The Key Ingredient Read Free Page B

more cooking videos, tended the garden, picked apples, made maple syrup.
    As the production crew drives up the last stretch of the winding road, I tell Martin and Melissa about the family history. Elijah’s son, Jacob Rush, took over the sugarbush, and every generation since that time has carried on the tradition of cultivating the maples and rendering the sap into syrup. The farmhouse has been modernized and expanded over the years, but it’s still essentially the home Elijah built when he first came to Rush Mountain—­two stories, a chimney at either end, and a big carriage house and stables, which later became the garage and equipment barn.
    The heart of the home is the kitchen—­the family’s central gathering place. Likewise, the bedrooms are numerous and large, probably because as a young man, Elijah expected to have a lot of kids. In the next generation, Jacob fulfilled that wish, taking a bride named Philomena, who had nine children. The shingled roof has gables facing in multiple directions for a view of the entire mountain—­the trout pond that freezes for skating in the winter, the orchards and gardens, and of course the maple groves that have sustained my family for generations.
    As we park in the driveway of the farmhouse where I grew up, a thousand memories flow through me.
    Home. Breath and memory.
    Standing here in the place where I was born brings everything back, the good and the bad, the constant and lasting reminders of how fragile life can be, how easily shattered when we least expect it. The little things we take for granted are suddenly the biggest things in the universe—­remembering how beloved and precious the ­people in our lives are, so that when we do have to say goodbye to the joy and love, we do so knowing we did everything we could.
    The air feels different on my skin. The smells—­they’re different, too.
    And that’s when I know for sure that a part of me has never truly left. I realize something else: Home is a place after all. A place I recognize, a part of my blood and bone. Finally, after a long journey that took me away and brought me back, I’ve come at last to the place where I belong. The only trouble is, I’m going to have to leave again, heading back to the life that’s waiting for me somewhere else.
    There’s a wrap-­around porch where Gran and I used to sit in the summertime, husking corn, shelling peas and beans, trimming vegetables or fruit. Some of my best dreams were born there, on that porch, with the sun slanting over us and the dogs flopped down at our feet, basking in the late-­afternoon warmth.
    On the wall behind the porch swing is an old world map, fading and tattered. I hung it there so I could show Gran the places I wanted to go—­France and Thailand and Greece and the Cook Islands. I wanted to go everywhere in the world, not just to study art history or look at ancient ruins, but to find out how ­people live, particularly the foods they eat. It’s been an obsession of mine all my life. Gran never yearned to travel. I suppose it was because she was absolutely content with her life as it unfolded day by day, following the rhythm of the seasons and staying close to the ­people she loved.
    It was Gran who would talk me down after a fight with my mom. You’d think, with this idyllic family farm, we would never have a day of trouble. You’d think. But a sugarbush family is like any other, vulnerable to the vagaries of our dreams and aspirations, our rivalries and jealousies, our disappointments and frustrations.
    Now my mom comes out to greet us and shoos us toward the porch. We make our way through a gauntlet of pelting pinpricks of half-­freezing rain. “Heavenly days,” she says, sounding breathless, “you made it!” She folds me into a brief, fierce hug. “I’ve missed you so much.”
    â€œSame here, Mom.” Everything about the day