Two Lines on Yellow Paper
=========================

September 2023

"These two lines that have been sitting next to the waffles and the French toast for God knows how long while I was right upstairs."

So something happened. Something happened about six months after Harold died and I haven't told anyone except Sarah. And Sarah cried. And I'm going to tell you now because, I don't know, it feels like it's time. I was going to try the pancakes again. This was September, maybe, 2023. The kids were coming for David's birthday. David and the girls were flying in and I thought, I'll try again. I'll make the pancakes. It'll be nice. It was a terrible idea, but I didn't know that yet.

So I'm looking for the recipe, which I know, I told you there's no recipe. Harold never wrote it down. But I thought maybe Grace had, somewhere, years ago. Grace had this cookbook, this old Betty Crocker from 1960 something. Red and white one, you know the one. The pages are yellow, and there's a stain on the pot roast page from, I think, from the Carter administration. Harold kept it after Grace died. It was in the kitchen cabinet behind the flour. I don't think he ever opened it. He didn't need a cookbook. He just, you know. But I thought maybe she'd written the pancake recipe in the margins or on one of those index cards people used to tuck in.

So I pull it out and I'm flipping through. And there are Grace's notes. She wrote in this tiny handwriting little things like, more salt next to the meatloaf. Tom likes this next to the chicken. Tom was Harold's father. He died before I met Harold. I only know him from photos. He looked just like David, actually. Same jaw. Anyway, I'm flipping through and I get to the breakfast section and something falls out. A piece of paper folded in half. Yellow legal pad paper, the kind Harold used for everything. His lumber orders, his measurements, his grocery lists, everything went on yellow legal pad paper. And it's his handwriting, not Grace's, Harold's. I read it and I didn't understand it. I mean, I read the words, but they didn't, I read it again. And my hands were, I had to put it down on the counter because my hands were shaking and I couldn't, sorry, give me a second.

It said, Maggie, you were the best part of every single day. The kids got your laugh. I got everything else. H. That's it. Two lines on a piece of yellow paper tucked inside his mother's cookbook. I don't know when he wrote it. That's the thing that I keep turning that over. The handwriting wasn't shaky, so it wasn't the last few years. His hands had the arthritis by then. So it was before that. Could be 10 years ago, could be 20. He wrote this at some point and put it in the one book he knew I'd never look in while he was alive, because I never cooked from Grace's book. That was his territory. And did he know? Did he think about me standing in the kitchen finding it after he was gone? Did he plan it that way? Or did he just write it one afternoon and tuck it in and forget? I'll never know. That's I'll never know and I think about it all the time.

Harold was not a talker. I need you to understand that. He was a kind man and a patient man, and he loved me. I knew that. I always knew that. But he didn't say things like this. In 52 years, I can count on one hand the times he'd show it. He'd make the pancakes, and he'd fix the hinge, and he'd drive to the store at 10 at night if I wanted ice cream. But he didn't. He wasn't a words man. And then this. These two lines that have been sitting next to the waffles and the French toast for God knows how long while I was right upstairs.

I sat on the kitchen floor. I didn't make it to a chair. I just slid down the cabinet and I held this piece of paper and I said out loud, to the kitchen, to nobody, I said, Harold, you— and I couldn't finish. I don't know what I was going to say. I talk to him sometimes, at the kitchen table mostly. I'll say, Harold, the sunflowers are up. Or, Harold, Jack made the baseball team. Just small things. And it's not sad when I do it, it's just he's part of the house still. But this time I couldn't get past his name. Sarah called a few hours later just checking in, and I told her. And she started crying, and I started again, and we were just two women crying on the phone about a piece of yellow paper.

I put it back. I put it back in the cookbook, same page, folded the same way. I don't know why. It felt like it belonged there. Like if I moved it somewhere safer, it would lose something. I never did make the pancakes that weekend. We ordered pizza. David said it was better anyway. The kids got your laugh. Harold wrote that. And he's right. Sarah does laugh like me. I'd never noticed until he pointed it out on a piece of legal pad paper from inside a cookbook. I don't have a way to end this one. I just wanted you to know it happened.

---
People: Harold, Grace, Tom, Sarah, David, Jack