Title: Pies
Series: Food Diaries
Author: BrusselsSprout
Pair/Rating: Toby/Andy, a hint of Toby/CJ, PG
Spoilers: everything's fair game
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing.
Notes: I love Toby's character, so sorry for the length, but so many gaps to fill. In Holy Night his father seems to be speaking Yiddish, so I made his family to be Eastern European Jewish and the pie in question is a form of Apple strudel, in which the dough is stretched very thin. Let me know what you think.
Pies were a rare treat these days. His mother was working two jobs to keep the family afloat, a day job at a laundry service and a night job in a factory. His older sisters also worked during the days, studying instead in night school. David and Toby were often left to take care of themselves, warming up leftovers and eating it in front of the little television.
After his father had started to serve his prison term, his quiet, gentle, frail mother had grown into a remarkable matriarch. If she ever cried, they've never seen it. She stopped speaking Yiddish in the house. Her English was broken and accented, but she insisted that her children speak English to her and to each other.
She allowed no self-pity, and told them that to work harder, to be smarter than the other kids, because what they know is the only thing that can never be taken away from them. She, herself came from a good family and went to a private school, but her education was cut short when she was 13 because of the war. She had lost all her family and married her husband young. But she swore to herself that her children will all go to university and will do something useful with their lives and she made sure that the kids knew what was expected of them.
Toby knew that she would bake a pie when on Friday her mother sent him to pick up flour from Mrs. Weiss' corner store. It was her grandmother's special recipe, one of the few things she brought with herself from the old world. She kept telling him that you cannot make this from any odd flour, that it had to be the right type of flour. Then she got up early morning on Sunday and started kneading the dough. She worked it into three neat balls and covered them with a kitchen cloth and let them rest for a few hours.
After that came Toby's favourite part. He watched with fascination as his mother took out a ball, flattened it in the middle of the kitchen table and started to skillfully shake it and pull it. She pulled it in a wavelike motion, it was graceful like a dance. In a matter of minutes, it became so thin, you could see through it and it covered the entire table, like tablecloth. Then she filled it with stewed apples and rolled it up. Toby liked to eat it warm, straight out of the oven, the pastry crispy and light, the apple filling tender and sweet. It was perfection.
She pulled out the second ball of dough, and filled it with cottage cheese, which was David's favourite. Then the third one, and Toby was astonished when she filled that one with cabbage. None of the kids liked it with cabbage. When it was ready, she cut it into pieces, filled a box with it and told the boys to get dressed. They got on a bus and rode for an hour. Only when they got off in the middle of a field and started to walk on a dirt road did they see the sinister-looking grey building, surrounded by barbed wire sense.
'Mama, I don't want to see him.' Toby complained.
'He has asked to see you boys. He's your father and you will do this. Nothing is more important than family' She said sternly.
Toby felt ashamed and humiliated while the guards searched them. They laughed at his mother's accent and poked at the pie, making some jokes about a rasp that could be hidden in it. Finally, they let them in. His father was already sitting at one of the corner tables of the waiting room. He smiled at them.
'Hello, Papa.' The boys greeted him.
'Hello kids.' He replied in heavily accented English. 'Hello, Hannah.' He turned to his wife. She opened the box, and held it out for him. He took out a piece of pie and Toby saw that tears started to pool in his eyes. 'Ikh hob dikh lib' he heard him mutter before he turned back to the boys.
'Mama, how are you?'
'Hello, Toby.' She looked smaller and paler than he remembered. She was only 64, but she looked older. She's had a hard life and it's taken its toll. She still lived in that same little 2-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that she kept immaculately clean.
'Mama, this is Andrea.' he said clutching the hands of his nervous girlfriend. They have met at a protest a year ago and Toby was enchanted by her.
'Come on in. You father will be home in an hour, then we'll eat.'
'You made apple pie, Mama?' he smiled at the familiar smell.
'Of course, Toby, I know it's your favourite.' she smiled and she turned to Andrea ' I think you'll have to learn to make this one, dear, if you want to make Toby smile.' and she looked at them questioning when Toby snorted.
'I'm not much of a cook, Mrs Ziegler, I am afraid.' Andi said apologetically.
