Davis - Recipe for joy: a stepmoms story of finding faith, following love, and feeding a family

3441 N. Ashland Avenue

Chicago, Illinois 60657

(800) 621-1008

www.loyolapress.com

2013 Robin Davis

All rights reserved.

Art Credits: Penelope Dullaghan, LokFung/istockphoto.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Heigel, Robin Davis.

Recipe for joy : a stepmoms story of finding faith, following love, and feeding a family / Robin Davis.

pages cm

ISBN-13: 978-0-8294-3795-9

ISBN-10: 0-8294-3795-9

1. StepmothersReligious aspectsChristianityAnecdotes. 2. MotherhoodReligious aspectsChristianityAnecdotes. 3. Christian womenReligious lifeAnecdotes. 4. FamiliesReligious lifeChristianity. I. Title.

BV4529.18.H44 2013

248.8431dc23

2012045329

eBook ISBN: 978-0-8294-3796-6

13 14 15 16 17 EPUB 5 4 3 2 1

I took a last look in the mirror, eyeing the fashionable shag haircut and smoothing a few strands from my eyes. I threw my brown The Sak crocheted bag over my shoulder, smiling at the thought of the credit card inside bearing the name Susan Lamont, my alias, that waited to be used for the first time.

I almost skipped down the hall of the Victorian two-bedroom apartment that I shared with two other girls. My bedrooma makeshift third bedroomconsisted of the second parlor, walled off with pocket doors from the first parlor that we used as a living room. It wasnt private, but it was darling. The apartment was on a tree-lined street in hipster Cole Valley, a world away from hippy Haight-Ashbury, a few blocks up.

As the fog rolled in, a nightly occurrence in San Francisco, I shouted good-bye to my roommates. Some days the fog was so thick that it never broke at all, blanketing the residents in a cold damp mist. Tonight, in this summer of 1997, it didnt bother me. Tonight the city had a special shine even through the fog. Tonight this city was mine.

I jumped behind the wheel of my shiny new black Jetta, expertly maneuvered it from its tight space between two other cars and threw it into first gear. I was headed to the theater district, to a new restaurant with owners as new to the restaurant business as I was to my job.

I was meeting a friend for dinner. But not just any dinner. I was now a restaurant critic at the San Francisco Chronicle. I would eat dinner incognito, my first of three visits over the course of the next few weeks, then write my opinion of what I ate. Thousands would read what I had to say and make dinner reservations based on my review.

As I drove to Indigo Restaurant, I thought what a long and sometimes speed bump-filled road it had been to get here.

I had chosen my career as my life, shutting the door on God and religion, and turning my back on any kind of long-term relationship years before. Being singularly driven to succeed, I believed, was something I could master, and far less messy than a life with a spouse and family. Marriage went against my philosophy that relationships had a useful lifespan, and when they were no longer useful, they should end.

Being married to my job was a decision my family didnt understand. When my oldest brother Rick asked when I would marry my current boyfriend du jour, I answered, I dont have any plans to marry him or anyone else.

My brother, then married more than twenty years, answered, Oh, yeah, I forgot that you live in the land of alternative lifestyles.

Single wasnt considered an alternative lifestyle in San Francisco, which was one of many reasons I loved the city so much. Career equaled identity to most of my friends. I knew I could thrive in such an environment.

My younger sister, who also had been married for many years, was less concerned with my getting married than my moving back to Ohio where I grew up and where she still lived.

When I start having my kids, she pleaded, Ill want you near me, near them.

Dorothy, I explained as patiently as I could. I will never, ever move back to Ohio.

In fact, I couldnt imagine ever leaving San Francisco. It was a magical place that had filled me with wonder from the first time I set foot in it to look at the California Culinary Academy. I was smitten by everything from the fingers of fog that reached across the headlands to the bustling crowds of people who seemed so smart and worldly.

I had worked hard to get where I finally was: leaving Ohio by myself to move to California, cashing in my 401K to go to cooking school, leaving my beloved San Francisco to move to Los Angeles to work for Bon Apptit magazine, then returning to the city by the bay to work as a part-time editorial assistant at the Chronicle. Now the paper was in the middle of nasty litigation with the woman who had been removed from the critics job before it was given to me. But it was given to me. It was rightly mine.

Here I was, a small town girl from the Midwest, leading the ideal urban life in sexy San Francisco. Leave all this? I couldnt imagine what could possibly drive me to do something so crazy.

On that first night, I ordered pan-seared salmon with tomato fondue and pesto and instructed my friend to order roasted chicken atop okra risotto. We split smooth and silky lavender crme brulee for dessert. I paid careful attention to the service (consistently good, and the staff seems to know the food well, I later wrote in the review) and the decor (remodeled in sophisticated blue and white, the tiled bar outlined in pencil thin neon).

At the end of the night, I took careful notes and meticulously planned my next visits to this restaurant and others to fulfill my obligation of writing two reviews per week. I was positively giddy at the prospects.

This was the best night of my life.

At the same time, in a small suburb of Columbus, Ohio, Grace was sure she was having the worst night of her life. Finally, the kids were asleep, and her mother had reluctantly gone to bed. Grace sat across the kitchen table from her husband, the two of them just staring at each other.

Hours earlier, the phone had runga sound that in retrospect the couple would remember as a warning bell of something awful to come.

Ken had answered the phone in the bedroom. Ken, this is Dr. Mathias. I need to talk to Grace. Its not good.

Im here, doctor, Grace said, having picked up the phone in the family room, as the kids played nearby under the watchful gaze of their grandmother. Grace sat on the floor next to the couch, nodding and taking careful notes in her precise handwriting. Mmm, hmm. Yes. OK. Yes. I understand. I will, she said.

She hung up the phone, put her head in her hands, and cried. Ken knelt beside her, enveloping her in his arms. Her mother, Pat, stood from the chair where she was sitting, and Grace went to her next, seeking comfort even her mother couldnt give her.

Its malignant, she said finally, watching five-year-old Ben and three-year-old twins Molly and Sarah who played with foam puzzles on the family room floor. Graces world had just spun out of its orbit, yet the kids had no idea and happily worked to make the pieces fit.

The tumors were small, the doctor had said, but Grace needed to call the office on Monday so they could discuss their options.

After the call from Dr. Mathias, Ken and Grace packed the kids in their minivan along with Graces mother and headed to City Center, a shopping mall in downtown Columbus. They walked the mall, trying to act normal, to not fall into despair.

Ken looked at other young families walking around, happy and carefree, and wondered, Why us? Much later, he would come to tell himself, Why