Chapter 19
“ B oo honey, what on Earth are you doing?” Barely awake enough to scuttle into the kitchen, Mamie fumbled with the tie belt on her robe.
Her body screamed at her to go back to bed.
She squinted at the clock on the wall. Two o’clock.
The black void outside the window above the sink indicated it was indeed the middle of the night.
She turned on the overhead light seeing that only the small hanging lamp above the kitchen table illuminated the room.
“Oh Mama, I didn’t want to wake you. I was trying to be quiet.” Dalia held a giant bowl against her body with one hand and with the other hand beat a poor white cake batter so violently her mother put a hand on her wrist to stop her.
“Baby, what’s wrong.”
Dalia put down the bowl, wiped her hands on her apron, and swiped at a tear that rolled down her cheek. She faced her mother like a condemned woman making a confession. “Mama, I quit my job tonight. I couldn’t make myself go in there again. That means we don’t have enough money for a bakery.”
Mamie paused, taking that in. “Why, boo, is that all? We don’t need a bakery. That was just a pipe dream of mine. A fantasy. I’m sorry you ever heard me talk about it.”
“It’s not only that. Poppa wanted that for you, too.
I heard you two talking about that ever since I was ten years old sitting at the top of the stairs after you thought I’d gone to bed.
He wanted that for you, Mama. And I know you want it, no matter how much you say you don’t.
And, Mama, I want it, too. I love all this…
” she tapped the worn leather recipe book sitting open on the table, the one with Mamie’s handwritten recipes “…as much as you do. It’s as if I miraculously inherited your baker gene.
I can’t imagine doing anything else. So it’s for me, too. ”
“I see. I guess I knew that but was thinking of it rather selfishly.”
“Ha. You don’t have a selfish bone in your body.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be saying that. Once you came up that driveway with your little cup, I was never going to give you back, certainly not to someone like Agnes. Maybe that was selfish. We thought you were her child. But you were mine from that moment on.” She tapped her heart. “Right here.”
“I love you, Mama. It doesn’t matter who gave me birth. You’re my mother.”
“I know that, boo. And you know that ’til the day I die I’ll love you as if I’d birthed you myself. Even if you do beat a cake batter to death.” She pointed at the bowl. “What is this? The wedding cake we’re delivering in the morning on our way to the Farmers’ Market?”
Dalia started beating the batter again, more carefully this time. “Yes. I needed to work off some steam so thought I might as well get it done. You’d be up in a few hours to do it anyway.”
“Well, I’m up now. I’m even almost awake.” Mamie took her bib apron off its peg and put it on over her robe. “How about I put on some coffee and then finish the cake, and you do the strawberry frosting. You’re so good with that. Nobody decorates a wedding cake more beautifully than you.”
“Well, I do admit, I think I’m getting awfully good at it. I’ve worked hard to master it.” Dalia picked up the recipe book to study the frosting recipe.
“I picked the strawberries for it this afternoon,” Mamie said as she prepared the percolator coffee pot. “They’re in the fridge, washed and cored and ready to be crushed.”
“The cake will be three layers, so I think I’ll do a spatula texture with the frosting, then delicate pale green lace and pink rosettes with green leaves.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“Mama, you know what I love about baking?” Dalia left the bowl of batter and pulled the strawberries out of the fridge as she talked.
“Licking out the frosting bowls?” Mamie chuckled.
“Well, yeah, that, too.” Dalia used a pastry blender to mash the strawberries.
“But it’s the feeling of being connected to the earth.
” She picked up a strawberry and held it out.
“Taking something from the earth and turning it into something that gives people sustenance and pleasure – that’s a great feeling. ” She dropped the berry into the bowl.
“Yes, it surely is. What we do also brings people together. I think about that all the time. A family shares a loaf of bread over a meal. Women friends have croissants for their morning coffee klatch. Townsfolk stop by to get donuts to take to work.”
“People celebrate over birthday and wedding cakes.”
“Yes. It’s a great business we’re in, isn’t it? It’s more than a business to us.”
“Speaking of which, you know how you’ve always given whatever we have left over to the homeless shelter?
” Dalia spoke of the shelter in Ann Arbor, the nearest town big enough for such a facility.
“I’ve been thinking about how once a week we could make a big batch of your chicken-vegetable-noodle soup and some bread and take it to the children’s shelter. Your homemade noodles are the best.”
“I love that idea. You’ve done such a great job with the vegetable garden. That’s what makes that soup so delicious. What made you think of that all of a sudden?”
“I guess it was meeting Kenyon and thinking about how lucky we are. She easily could’ve ended up an orphan in Vietnam and I could’ve ended up a street urchin. I feel so bad for kids who don’t have a home.”
“I know, love. I tell you what, we’ll make that soup and bread. We have a little extra money now, right? What with the change of plans. We can afford to do that.”
Dalia loved her mother for her delicacy. “Change of plans” was a euphemism for “not getting a bakery.”
They plugged away without talking, each lost in her own world as a creator. Once the cake pans were in the oven, Mamie poured their coffee and mother and daughter sat at the table awaiting the ding of the timer that would tell them the cake was done.
They’d sipped their coffee for a few minutes before Dalia said, “Mama, there’s one more thing.”
“Are you pregnant again?” Mamie chuckled at what she thought was a joke, but the blank stare Dalia tossed her way stopped her.
“Oh my god, I hope not,” Dalia groaned. “I mean, that thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. You see, I met a guy.” She took a quick drink, not wanting to explain any further.
“I see. It’s Deputy Brody McIntyre, isn’t it?”
“How did you know?”
“Dear, everyone in town knows. As the grocery store clerk said a couple of days ago, everyone is talking about how you two made ‘googly eyes’ at each other at the last Farmers’ Market.”
“Oh lordy. Is there no privacy in this town?”
“No. None. But I’m glad you like Brody. He seems like a very good man.”
“Yeah, I thought Rose’s dad was a very good guy, too. I’m not the best judge of men. Besides, this isn’t a good time for me to be with anybody.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Mamie shook her head in disbelief.
“I’m a single mom with a five-year-old. I don’t have a job. I want to bake but don’t want to do it with anybody but you. I’m living off my mother. I’m a freeloader.”
“Okay. Stop now. Since having a baby, you’ve done nothing but work to contribute to our livelihood.
You’re an incredible mother. And a fabulous baker who can help me run this baking business from right here in our kitchen for as long as you want.
You already work your butt off on this farm, tending to the sheep, sheering the sheep, selling the raw wool.
Keeping up that massive garden out there.
We’re not destitute. Butch saw to that, God rest that wonderful man’s soul.
We’ll never be rich but we won’t starve, either.
We get by every month. Now you even have some extra money in the bank.
This farm has been in the family for generations.
We owe nothing to anybody. Someday, it’ll all be yours. ”
“Don’t talk like that. That’s forty years away.”
“I certainly hope so. In the meantime, you deserve to have a man to love. There’s no such thing as ‘this isn’t a good time’ when it comes to love. It’s always the right time for love.”
The timer dinged and they pulled the cake pans from the oven and set them out to cool. The frosting went into the fridge for the time being, as the bakers decided to catch some sleep.
Tired as she was, Dalia lay in bed with her eyes wide open as the sex scene with Brody played over and over in her mind.
It had been beyond erotic; it had been magical.
She’d never known such physical joy existed.
Running her fingertips over her arms, one and then the other the way he’d so softly touched her before ravishing her, she became consumed with wanting him to do all those tantalizing things to her again. And again.
And again.