Milky Way

Britt poured water into Inger’s glass from the small carafe and tidied her tray. “Oh, you know. Monstrous. Anything I can get you?”

“No.” Inger made a shooing motion toward the door. “Go on. Get back to your kids and your cows. And for God’s sake, eat something before somebody puts old clothes on you and sticks you in a cornfield.”

Britt leaned down to hug her again and felt the old woman’s surprisingly strong response before she pushed her away and turned her concentration back to the television. When Britt paused at the door to wave, Inger had the bag of Linder balls in her lap.

She found an earnest game of gin rummy in progress in Martha Bauer’s room. The tiny, fragile woman was propped up against her pillows, her white hair in a neat braid coronet atop her head, her bony shoulders adorned with a soft blue bed jacket.

“Brittany!” Martha’s deep voice was slightly fractured with age. From the bank of pillows, her bright blue eyes smiled behind wire-rimmed bifocals. She patted the side of her bed for Britt to join her, then returned to the serious business of winning the hand. She tilted her head slightly backward to focus on the spread of cards she held. She considered for a moment, then placed everything in her hand in threes and fours on the swivel tray serving as a card table. “Gin!” she said with satisfaction.

Martha’s round, gray-haired opponent occupied a room down the hall but visited Martha regularly to play cards and cadge treats. Britt knew her simply as Lavinia.

Lavinia looked at her full hand of cards, then down at the table in disgust. “I don’t know why I drag my arthritic carcass all the way over here just to get beaten day after day. How much am I in your debt now?”

“Ah...” Martha consulted the score sheet. “Nine hundred and fifty-seven dollars.”

“You cheat!” Lavinia accused with a smile. “If it wasn’t for the food your granddaughter brings—” she winked at Britt “—I wouldn’t come back.”

She stood laboriously, and Britt went around the bed to help her untangle herself from the chair and position herself within the protective rails of her walker. Someone in Lavinia’s family had made a colorful little calico pouch that snapped on the side of the walker, and Britt stuffed a bag full of soft cookies she and the children had made into it.

“Bless you,” Lavinia said, leaning heavily on one hand to put the other arm around Britt in a hug. Then she started for the door, moving surely, but at a snail’s pace. “Here I go,” she said. “Like a turtle with her tail on fire. Out of my way. Watch my dust. That’s not an explosion you hear, it’s me, breaking the sound barrier. Hi, ho, Silver! Awayyyy...” Her voice trailed after her as she made her way down the hall.

Britt and Martha giggled.

“How are you today, Grandma?” Britt asked, settling herself on the edge of the bed again. “Do you really cheat?”

“Of course. She’s a better player—it’s the only way I can win.” She looked more pleased with herself than apologetic. Then she tilted back her head to study Britt through the lower half of her bifocals. “How are you? You look more like your mother every day. Except for the circles under your eyes.”

Britt delved into the bag she’d brought. “Well, I’m no spring chicken anymore, you know.”

“Thirty-two. Still a baby.”

“Thirty-three,” Britt corrected, handing her the current supermarket tabloids. “Here’s your Globe, Inquirer, Star, Shalimar, and a small piece of cheesecake.”

Martha frowned at her playfully. “Small piece?”

“Got to watch that waistline.” Britt put the cheesecake on her tray, pulled off the plastic wrap, then poured a cup of milky coffee from a thermos she’d brought.

Martha rolled a bite of cheesecake on her tongue and made an appreciative sound. Then she pointed at the cake with her fork. “You know, my mother used to love rich things. Torte with custard filling and meringue. And she made the most beautiful lattice crust you ever saw.”

This was a story Martha loved to tell, so Britt smiled encouragingly and listened patiently as time rolled away and the old woman focused with misting blue eyes on her childhood. “’Course, she was only ten years old when her family came here from Germany, so she remembered life there very clearly. She was scandalized when stores started carrying cake mix in a box. She and our neighbor, Mrs. Olson, made a pact never to bake anything that was prepackaged.”

“Hi, Martha!” An enthusiastic voice interrupted the old woman’s reminiscences. “That’s right, isn’t it? I’m trying to learn names today.”

Martha looked up with a bright smile, and Britt turned as a woman she guessed to be somewhere around her own age walked into the room. She was plump and red-haired, and was wearing the pale green uniform of the Worthington House staff. She spoke deliberately and with the childlike need to please of the developmentally disabled.

Martha beckoned her closer. “That’s right, Freddie. You’re doing very well. Come and meet my most favorite person in the whole world.”

Britt stood and Freddie came forward shyly.

“Freddie, this is Britt Hansen, my granddaughter,” she said, “Britt, this is Freddie Houser. Dr. Phelps just hired her a few days ago and she’s fitting right in. She helps me with my bath.”

Freddie beamed at the praise.

Britt offered her hand. “I’m happy to meet you, Freddie. I’m glad to know you’re taking such good care of Grandma.”

“I work very hard,” Freddie assured her. “And I try to do everything just the way Mrs. Finklebaum showed me.”

“Freddie?” One of the other aides appeared in the doorway. With a wave and a smile for Britt and Martha, she asked Freddie, “Can you come and help me with Mrs. Norgaard?”

“Okay.” Before she left, Freddie whispered to Britt conspiratorially, “I’ll take special care of Martha, don’t you worry.”

“Thank you, Freddie.”

