Out of Focus (Love in LA #3)

“Are you having headaches? Maybe I should make you some tea instead.” She braces her hands on the table to stand, and I place a gentle hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“I’m feeling great. I promise.” At least physically, I am. It’s not a lie. She doesn’t need to know about the tornado of emotions twisting in my chest. “No headaches lately. Not since I had one a few weeks ago when I was here. And you took such good care of me that I haven’t had another.” I wish they were just headaches, but my migraines, when they decide to hit, hit real hard. Like throwing up, can’t open my eyes, everything hurts kind of hard. I’ve had them nearly my whole life, and because the prescription medication makes me so loopy, I tend to avoid taking it. Vó knows that I need the right mix of caffeine, sleep, and not to move for a few hours to make it go away.

She sits back in her chair, narrowing her eyes at me. “Menino,” she scolds. “A grandmother always knows when her grandbabies are going through something. But, fine, if you’re not going to tell me now, keep it to yourself. I’ll be here when you’re ready.” She takes a bite of her cheese and waves a hand over to me, urging me to do the same.

As I chew on my afternoon snack, I also chew on her words. I’ll be here when you’re ready. It always hits me hardest when she says things like that. She’s healthy, yes. Spry as fuck and could probably still handle a long workday better than most people in their thirties. But still, it always feels like time is running out, and the pressure to spend as much time as I can with her, to make the most of every moment, is always there. If I let it, the anxiety I feel over lost time will consume me. It was that anxiety that prompted me to have these Tuesdays with her, to make sure that a part of her legacy was left here for us. For me.

“What are we cooking today?” I change the subject, and she doesn’t protest.

“Strogonoff.” After a sip of her coffee, she smiles up at me. It’s my favorite dish. One I usually request when I need comfort food. She really did know I needed a little extra love today.

After we finish our coffees, I wash the dishes, and Vó puts the remaining food away. She always puts way too much out, and not even I—being the bottomless pit that I am—can eat it all.

“So, what are we replacing the mushrooms with this time?” I move to where she is at the large island and start to help her tie her apron. She swats my hand away, and I laugh. Fiercely independent, this woman.

“I thought we could try leeks. I didn’t like how the tofu crumbled last time, and zucchini is too watery.” Vó takes the vegetables from the fridge, and I tie my apron, shaking my head at the design on the one she picked for me. It says, “This guy rubs his own meat,” with big arrows pointing to my face. Yeah, my grandmother has the most inappropriate kind of humor, and she is unapologetic about it.

“All right, Vózinha. Let’s do this!” I rub my hands together, already feeling the tension in my shoulders melt away as I get lost in the comfort of cooking.

When we finish, the kitchen smells fantastic. The leeks seem to hold up well in the dish, and it tastes great, too, as we come to find out when we do a quick taste test. Vó pulls a container to pack some of the food so I can take it home with me but struggles with getting the lid on and spills some of the stroganoff on the counter.

“Merda!” She slams the container down, her hands shaking slightly, and I calmly stand next to her, taking one of those life-giving hands into my own and bringing it to my lips. I place a kiss on top of her right hand, noticing that the skin there feels even more paper-thin than the last time I paid attention to this detail about her. “These old hands don’t want to cooperate. Can you pack this up while I clean up my mess?”

We work silently. I know she’s proud and won’t want me to mention this incident to anyone. We finish up, and she waves a hand at my phone sitting on the counter. “Don’t forget to type into your phone that we used three leeks, bottoms only, cut into slices. Not too thin. I’ll write it into the notebook when my fingers decide to be useful again.”

“Not too thin. Is that the actual size?” I smirk, hoping she’ll do the same. Her arthritis is getting worse, and she sees it as losing bits of her independence. “Or should we be more vague?” I chuckle as she twists the tea towel on her shoulder and whips it at me, hitting me right on the nipple with sniper-like precision.

Her husky laughter fills the room as I yelp, dropping my phone to the countertop with a loud clank. “Any other questions?” she asks through a fit of giggles.

“None at the moment, thank you. Ow. That one got me good, Vó.” I rub at the spot on my chest that is going to be sore for the next several minutes and hold in my own laughter. Picking my phone back up, I finish typing in her modifications, eyeing the closed notebook. “I’d really like to keep the notebook going, but I don’t think we’ll be able to. I don’t want you doing this, knowing it’s painful for you.”

It sucks because this is actually really important to me. Cooking has been the most visceral connection I have to who I am and where I’m from. It’s something I can share with my friends and my family; it brings joy, it helps me keep my hands occupied, and it calms me. Cooking, like running or exercising, is vital.

When Vó and I started this book a few months ago, the goal was to include everyone’s favorite dishes along with traditional Brazilian ones. All the things she’s made for us over the years without a recipe book, without measurements. Now, I’m taking care to get specific quantities—even if they’re not always as accurate as I’d like—so that any of us can recreate her dishes. I’ve asked her not to tell anyone we’re working on this. Selfishly, I want this handwritten version to be just for me, even if I can’t really read it. I’ll have this typed up by someone, at some point, and create something I can read and print multiples of to gift to everyone.

She looks at me with sad eyes, and the guilt I’m all too familiar with smacks me in the chest harder than the towel she just whipped me with. “I’m sorry. I know how important this is to you. It’s important to me, too.” Her eyes fill with tears, and the need to diffuse this situation is all-consuming. If she cries, I will not be able to hold it together. That’s already difficult for me on a good day. Thankfully, she shakes it off. “Maybe we can get someone to help us? Or you can do that thing where you talk to your phone, and it types for you. We can figure this out.” She pats my forearm and shifts over to hang a tea towel.

Just the thought of having to focus on cooking, getting measurements, and getting the recipe correctly onto a document is enough to overwhelm me. I can multitask things like listening to a book and running. One is mental, is the other physical. But with cooking, there’s already a lot involved, and I know I’d struggle to add one more thing. I already do most of the prepping so that Vó doesn’t have to use a knife to chop anything or do anything else that will cause more pain. That’s why she writes the recipes down.

I don’t even know why it’s so important to me to have this handwritten version. Maybe because it’s physical proof of what we’re doing together. Of this time we get to have. Some pages end up stained with oils or sauces, and when I flip through them, they look like little pieces of art.

As someone whose genetic family history starts and ends with myself, this matters to me. The only history I have is the one I’m actively creating, thanks to the Machado family. My parents didn’t want me. They chose to give me up in a closed adoption. This family chose to have me, and they continue to choose me every day.

I have to find a way to make this happen.

With my car smelling of my favorite meal, I drive in silence, letting my thoughts become as chaotic as they want. I just want to get home and snuggle my cat.

As I pull into my driveway, my phone vibrates.

CHARLIE:

Is tomorrow okay for us to get together?

Maybe go for a walk?

Anytime is fine.

I fight the urge to mark the messages as unread and respond to them later, knowing that Charlie might assume that I’m ignoring her again. I know she’d probably understand if I told her that sometimes I open messages before I’m mentally prepared to respond to them. But I haven’t explained that to her yet, so it’s not fair to just expect her to know this about me.