I’m home, but no one is there. I put all my things away, sorting my laundry in the hamper and folding my empty backpack onto my closet shelf, like it’s any other day. I dust my room. I change my sheets.
I carry my laundry downstairs. The step still squeaks, the shag-pile rug is still there, and the pictures remain in the same line. It all looks different to me, though, like I’m noticing things from a different me. That out-of-style rug is comfortable between my toes; the squeaky step reminds me of my dad; and those pictures of Grandma make my heart crack a little.
I imagine my senior picture in that empty space. In my junior year picture, I look out at the photographer with that fake picture smile and shining eyes. I don’t remember what I was thinking about then.
I wonder if I’ll look different in my senior picture—if my smile will be real, my eyes focused and sure. When things change inside, do we change on the outside?
I take my laundry downstairs and start the washing machine, and then I go back upstairs into the kitchen. The dust on my mom’s pots makes me pause. It makes my heart hurt to see them like that. I don’t like the dust bunny trapped in the balloon whisk. I take her stuff down and lay it out on the kitchen island. I fill the sink with hot sudsy water and dunk each piece, scrubbing years of dust and kitchen gunk off. I dry them and hang them back up, all but the whisk and a bowl. I look for my mom’s baking notebook in the bookshelf, and I turn the pages until I find the recipe for cherry cupcakes with Swiss buttercream frosting written out in my mom’s careful handwriting. I get out flour, eggs, milk, cherry flavoring, sugar. I follow each step carefully, mixing the wet ingredients, combining the dry.
“What are you doing?” My mom stands in the kitchen doorway. She’s in her bank teller uniform, a blue polo shirt and khaki pants, her purse over her shoulder and keys in hand.
“Making cherry cupcakes. I wanted to take them to the Globe tomorrow.”
I pick up her red spatula, the fancy one perfect for folding batter. I start to mix, purposely doing it the wrong way.
She puts her things on the kitchen stool. “Careful,” she says. “You don’t want to overwork your batter. You want to fold, not stir.”
I push the bowl to her. “Can you show me?”
She looks at the bowl for a second, and I don’t know what is going through her head. Maybe she feels like Annabelle does, like she isn’t good enough; or maybe she’s embarrassed to try again, that she’s lost her skills. Or maybe she feels like I felt, like it isn’t worth it to try again.
I shouldn’t have pushed her. I reach for the bowl. “It’s okay, Mom—”
She grabs the bowl. “Now listen closely,” she interrupts. She picks up the spatula. “You fold by cutting the spatula down the center and bringing one side of the batter over to the other. Turn the bowl and repeat, gently, until the batter comes together. And when that happens, put the spatula down and don’t touch it again, okay? Otherwise you’ll develop the gluten in the flour and your cupcakes will be tough.”
I watch Mom work the spatula, her movements sure and practiced.
“Will you teach me to make macarons?” I ask.
“Macarons are really hard because they are pure technique, but if you keep practicing your skills, I think you’ll be up to the challenge.” She finishes folding and puts the bowl down. “There.” The batter is smooth, the sides of the bowl perfectly scraped clean.
“Use the disher to portion out the mix; otherwise the cakes will bake unevenly. You don’t want one burned and one raw.” She watches me scoop the batter into each paper liner. “Careful you don’t overfill.”
“I didn’t go to Willow, Mom,” I say, releasing the mechanism and dropping a perfectly round scoop into the pan.
“What do you mean? Where were you all of last week?”
I put the disher down. I look at my mom. She’s watching me carefully, not zooming around the kitchen doing little tasks or bossing me around like she normally would.
I’m not embarrassed anymore. I’m not ashamed.
“Mom. I have something to tell you.”