4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Ihave the dream again. In it, I re-live the accident that claimed my mother’s life.
Only this time, no one comes to save us.
I watch as she slowly bleeds out in front of me, as she gasps her last breaths away, like a fish out of water.
I keep screaming and screaming until there’s no sound left at all, but no one can hear me. We’re alone and no one comes to help.
I wake up in a cold sweat, gasping for breath and clutching the bedsheets underneath me.
My eyes adjust to the darkness and I loosen my grip on the sheets; they’re bunched beneath my fists.
My heartbeat is racing as I shift to the side of the bed and stare out the window at the dark beach.
I focus on my breathing to try and calm myself down.
I’m surprised I didn’t wake Beth up by actually screaming.
Thunder claps in the distance and then, a strike of lightning appears, illuminating the night sky.
It was just a dream, I tell myself.
I’ve been having the same dream but with different variations for a while now. In them, the end result is always the same. I haven’t told Beth about them. I don’t want her to worry about me, at least, not anymore than she already does.
As much as I am enjoying my new life in Driftbay, the cost of it is not lost on me.
Some days I would do anything to turn back the clock.
To have stayed home that day instead of dragging Mom out of the house.
I think that’s part of where my guilt comes from.
Our excursion that fateful day was my idea.
I wonder if she would still be alive if we had just stayed home.
I’ve run away from Seattle and don’t want to revisit, knowing it would be too painful to reopen those wounds.
There are just moments when part of me wishes I could go back.
A lot of the time I wish I could go back to being a kid. This is one of those times.
I was scared of thunderstorms as a child and I would give anything right now to be able to run into my mom’s room and crawl into bed with her. To feel her wrap her arms around me, tell me it’s all okay and going to be alright, and comfort me back to sleep.
But instead, I’m across the country, dreaming of her ghost.
The tears are silently streaming down my face as I look out the windows. My grief is like the ocean sprawled out in the distance. Calm at times, but it can also be raging, tumultuous, and hazardous depending on conditions. It ebbs and flows but it will pull me under if I get swept up in it.
Taking a shaky breath, I dry my face with my hands and wipe them on my leggings before I get up and make my way to the kitchen.
Baking has become a nightly routine. I can fold and stir and whisk my feelings into whatever I’m concocting.
It helps, taking those big, scary, overwhelming feelings and compacting them into something small and delicious.
I didn’t sleep for three days straight after the accident.
I think it was shock. Instead, I baked around the clock.
I sent Ireland to the grocery store countless times whenever I’d run out of eggs or vanilla extract or anything else.
I didn’t know what to do with the grief that consumed me so instead I turned it into something I could hold.
Something I could give other people. Something I could set down and walk away from.
I didn’t stop baking until Beth physically made me stop.
I open my bedroom door and listen for any sounds of her rumbling around the house.
I’m always scared I’ll wake her up, but it seems I’m in the clear.
I quietly pad down the hallway toward the kitchen and flip the light on.
It springs to life in the sudden brightness and I squint as my eyes adjust. The clock above the stove reads 1:32 a.m. I don’t have a ton of time before Beth gets up for the morning shift so I decide to make something easy.
A recipe I know by heart — my mother’s favorite cake.
I retrieve the ingredients from the pantry and fridge and fall into auto-pilot mode as I work.
What I would give to bake it again for her, to sing Happy Birthday in a horrendous off-key tone, and hear her laughter.
The kitchen fills with the scent of artificial strawberries as the cake bakes, but to me, it’s the sweetest scent I’ve ever known.
If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine she’s in the room with me, just within my grasp.
I want to cry again, thinking of birthdays past, grateful I made them into celebrations when Mom didn’t really want the attention.
While the cake bakes, I wash the dishes.
The warm, soapy water feels comforting as I scrub at the mixing bowl.
It makes me think of my childhood — Mom hated washing dishes so we ate mostly on paper plates when I was little.
When I got older and could take on chores around the house, dishes became my duty. I’ve never minded them.
