Playing Jacks

iii. Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

iii: Life is Like a Box of Chocolates. (You never know what you’re going to get.)

If there is some kind of purgatory on Earth, a limbo outside of time, Sophie has found it.  Tucked into the small apartment over the Mancuso pool house, she waits.  All the paperwork has been submitted- passports, name change- but the government moves at a pace that would make a sloth proud.  The days have few distinguishing features.  They blur together, inconsequential.  It’s already been a month.

 “Sophie!” JJ calls from his post by the grill.  “You’d better get down here before my wife tries her hand at your pasta dish!  That’d be deadly to us all!”

Savannah smacks his arm with a grimace.

“Ow,” JJ complains good-naturedly, smiling as he rubs his arm.

“Coming!” Sophie calls, already descending the stairs with the appropriate ingredients.  She grabs Savannah’s hand as she rushes by, pulling her into the kitchen- JJ watching as the women retreat from his line of sight.

“Oh, Sophie, give it up,” Savannah complains as she staggers after her. “I’m a lost cause . . . can’t even boil water.”

“Nope,” Sophie announces, plopping her stash onto the countertop.  She’s taken on Savannah’s culinary education as her personal project, much to her husband’s amusement and her own mortification.

“Big pot of water,” Sophie instructs, stooping to pull out the soup pot.

“Big pot of water,” Savannah repeats, filling it at the boiling water faucet over the range.

“Salt the water.”

“Salt the water,” she repeats. “Tell me again why?”

“It lowers the boiling point of the water and adds flavor.”

“Right.”

Step by step, Sophie takes her through the simple recipe to create a white sauce: butter, flour, milk, parmesan cheese and stir like the dickens.  They’ve made this recipe numerous times already but Savannah has always professed to be too intimidated to try it alone.

“Perfect,” Sophie announces, when the sauce thickens.  Leaning against the counter, she watches her student pour it over wide egg noodles and toss the concoction together. “So when do you plan to tell JJ that you can do this?”

“Never,” she hisses.  “God, he’d actually expect me to cook!”

Sophie laughs, following her into the screened porch where the family has set up dinner tonight.

“Mom, you’ve set too many places,” Jeremy notes, looking around the table.

“No I haven’t,” she asserts in her quiet voice.  Despite the low volume, there’s no contradicting that tone.

Jeremy watches his mother but she ignores him, walking back into the house.  Suddenly his face turns sour.  “Oh damn.  Jack’s back.”

Savannah takes in a deep breath. “It’ll be okay, Jeremy.”

But Jeremy’s sour expression doesn’t soften. “It’s never okay around Jacks.”

JJ and Savannah exchange a concerned expression, but no one else mentions the matter and Sophie doesn’t ask.  She’s only briefly met Jacks, the middle son.  JJ, or James Jr, is his father’s duplicate in appearance and ability.  Thirty years old, he’s already on his way to becoming a partner in a law firm.  Jeremy is the youngest, the surprise.  He’s only sixteen. 

But Sophie knows nothing of Jacks.  No one speaks of him- as if the subject were taboo.

“Hey mom.  I’m home,” someone calls, rather flatly, from the foyer.