Free Rosewater and Soda Bread by Marsha Mehran Page A

personality, if you really stopped to think about it. Without the responsibility that came from being a trailblazing eldest, or the encumbrance of always playing the baby, a middle child could really find the freedom to discover her true self. And, if occasion called for it, to properly reinvent herself, as she, Bahar Aminpour, was getting ready to do in a few months' time.
    Bahar stared at the bowl on the table before her. Twenty radishes, washed and piled one on top of the other, sat ready for her knife. As she always did when prepping vegetables, she took a moment to square her shoulders, draw a deep breath, and observe the task at hand. When she was ready, she reached over and plucked one of the pinkish bulbs. With a snip of her sharp paring knife, she set about making a quick incision into its magenta skin, her lips pursed with concentration.
    Round and round the blade went, producing petals that opened one on top of the other, white against the red. Ribbons fell from the knife's edge, curling around her crossed legs. And so it went until all twenty were done, the radishes cleared of their perky heads, their bodies floating in a bowl of chilled water like a delicate bouquet. No longer ordinary root vegetables, they were now brilliant roses carved to blooming age.
    The radish roses made pretty garnishes on the many cheese and herb plates that went out during the hungry hours of afternoon. They were also tangible, not to mention edible, proof of one of Bahar's greatest talents to date: hands that were extraordinarily agile, and arms of immense strength.
    She had first noticed the power of her hands and arms as a nurse, working at the Green Acres Home for the Newly Retired. Switching intravenous tubes with the speed of a master seamstress while holding down the likes of a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound grafter turned geriatric convalescent had earned her the respect of her colleagues; the coveted title of Most Valuable Matron was hers for two years straight. In constant demand throughout the nursing home, she was most wanted in the Alzheimer's Suite, where her ability to soothe patients with the mere lock of her elbows left the burliest of male nurses speechless.
    The respect of her workmates had not transferred itself into any friendships, however—a fault that Bahar now considered entirely her own. Instead of mingling with the interns and happy-go-lucky nurses at Doc Watson's Pub, she had opted to roam the streets of London's antiques district alone, dreaming of the day when her own house would be filled with dainty Victorian décor.
    She had turned herself into a recluse, hidden her heart from her workmates—even from her own sisters, if she had to be honestabout it. She just hadn't been ready to share that organ, torn as it was, with anybody back then.
    Bahar placed the paring knife in the empty bowl and wiped her hands on a tea towel. She paused for a moment, glancing at the kitchen doors, before reaching inside her apron pocket.
    The edges of the small laminated card felt smooth and correct along her fingers, an effect that was quite soothing to her usually overwrought senses. She pulled the card out halfway and turned it so she could read its message in the dying afternoon light:
    Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland, you gave hope to your
people in a time of distress and comforted them in sorrow
…
    The card came from the village of Knock, not thirty miles from where she sat, here in the kitchen of the Babylon Café. Bahar had not been there herself, though it was very much a destination in her immediate future, she was sure of it.
    According to Father Mahoney who had given her the prayer card, a pilgrimage to the Shrine was as necessary to the system as an annual climb up Croagh Patrick, both journeys a sign of commitment to the new life she was taking on.
    It was at Knock, after all, where the Blessed Virgin had once appeared, wearing a brilliant rose crown.
    “When the Blessed Virgin first graced the village,”