The timer rings to let me know that the cake is done baking. I pull it out of the oven, the steamy strawberry essence flooding my senses, hugging me. I set the cake pan on the counter and stare at it, thinking about all the love and heartache that I’ve baked into it.
I guess grief is just the price you pay for loving someone so much.
While it cools, I grab ingredients to make my signature vanilla icing.
I grab my headphones from the counter and throw them on top of my head, putting on my favorite true crime podcast while I work.
I mix the ingredients together, folding my melancholy in with each sweep of the whisk.
It takes a while to get the icing to the perfect consistency and the cake has cooled enough by the time I get it done.
I watch as the pink slowly disappears beneath the white and think about how it’s like my life, in a way.
Seattle was the pink, the base of my existence and Driftbay is the icing, the fresh, white new slate.
I think the insomnia is starting to get to me but at least I can breathe a little easier.
I lick the knife as I absentmindedly stare at my finished creation, hearing Beth moving around in her bedroom getting ready for work. I cover the pan with tinfoil before turning the kitchen light off, taking one last look at the cake on the counter.
“Happy early birthday, Mom,” I whisper before going back to bed.
It’s later in the day before I’m up and getting ready to go see Beth and her gang compared to my normal visits. I’d fallen asleep quite easily after I baked the cake and slept until noon.
Grief is a bitch. You think you’re doing okay and then all of a sudden, it hits you like a wave, pulling you back under.
It’s always the little things that hurt the most. Like today — I was putting my necklace back on after I woke up, when all of a sudden, the chain snaps, sending the peridot stone scattering across the hardwood floor.
It took me ten minutes to find it. I can replace the chain but it won’t be the same.
It’s just another piece of her that’s been taken from me.
My eyes are puffy from crying. I run my brush through my hair before pulling it back into a ponytail.
I open the medicine cabinet and look for Beth’s eye cream.
I find it and gently dab some on my under-eyes.
I throw on some shorts and a tank top before sliding my feet into socks and my tennis shoes.
I stop in the kitchen and grab the cake before heading out the door.
The air feels muggy and clings to my skin as I begin the familiar trek to the diner, wrestling the cake pan in my arms. It’s overcast today and the forecast is calling for rain — a storm is brewing on the coast. I mentally kick myself in the rear for not grabbing an umbrella before I left the house.
The parking lot isn’t nearly as full when I round the corner today, probably because I’m not coming in during a rush.
I jog up the few steps in the front and reach for the doorknob.
I’m grateful Beth keeps the air so low in the diner — due to her hot flashes, she says — as I open the door and am blasted by a gust of cool air.
Raquel waves from across the diner as she heads to the counter for a drink refill. I trot over to my usual barstool and set the cake pan down. Penny is standing there wiping down menus.
“Oooh, what do you have for us today?” Raquel asks as she fills a glass full of ice water.
“Strawberry cake with vanilla icing.” I take the tinfoil off and am dismayed to see that some of the icing is stuck to it.
Penny leans across the counter and slides her finger across the icing on the foil before bringing it to her lips. “Mmm,” she mumbles as she tastes it. “Fabulous, as always.”
“Thank you,” I say, beaming.
“Graham, I have told you to keep that surfboard OUTSIDE! Seriously, you get sand everywhere with that thing!”
The three of us turn in unison in the direction of Beth’s voice and see her chasing Graham through the restaurant towards the back room. He grins at us and waves as they barrel past us.
“Well,” Raquel says, “Graham’s here.”
Penny laughs, as if she isn’t stating the obvious.
“Are they always like this?” I ask, watching as Beth crosses the threshold to the back room behind him.
Raquel nods. “Pretty much.”
We hear commotion in the back, the door slamming, and then Graham’s voice declaring, “It’s outside, it’s outside!”
The two of them walk out of the back a moment later, Graham suppressing a grin and Beth looking aggravated. He’s tying a black apron around his waist.
“Hey,” I say as I meet Beth’s gaze.
“Hi,” she says, sounding a touch annoyed.
Graham looks up and smiles at me, causing the butterflies in my stomach to flutter unexpectedly.