|
She looked in their faces and they were scared. Pillars of strength and truth and they were scared. The grandfather clocked ticked away the minutes. Those delicious pecan cookies they had been baking earlier in the day just stared at her from the table. Just mere hours ago they had been laughing over the cookies (trying to sneak Dad his whole wheat) and now it was changing. It wasn't so funny anymore. “Honey, did you hear us? You were adopted.” “I heard you guys. I'm just trying.....why didn't you tell me earlier? It's like you've been lying to me all my life.”
“Honey, we just didn't want you to go looking for your parents...”
“So what if I did, you know I would still love you guys. Right?”
Tears were coming from her mom's eyes. Then Dad finally said something, “Honey I know you have a lot of questions and are probably really hurting right now, but there is something more important at stake right now. Honey, you were...well, your dad passed away before we found you and your mother....she committed suicide honey. She was very sad because well, your brother he was in an insane asylum. He wasn't getting any better. He's very sick. He...well, he's a murderer honey. We just found out tonight. We found you after you had been dropped off at an emergency room. The Sheriff is coming over because, well, he escaped tonight. No one knows where he is.”
“What?” There was honesty in their eyes and she knew that something deeper than the boy she wanted to date, the tests she had to take, or the movie she was going to watch was going on. The empty swing in the front yard rocked back and forth. Just as she was looking out there red and blue rotating lights flooded into the windows and the sound of sirens flooded the room. “Is he after me?”
“You're the only one left in his family....they think, its just safer if will all go with the Sheriff tonight.”
The light tap on the door told Shari that it was time to go to a different place in her life. It was a place where things were real and scary. She went out into the dark with the Sheriff and before she got in the car she saw him. A large figure with a hospital robe in a dark corner. A link to a past she didn't know and didn't want to know. He was gone before she told the Sheriff. Away to hide.....away to grow up. She snuggled into her father when they got in the car. Everything would be okay is what he told her and she believed him, because there was nothing else to believe. Deep in her soul.
“Whole-Wheat Pecan Cookies”*
Ingredients: 7 tbs of softened butter, ½ of chopped pecans, 1/3 cup of firmly packed dark brown sugar, ½ cup of finely chopped dried apricots, 1 egg yolk, grated zest and juice of ½ lemon, and 1 and 1/3 cups of whole wheat flour.
-
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter two cookie sheets.
-
Beat the butter and brown sugar on medium speed until creamy. Add the egg yolk, beating until just blended. Mix in the flour, lemon zest and juice, apricots, and pecans.
-
Press the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate from 30 minutes. Roll out the dough on a floured surface. Use a 2 inch cookie cutter to cut out the cookies. Gather the dough scraps, re-roll and continue cutting out cookies until all the dough is used. Transfer the cookies to the prepared cookie sheets.
-
Bake for about 15 minutes. Transfer to racks to cool.
-
Enjoy the tastes of home.
* Base of recipe from cookies and then I molded it from there.
|