'Well, I guess, it's time consuming. Bobeshi used to say that making this pie was a labour of love.' She pulled the first batch out of the oven.
They lost her a few months later, she died quietly from a stroke. For some strange reason, at the funeral Toby remembered that that evening was the last time he ate a piece of her mother's pie. He felt like an orphan and wondered if it was strange for a 33-year old man to feel this way.
He heard her muffled cries from the bathroom. It broke his heart every time. He wanted to go in to console her, but he didn't have the words, he couldn't make it better. They usually just ended up fighting.
He wondered how they've gotten here. They used to make love passionately; he knew the location of all her freckles because he kissed them so many times. Then they usually curled up in bed with a bottle of wine talking about everything and nothing, the world, politics, poetry, ideas. These days they didn't talk about much else than babies, her cycle, hospital appointments.
They used to wake up together and he would reach out and pull her closer, sometimes they made love, sometimes they just cuddled enjoying the physical closeness. Now every morning started with Andy's thermometer beeping, and he wasn't allowed to touch her until she jotted down the results in the diary she kept on her nightstand. Then if it looked like it was the right time of the month, he was expected to make love to her, though it didn't feel like it anymore. They always lay in the same position, he mechanically made the moves, but he had never felt so far away from her.
And it always ended the same way, she would get her hopes up, then take pregnancy test upon pregnancy test until her period came, and she started crying and got drunk in the evening, and would not want him to hold her or even to touch her until the next time the damn thermometer said it was time.
She finally emerged from the bathroom with red, puffy eyes and headed to the kitchen. Toby was sitting at the counter drinking coffee. He pushed a steaming cup in front of her and asked her if she wanted some breakfast. She just shook her head and picked up the newspaper.
'I'm going to New Hampshire tomorrow.' Toby said.
'Why?'
'Leo McGarry asked me to work on Bartlet's presidential campaign.'
'I didn't know he was running.'
'Well, I didn't know it either. But it's good opportunity for me.'
'I thought you'll work on my congressional campaign.'
'You'll do fine without me, Andy. Anyway, I'm usually bad luck for a campaign, like an anti-mascot.'
'But how will we keep on trying if you're going to be that far?'
'I'll try to make it home every months in time for, you know… Anyway, I think we'll run out of money in a couple of months.' And I really need a break from this, he thought, but knew better than say it.
'Fine. I'm taking a shower.' She didn't bother to ask him any more questions.
Toby watched her leave and wondered why it hurt so bad. He loved her, he knew that much. But he started to wonder if he loved her for what she was or for what she wasn't. He thought that maybe she was so alluring to him, because she was smart and sophisticated, she came from a wealthy family, she was confident and ambitious. She wasn't one of those women from his old neighborhood who hardly spoke any English, who had no education to speak of, who sacrificed themselves for their husband.
He wondered what kind of mother she would be. He knew very well what kind of mother she wouldn't be, the kind who walks the extra mile to get the right kind of flour, who gets up early in the morning to knead the dough so that her son, who hasn't visited her in more than 5 months, could have warm and fresh apple pie for lunch.
'Where is the turkey?' the guys looked skeptically at the dish CJ held in her hand.
'It's in the dish.' she said.
'It's macaroni and cheese, CJ. ' Toby pointed out. 'That's not proper Thanksgiving food.'
'It is macaroni and cheese with turkey ham and mushrooms, Toby. ' she answered in an irritated voice.
'Still, it's not a turkey. I thought you told me yesterday that you knew how to cook a proper turkey?' Toby shot back.
'I'm sure I'd be able to, but when we went to the butcher's yesterday, Donna kept asking the guy what the turkeys' names were and well, after Eric and Troy it just didn't feel right. So we got some ham instead.'
'Turkey ham.' Donna interjected. 'And I made chestnut stuffing.'
'That will go well with the macaroni.' said Josh sarcastically.
'In my family everyone only wanted the stuffing anyways.' Sam smiled pacifyingly. He was hungry, and at this point he just wanted to sit down with whatever food and a beer and watch the football game. His team was playing and it's been a long while since he had the opportunity to see a game live from start till finish.
