16. Quentin
Chapter sixteen
Quentin
When I returned from work, I was greeted by an enticing smell that got stronger the closer I got to Kelsey’s apartment. Apples and cinnamon, I realized as I walked past her door.
My mother had loved to bake apple pie. As a boy, I often helped her in the kitchen. I could still remember the taste—an old family recipe passed down for four generations, my mother had claimed—but I could not remember the recipe itself. I tried recreating it once from memory and had ended up with a slushy mess that went straight to the trash can.
So, no apple pie for me. I would have to make do with a plain old sandwich before heading to the nursing home. I was about to open the fridge when I heard a knock on my door.
It was Kelsey, holding up a large plate with a whole pile of little cupcakes. Up close, the smell of cinnamon was intoxicating, and they looked even better than they smelled. Almost like Kelsey herself. Damn, it had happened again. I scolded myself for that thought slipping through. No more lusting after my next-door neighbor.
Kelsey did not make this easier by looking up at me with her vivid green eyes and biting her lip. “I think I messed up some measurements, and now I have enough apple-cinnamon cupcakes for an entire elementary school birthday party. Do you want some?”
I dragged my eyes away from her lips. “You have no idea how happy you’ve just made me. They smell incredibly tempting.”
“Then whip out your Tupperware!”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I hurried into the kitchen and searched for an appropriately sized plastic box. “These look—and smell—like you know what you’re doing. Do you bake often?” I asked.
“Not really. I like the baking, but I hate how messy the kitchen is afterward,” she said, “But I had to celebrate something, and I wanted a sweet treat for that.”
I peeked up from behind the kitchen counter. “Celebrate something?”
She broke out in a grin, her eyes bright. “I registered for the GED exam in November.”
I stood up immediately. “That’s fantastic.” Instinctively, I went for a hug but lost my nerve halfway, so I ended up just awkwardly gesturing in her direction. “Congratulations.”
She waved her hand. “You can congratulate me when I pass,” she said. “Now, hand me that box. Don’t you have anything bigger? Don’t hold back. I really have a lot of cupcakes.”
“In that case, can I have one for my mother too?” I asked. “I’m about to head over to the nursing home, and I’m sure she would love them. They feed her well there, but home-baked pastries are not included in the astronomically high fee.”
“I have an even better idea.” Kelsey grinned. “How about I accompany you?”
I blinked. “You want to… come visit my mother in the nursing home with me? ”
“Visiting nursing homes can be such a bleak business. I always hated it when we went to see my grandfather there because it’s like the most depressing place on earth,” she said. “I thought you might enjoy the company of a friend. And besides, I want to take credit for my baking.”
My heart skipped a beat at the word friend . She considered me a friend. That word alone was enough to spread warmth through my body, and my plan to keep a professional distance between us crumbled. Friend sounded nice. Of course, it wasn’t as good as returning the passionate longing I felt for her, but it was something.
Could that be enough? Could I ignore my desires and just enjoy being her friend? Probably not, but I didn’t have the strength to push her away, either—not when she was looking at me like that, eyes full of warmth, holding a plate full of delicious cupcakes.
I cleared my throat to sound as casual as possible. “Sure. That would be nice.”
“Perfect.” She smiled at me, which almost made me weak in the knees. “Just let me get the second batch out of the oven.”
“The second batch ?”
“I really, really got those measurements wrong. We have enough for your mother and all her nursing home friends.”
We had to make two trips to carry all the cupcakes—at least four dozen—to my car, then we were on our way.
Kelsey fiddled with my car radio. “Is it a long drive?” she asked.
“About forty minutes,” I said.
“I hope the cupcakes will still be warm when we get there. That’s how they taste the best.”
“Yes.” I tried to think of something funny or at least interesting to say, but somehow, the funnel from my brain to my mouth got blocked whenever I was in close proximity to Kelsey unless the topic was colonialism, inflation, or the electoral system. When I could hide behind my teacher persona, I could talk to Kelsey for days. Talking to her like a man talks to a woman he likes? Mission Impossible . And my little episode at the hospital had made my tongue tie even worse. I still cringed in embarrassment when I thought about it.
Searching my brain for things we could chat about during the ride, which suddenly seemed to take a lot longer than usual, I came up with the least enticing thing possible.
“My mother has dementia,” I blurted out.
“Oh,” Kelsey just said, “I’m sorry. That’s a horrible disease.”
“I just thought I should warn you. It can be difficult to talk to her. Sometimes, she doesn’t want to talk to strangers at all. Sometimes, she doesn’t even want to talk to me because she doesn’t recognize me.”
“Oh, Quentin, that must be terrible.”
Kelsey reached over and patted my arm, which nearly made me steer off the road.
I decided to maneuver the conversation into safe territory before I got us both killed. “How are your preparations for our next session going? Have you read the chapter on mercantilism yet?”
She rolled her eyes. “Nearly put me to sleep. I have no idea how you can talk about this stuff all day.”
We spent the rest of the ride talking about my job, which worked better for me. I filled the silence with funny anecdotes about my students and my co-workers, and we made it to the nursing home without me making a fool out of myself any further.
When we arrived at my mother’s room, she was sitting at the window, looking out into the garden. Kelsey waited at the door as I approached her.
“Mom?”
My mother turned around at the sound of my voice and smiled. “Ah, Quentin. How sweet of you to drop by. ”
I exhaled in relief. She’d recognized me. A good day.
“Mom, I brought a friend.” I waved for Kelsey to come closer. “And she has baked some apple cupcakes. Do you want to try one?”
“Hi, Mrs. Avery,” Kelsey carefully placed one of the cupcakes in front of her.
My mother looked up at her. “Oh, Angela. It’s you. I hardly recognized you. You have grown your hair out, haven’t you? It looks great on you.” She picked up the cupcake. “This smells wonderful. Thank you, dear.”
Kelsey leaned over to me. “Who’s Angela?” she whispered in my ear. The way her breath brushed the skin of my neck gave me goosebumps, but I tried not to let it show.
“My high school girlfriend,” I explained. “I’m not surprised she’s mistaken you for her. You look a bit alike. Angela had red hair too.”
Kelsey raised her eyebrows. “Oh, you have a type, then.”
“Yes, I guess I do,” I said without thinking. The words had already left my mouth before I realized what I’d just said. I felt my face flush, but I had no idea how to save the blunder, so I decided distraction was the best tactic.
“How is the cupcake, Mom?”
“Delicious, thank you. You are going to be a great homemaker one day, Angela dear.”
Kelsey pressed her lips together. “I doubt that,” she mumbled, but my mother didn’t seem to hear.
“Why don’t you two sit down? Talk to me, yes? I hardly know what you are doing these days, Quentin. How is life?”
I pulled out chairs for both of us.
We spent almost an hour with my mother. Kelsey was surprisingly good at going with the flow of the conversation. Talking to my mom could be difficult because it was hard to anticipate what she would understand and what would confuse her because her destroyed memories made her lack context. She would often repeat the same question several times, and sometimes she would switch topics suddenly. I’d needed quite a bit of time to learn how to talk to my mom again after her diagnosis. In the beginning, my visits had often resulted in fights because I tried to correct her scrambled memories, which, of course, had confused and upset her.
But Kelsey was a natural. Watching her interact with my mother with empathy and respect made me feel something I had trouble describing.
When my mother started dozing off midconversation, I knew it was time to end the visit.
“Mom.” I gently touched her shoulder. “We’ll leave another cupcake for you as dessert for dinner, okay? We want to give the rest of them to the… neighbors.”
My mother blinked tiredly and nodded. “A lovely idea. Can you help me get to the bed before you leave?”