As the aides disappeared down the hall, Martha shook her head sadly, pulling Britt closer. “Poor Freddie,” she said quietly. “She lived at home until her mother died. Lavinia told me Phyllis had been diagnosed as terminally ill, but lately had been in a kind of remission. Then, suddenly, she just died without warning. Now Freddie’s all alone. Dr. Phelps hired her to help out around here and she’s trying so hard.” She sighed. “Imagine being not quite up to snuff and having nobody.”

“That would be tough,” Britt commiserated. “Well, she really seems to like you, so you keep encouraging her. Now finish that cheesecake so I can take the plate with me.”

Martha tucked back into the treat with fervor. “My mother used to make something kind of like this. Though she never liked using cow’s milk. She always wanted a goat, so that we could have goat’s milk, but my father raised dairy cows and was horrified at the idea. She insisted goat’s milk was healthier and tasted better. He said it tasted like—” She stopped abruptly and grinned. “I won’t tell you what he said it tasted like. She tried to tell him goat’s milk could be delicious if the goat ate the right things, and that it was easier to digest. Often, people who are allergic to dairy products can still drink goat’s milk. But he wouldn’t hear of it and she never did get a goat.”

“I had goat’s milk a couple of times in college,” Britt said, trying to remember the circumstances. “We were on a health kick, I think, to get in bikini shape by the summer. We’d been impressed in class with how low in fat and...”

Something clanged in her brain.

Goat’s milk. Lower in fat than cow’s milk. Snob appeal. Gimmick!

Martha ate and chatted while Britt’s heart began to pound and her brain ticked over with the idea. At the moment, yogurt was the ordinary consumer’s fair-haired child. Goat’s milk yogurt would probably bring them running. No. Would it? Would they go for it? Of course. All she had to do was think it through carefully and find the right approach.

She had to make some. Now. Today.

* * *

A BLOND EYEBROW went up disbelievingly. “You’re going to make what?”

“Goat’s milk yogurt,” Britt repeated, taking her friend and neighbor, Judy Lowery, by the wrist and dragging her across the yard toward the pen where she kept three Alpine goats.

“You’ve got to be joking. You ever tasted the stuff?” Judy was a writer who kept the goats for company. She was a newcomer to the Tyler area and a cynic, but a wonderful friend.

“I’m going to scope it out in detail at the library, but my grandmother says goat’s milk can be delicious if they’re properly fed. Can I rent one of your goats for a couple of days? Long enough to get milk and make yogurt and try a few recipes?”

Judy, half a head taller than Britt, put her hands on her friend’s shoulders and said gravely, “Why don’t you come inside and lie down? I’ve seen this coming. You’ve blown a fuse. I knew this was—”

“Go ahead and scoff,” Britt said, undaunted by her attitude, “but I’m going to produce a yogurt that’s lower in fat and calories than anything currently on the market. And I’m going to make a bundle.”

Judy folded her arms. “Why don’t you just find a rich man and remarry? You’ve still got it, you know. Tight body, great hair, unconscious sex appeal. Why put yourself through this?”

This time Britt took Judy’s arms and gave her a shake. She’d thought about her idea in the car all the way over here and it just felt right. “Judy, I’ve spent my life living everyone else’s dream. I came home from college to take over the farm when my dad had a heart attack. I worked beside Jimmy toward his plan of what Lakeside Farm should be. This dream is mine. I’m going to save the farm with the hottest damned food product on the market.”

Judy shifted her weight and cleared her throat. “Britt,” she said, “as a dream, goat’s milk yogurt kind of lacks the cosmic quality.”

Britt swatted her arm. “This is going to work. Can I rent a goat or not?”

“No,” Judy replied, “but you can borrow one. Take your pick.”

“Which one’s your best milker?”

“Mildred.” Judy pointed to the doe in the middle, which was tan with white-and-black markings on her face and hindquarters. She was angular with prominent hipbones, thin thighs and a long, lean neck and body. Britt knew the uninitiated might consider her underfed, but a good dairy goat was neither fat nor meaty. Mildred looked like a good prospect.

Britt stretched a hand toward her and all three goats edged forward to nip at her fingers and sleeve. She patted Mildred between the stumps of her horns.

“Okay, Milly,” she said. “You and I are going to take the world by storm.”

Though Britt was pleased with Mildred, Mildred didn’t appear to be thrilled with Britt. She complained loudly as the two women lifted her into the back of the truck. Britt raised the tailgate and locked it. Mildred looked at her with sad, accusing yellow eyes.

Britt patted her flank. “It’s just for a couple of days, Milly. You’ll have fun.” Britt walked around the truck to the driver’s side, then turned to hug Judy. “Wish me luck. If this works, it could be the end of my problems.”

Judy smiled skeptically. “Don’t be silly. This is life, Brittany. Problems never end, they just rest between eruptions.”

“How’s the book coming?”

“So-so. I think it needs more violence, but I’m not very good at that. I hate to hurt anyone I create.”

“I’ll lend you my kids,” Britt said, grinning at her little play on words. “Fair exchange. They do violence to one another without a second thought or hint of remorse. Would that help?”

Judy smiled blandly. “Thanks awfully, but I’ll pass. Let me know how it goes.”

Britt waved out the window as she headed home.

Her mind glutted with ideas, she tried to make herself relax and take it one slow and careful step at a time. First, she’d make Mildred comfortable. Then she’d see that she had just the right things to eat to produce the perfect milk for her recipe. Then she would make the recipe work.

Everything would come together; she just felt it would.

Britt pulled into her drive, noticing the young spring green on the tips of everything, then turned into the yard.

She was just beginning to relax when she saw the red Explorer parked behind her station wagon. Her heart gave an involuntary and rather violent lurch. Jake Marshack was back.

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