one of the ingredients had faded and she could never remember what it was. Pete, her only grandson, just turned thirteen and his father bought him a spy kit at Piggly Wiggly. His mother would throw a fit if he brought it home, so he left it at Bertha’s where he and his father stayed on Thursday nights and every other Saturday.

Pete’s father was fond of fishing. Pete was not. One Saturday afternoon, he stayed home with Granny Bertha while his father went to the lake with Uncle Joe. As soon as they left, Pete slipped a sedative from his kit into Bertha’s Diet Dr. Pepper. It was salty, but Bertha often put peanuts in her soda water and didn’t notice. Soon her chin was buried in her bosom.

Pete unclasped the locket around her neck and pried the note from its safe house. He dusted it for fingerprints, but found none. This is when he remembered that Bertha had burned all of her fingerprints in an unfortunate fire caused by old Easy Bake ovens. As he began to fold the note along its creases, some of the powder fell over an empty spot on the paper. He blew on the note to hide the evidence and noticed a word where none had been. The word was Time, but Pete couldn’t read and didn’t want to be found out.

He slipped the note back into Bertha’s locket and went to play in the yard. Bertha awoke an hour or so later, just as his father returned with an empty pail and three burgers from Dairy Queen. He had caught many fish, but he had thrown them all back. This is what he tells Pete every other Saturday. Pete doesn’t mind, and he prefers ground beef to dirty fish anyhow.

After dinner—which is served at lunchtime in Bertha’s house—Pete’s father loads up the truck to take Pete back to his mother. The spy kit is tucked away in a closet until next time. When the truck fades to dot, Bertha runs her fingers over her locket. There’s something sticky on the clasp and it tastes like strawberry jam. She does not usually taste sticky substances, but this one smelled sweet and her sugar was low so she gave it a go.

Curious, she opens the locket and unfolds the recipe. She notices an ingredient she has forgotten for too many years. She was married once, for sixty-two years, but he had passed last winter. Since then, both of her sons had wed fourth wives, her daughters had started attending PTA meetings to meet men, and three granddaughters were filing for divorce. She will not make the same mistake with her grandson. She sits down at the table and begins to write out the recipe. Pete is still too young for the wisdom, but Bertha uses a pen and makes two copies. She places one in his spy kit, another in the locket. The original is folded along its creases again. When the sun sinks, she will visit the grave of her husband and place the note on his stone.