They ate the macaroni through the first quarter and watched the game in silence.
'It's time for dessert.' CJ announced. 'Who will help me with the plates?'
'I brought the beer.' Josh protested.
'I'm providing the venue.' Sam piped in totally immersed in the mid-game commentary.
'And I helped you shop, cook and carry things over here.' said Donna who was clearly very comfortably nestled next to Josh on Sam's large couch. She kicked off her shoes and had both feet pulled under her, Josh's arms were around her back and his ever restless fingers were fidgeting with her hair. She didn't want get up.
'So it's you Toby.'
Toby sighed, but didn't protest. He collected the plates and the leftovers and followed CJ to the kitchen. She pulled out a baking dish filled with something and put it in the oven that she had already pre-heated.
'You made pie.' Toby's voice was full of wonderment.
'Yeah, I made pumpkin pie. I know your sweet tooth is your weak spot, Toby.' She smiled back at him.
'I didn't know you baked'
'I can't say that I do. But it's my mother's recipe, I used to help her with this at every Thanksgiving.' She looked at him. And once again they understood each other wordlessly. It wasn't just about the food, it was about family, about heritage, about their lost mothers' legacies and this new family they have become.
They packed the dishes in the dishwasher, and Toby told her about his mother's apple pie. 'It sounds wonderful.' CJ commented and Toby knew that she understood the point of the story. He looked at his best friend and realized how similar they were despite their vastly different backgrounds. In that moment she felt more like family to him than his sisters and his brother ,his father or his ex-wife or anyone else in the entire world. He thought that maybe it's the right time for them finally as the familiar, yet unfamiliar fragrance of the pie started to fill the kitchen.
'The game is on.' Sam yelled.
'What was your memory about the Whiffenpoofs?' Toby asked him as they entered his apartment.
'I heard them on the radio the night you were born, Toby.' his father answered.
'Do you want something to eat?' Toby started to make sandwiches and pulled out some beer from the fridge.
'Are you going to marry Andy again? This place doesn't feel like a home, Toby, it needs a woman's touch.'
'I'm working on it.' He had a hard time calling him his father. He felt irritated. Josh thought he had a monopoly on pain and loss, he didn't realize that every single one of them had a story of loss, hurt, and abandonment that they carried around. Everyone: Sam, Toby, CJ, Leo, the President, Donna, Charlie; all of them had scars on their souls. Josh knew about the loss and the lingering guilt about his father's death, but he didn't know that to have a father, he had to be there and well, Julie Ziegler wasn't there. Blood and genes alone in Toby's book did not make a father.
'I brought something for you.' His father pulled out an old tattered book. 'Your mother wanted your daughter to have this.' He said.
Toby took the book. It was an old cook book, he recognized, written in Yiddish. Some pages were torn, some were missing. He found a piece of yellowed paper, filled with neat, school-girlish writing. It was the recipe for the apple pie, he realized.
'I miss her every day.' he heard his father say. And all he could do was nod. He looked at his father finally and wondered why his mother decided to stand by him after all the unspeakable sins he committed. He wondered if Andy will marry him again. He wanted to be a real father for his children, he wanted them to be a real family.
'Don't you realize what this will do to your children?' Andy's accusation kept ringing in his ears. After all these years, Andy still didn't know him at all, it seemed.
The kids were the only reason he hesitated to come forward in the first place. He was thinking of Gregory Brock's baby when he finally confessed. He had nightmares about his children walking down gray corridors once a month to meet their felon father. He agonized over the possibility of them being treated like lepers in school. He feared that their friends wouldn't be allowed to play with them. Every morning he woke up thinking he'll take a deal.
But still, it wasn't the honorable thing to do, and Toby wanted to do what's honorable. The military shuttle was something he first suspected from a few cryptic words of David. Then one day he overheard Leo and Josh arguing with someone at DoD over the lack of transparency of the military budget making allusions to a military space program without realizing that he was in the room. CJ's hypothetical question was just the final confirmation. They all gave him pieces of the puzzle, but he put it together alone and the decision to make it public was his only.
