Chapter 11 Raspberry Creams, a Letter, and a Dream
Soon, the tree was shimmering with glitter, lights, and pure magic. Even Puffcake was impressed.
It was well past midnight now, and Eliza just pulled her second batch of chocolate chip biscuits out of the oven. After she and Lachlan set up the tree, the mistletoe had vanished as quickly as it had gotten there, disappearing from the ceiling with a pop before bursting into a cloud of sparkles.
If it weren’t for the sparkles left over on the mahogany rug, Eliza would’ve thought she imagined the whole encounter.
Lachlan had stayed in the kitchen with her, mostly because the gingerbread house made him. This time, however, it was kind enough to allow Lachlan to use his laptop.
They worked in silence, but Eliza felt his eyes on her. It made her more clumsy than usual.
She became acutely aware of how she moved, and what kind of expressions she made while she measured and whisked and poured. His comment earlier about her legs had created a deeper sort of complex within her than it needed to be, but she still couldn’t seem to get it—or him—out of her head.
He watched Eliza across the island, her blonde hair tied back, brows furrowed as she shifted flour into a chilled bowl. She stopped mid-sprinkle to cut her eyes at him. “Is there a problem?” she asked.
“Not at all,” Lachlan said back. His expression softened. “It’s just, you look so much more grown-up when you bake.”
She lifted a brow, still trying to concentrate on the task at hand. “Are you calling me a gran-gran?”
“No!” he backtracked. “It—isn’t a bad thing. You just look wise and … timeless.”
“Timeless?” she repeated.
Lachlan shrugged. “The opposite of old.” Then, he reached up and brushed a strand of blonde hair away from her eyebrow. “Stunning, actually.”
“Hmmm,” she thought, not entirely sure how to respond. Her hands shook at his comment. “Well, be careful with your words next time, or else I might start demanding you call me ‘nana.’ And this doesn’t get you out of doing the dishes tonight, even if it was a good attempt.”
“What was your nan like?” he asked.
Eliza paused her mixing for a fraction, wooden spoon hovering mid-air.
The question caught her off guard. Not because she felt like he was prying, but because she felt like it was rare.
No one asked about Nan anymore. None of her hometown acquaintances, her ex, or even her own mother, brought it up to her for fear she might snap on them and start crying.
It wasn’t right, but no one knew how to properly grieve with her. She realized, throughout her nan’s treatment, that the world preferred silence. As if pretending the loss didn’t exist and somehow made it easy to carry.
Eliza wasn’t like that. She could never be like that.
“She was wonderful,” Eliza’s words spilled out more in a whisper of a confession.
Her throat tightened at the thought of her.
She closed her eyes, and for a moment, she could almost picture it: her nan, standing right here beside her, apron tied crookedly and humming along to some tune on the record player.
Eliza’s voice trembled as she spoke. “If she’d been here, she’d be standing in this cottage, in this very kitchen, whipping up truffles and little sweet treats to tuck in each of our stockings.
” She gave a soft, wistful laugh. “She used to do that each year. Everyone always had at least one thing that was different from all the rest. My dad always got orange peels dipped in white chocolate because he swore it was ‘healthier,’” Eliza air-quoted.
“And I would always get raspberry creams because I always tried sneaking those when I thought she wasn’t looking.”
He smiled, leaning in a little closer. “She sounds lovely.”
“She was.” She stared into the mixing bowl. Her eyes glimmered with fresh tears. “She made the holiday feel enchanting, in a way. I still marvel at the magic of this place, but I know the real magic of the season was always her.”
“You miss her.” There wasn’t room for questioning in his voice.
Eliza just nodded several times, her throating bobbing. “Every day.” She wiped a tear. “But when I’m baking, it feels like she’s right here. Watching. Maybe even helping.”
“I think she’d be proud.”
Eliza met his eyes. “Thank you,” she choked out. She went back to stirring, as if she repeated the circular motion in the batter enough times, she might be able to summon her nan’s laughter just to hear it again. “I hope so.”
Lachlan stretched a yawn as he looked at the clock. One thirty in the morning. He shut his laptop. “Snow, I’m going to have to call it for tonight.”
Eliza laughed, “Well, you’d better hurry now before the cottage barricades you in here again with me. I’m afraid there isn’t a large enough mixing bowl for you to bum like Puffcake.”
As if on cue, Puffcake let out a snore from inside his copper sleeping chamber.
“Oh, I wasn’t in here tonight because I had to be,” Lachlan said. The truth hung in the air between them, thick as whipping cream. “By the by, I think you’re going to smash this baking contest. You should get some rest, too, instead of stressing about it.”
“You sound like my mum,” she shook her head. “I have one more recipe in mind, and then I’ll retire.”
He stuck out his pinky finger. “Promise?”
“Promise.” She interlocked her pinky with his.
“Goodnight.” She gave a half-hearted parting, and was surprised when the kitchen let him exit.
Granted, the living room was only about twenty feet away, but Eliza had a suspicion it had something to do with Lachlan’s confession—and what she held in her hands now.
Eliza eagerly opened Isadora’s Memory Baking Cookbook and flipped to the next page, where the recipe, Silent Night Soufflé, was.
She read off the ingredients: eggs, milk, cream, sugar.
They sounded promising enough, but the steps were more fragmented than usual, like Isadora had jotted the notes down quickly. Even the handwriting was scratchy and uneven, and the words looked like they were formed from a shaky hand. It wasn’t like her usual, romantic font.
Still, Eliza got to baking, trusting the house.
She cracked two eggs, folded in the sugar and dairy products …
She noted that there wasn’t any sort of spell like the recipes before, and the batter didn’t shine like the others.
Instead, it was dull and gray, despite the yellow yolks that should’ve made the custard appear a pleasant cream.
She did as the rest of the instructions insisted, preparing and baking the entire time in complete silence. She preheated the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, baked the dessert for thirty minutes, and set it out to cool for ten minutes.
Immediately upon taking the first bite, she was transported. She stood near the hearth, the fire weak and dim inside. The record player wasn’t playing anything, and the lights from the tree that once glistened in the corner weren’t even plugged in.
In the kitchen stood Isadora, alone. She was hunched over a bowl of batter, her once bright smile now bleak. The air smelled of burnt sugar, scorched biscuits, and crushed dreams.
Thick smoke rolled from the oven. Isadora opened it, the trembling of her hands even apparent through the oven mitts. Tears swam in her eyes, her makeup streaking down her face.
There was no husband. No laughter. No hands to sweep her off her feet.
Just a letter signed off by Ernest’s name at the end.
Isadora,
I’m not quite sure how to do this other than to just come out and say it.
I believe it’s time for me to move on. When I married you, I didn’t expect you to be like this.
I thought that maybe we simply were unlucky in our efforts, but now I know that it will never happen because you simply cannot.
I only wish you’d told me sooner. You only baked to keep your heart at bay, but baking doesn’t fix everything.
I’ve met someone. Please know that I didn’t want this.
I never wanted this. I only wanted to start a family.
Sincerely,
Ernest
The dessert was black around the edges, charred and dry.
She watched it cool with dull eyes, but didn’t try to eat it.
She reread the letter several times, the look of utter devastation marring her beautiful features.
Then, Isadora collapsed on the kitchen floor, buried her face in her hands, and wept.
The scene faded away, and Eliza was swept back in the present, the same kitchen swelling with the scent of vanilla and spices. But the scorched notes of Isadora’s memory still bled into the present.
Eliza stepped away from the counter, her heart aching.
The recipe book was no longer showing her sweet beginnings—it was showing their burnt and bitter ending.
And all Eliza could ask herself was why. Why would it show Isadora’s joy only for it to end in such heartbreak? Why would it show these memories if there wasn’t something she was supposed to change about them? But what was she supposed to change about them? This was eighty years ago.
Eliza pressed her palms into the counter. The magic tonight didn’t feel light and whimsical anymore. It felt heavy and full of sorrow, like even the cottage remembered the night of Isadora’s heartbreak, and it’d slipped back into that solemn quiet, too.
To take her mind off the tragic scenario, Eliza quickly whipped together a batch of sugar biscuits. She popped them in the oven, her mind still tangled up in the memory
Was the house playing some cruel joke on her?
Or did the house know that Eliza knew pain like this all too well?
That no matter how sweet the love may be at the start, it always has the potential to burn you?
She still smelled the lingering scent of charred dessert, a ghost of Isadora’s grief.
She suddenly felt cold despite the fire roaring over in the hearth.
When she checked on her chocolate chip biscuits, her eyes widened. “Biscuits,” she muttered under her breath. She’d burnt them.
She gawked at the biscuits, bewildered. They hadn’t even been in there longer than five minutes. How could they have possibly burned?
Before she could make sense of it, Puffcake let out a choking noise, startling Eliza. Tiny clouds of white sugar burst from his nostrils.
“Shhh!” Eliza hissed, rushing over to him. She placed a finger over his tiny, frosted snout, “Don’t you dare wake up Lachlan, or else I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Puffcake paused his coughing spell and narrowed his gumdrop eyes at her.
“I’ll remove my finger when you’re done with your theatrics,” she said.
He simply stayed quiet.
Satisfied that the crisis was contained (other than the terrible smell), she sighed, relaxing a little. That was enough baking for one evening.
She yawned and headed for the stairs. Puffcake fluttered behind her, wings drooping in shared exhaustion.
Upstairs, she settled herself down in the bed and wrapped the blanket around her like a cinnamon roll.
She sank into the mattress as Puffcake settled himself beside her on the pillow next to her head.
He let out one final breath, dusting the sheets with a fine layer of powdered sugar.
That night, she dreamt of mistletoe and twinkling lights. Of pie, evergreen-infused air, and laughter. Of someone softly humming Christmas carols in the kitchen, wearing a too-small apron. He twirled her around and around in a red gingham dress that wasn’t hers, flour clinging to her rosy cheeks.
Then, his hands suddenly let go of her. She was spinning out of control. She slammed into the kitchen cabinets, banging her elbow hard on the countertop.
A voice called out to her, and she turned to find no one was there. The room had grown cold. Quiet and stale, like a picture gone wrong and fading out of focus.
A bag of flour thudded to the floor, sending Eliza’s heart hammering. The powdery substance caked where Eliza stepped, leaving a trail of footprints behind. Laced within the flour was the familiar cursive penmanship Eliza knew too well. The same handwriting from the cookbook.
Let love not last here if mine cannot.