He knew the President, he knew that because of who he was and because of his beliefs he wouldn't usually place a cold machine over human lives. But he also knew that the President's weakness was his hubris, and even though his administration was coming to its end, he was still grabbing at straws to add to his legacy. He didn't want to go down in the history books as the President who gave away a military advantage, someone weak on security. Toby knew differently. He knew the military's space program was bogus, a flashy scenario cooked up by DoD to awe the presidents who reached for the stars and fatten the military contractors who were happy to come up with more and more gadgets as if it were ever possible to fight a war without people. He knew that sending up the shuttle was the right decision, one that the President will never make and that he would regret it for the rest of his life. He felt that those astronauts trapped in the vast nothingness of space waiting for their last breaths were all his brothers and if there was a way to save them he would, because they were family. He still wondered if his children would ever understand this. He wondered if his father was this torn before he went in the prison and if there was a part of his story that he refused to hear. He wondered if Andy will bring Huck and Molly to the prison to see him.
Being back in New York was strange and familiar at the same time. He liked the university and it turned out that teaching was something he was good at. He enjoyed arguing with students, he enjoyed challenging them. He also enjoyed the quieter rhythm of his life. He was still working a lot, but was usually home around 6, and he had some afternoons off. He went down to DC to see the kids as often as he could.
If he got there when the twins were still in school, and Andy could get away from her office, they sometimes made love in her bed and quietly talked until it was time to pick up the kids. The gloriousness of it started to come back, their bodies were familiar instruments, and they were rediscovering each other slowly. If she had to stay late at work, he walked the twins home and they cooked dinner together and laid the table by the time she came home.
Some weekends he drove them up to New York and they went to the Natural Science Museum, caught a show on Broadway or went to see a Yankee's game. Some weekends Andy joined them and for an outsider they looked like a beautiful, perfect family.
This weekend the kids were coming to see him again. Andy drove them and they were going to see the Knicks in the evening. Andy wanted some time for herself, to do some shopping so he left the kids with Toby and took off.
Molly asked him if he really grew up here. When he answered yes, Huck wanted to see his old house. Until then, Toby avoided talking about his childhood, it was a dark cloud that had no place in his children's life, he decided. He didn't want to pass on the sadness.
The late fall sun was weakly shining as they wandered through his old neighbourhood. He showed them his old school, the plot where they used to play baseball with the other kids, the synagogue where his Bar Mitzvah was. They went to the cemetery and placed three little rocks on his mother's grave. Then around the corner, he saw the shop. Mrs Weiss was long dead, one of her sons ran the place now. But it didn't change much, the shelves were filled with pickles, horseradish, goose fat, Matzos, pickled herring, Kosher plum schnapps, and many other foods and ingredients that brought back memories for Toby. Molly was asking him what some of the jars were. He spotted the familiar bag of flour, and bought two packages. They also bought some apples and headed back to his place.
'We're going to cook something new today.' he announced cheerfully. He pulled out his mother's recipe book and showed them the handwritten recipe of the apple pie. They listened to him while he was telling them its story, that it was something special, a family heirloom that made it through the perils of war, a piece of knowledge that got passed on from grandmother to granddaughter, and grandson, he added quickly seeing Huck's expression.
When Andy got home, Huck and Molly were already pulling the dough, trying to stretch it thin with their small hands, carefully, without breaking it, while Toby was cooking the apples for the filling. They were giggling and laughing. Toby looked at Andi wary of what he'll see in her eyes.
'They asked me about my childhood' he said apologetically.
'Well, it was time. That looks like a wonderful pie.' She answered with a smile.
'I had an idea.' He began hesitantly. 'Would you mind if…'
'No, call him. I'd rather stay in and do some work tonight anyway, so you could invite him along to the game.' she knew what he was going to ask, he realized with wonderment.
So maybe Andy wasn't the kind of mother to make pies, he thought, but she stood by him even when everyone abandoned him, she accepted him, with all his scars and dark history, murderous father and all. She understood him, his ambivalence about his identity and his desire to share some of it with his children. At this moment he was also sure, had he been imprisoned, she would have brought the children to visit.
He picked up the phone.
'Papa? It's Toby. Do you want to come over? We'll go watch a game with the twins. And we are baking pie.'
