“In the kitchen!”
Despite her exhaustion and heartache, Sara’s lips tilt into a smile. It’s weak and frayed at the edges (the very action makes her realize how unused those muscles in her face have been lately) but it’s sincere. “It smells great in here.”
Oma’s hands are bowl deep in dough, her aged fingers reaching in and plucking a golf ball sized piece and rolling it smooth between her palms. Behind her bifocals, her blue eyes spark with laughter. “Well, I heard my favorite granddaughter would be coming to visit,” she winks; a flash of shimmering blue eyeshadow that has always reminded Sara of those tropical butterflies—the ones that live on the edges of wishes and reality. “So I decided to make her favorites.”
Sara leans in and kisses her cheek. “Sorry it took so long.”
Oma’s smile falters, dimming into something more sympathetic than soft. She reaches, crossing the short distance between them, but stops short when she remembers the dough in her hands. “I’m so sorry, sweet girl.”
It’s like there’s a vice around her neck, growing tighter and tighter the longer Oma’s words sit between them. If she were to open her mouth, Sara’s certain the only thing that would claw its way out is a sob. She bites her lip, focusing on the pain in a poor attempt to distract herself from the tears burning behind her eyes. The only thing she can manage is a jerky nod of acknowledgment.
Oma mimics the motion with far more grace, before she flicks her eyes toward the shallow bowl of cinnamon sugar. “Why don’t you roll the cookies for me? My old eyes can hardly see well enough to make sure I get full coverage anymore.”
Sara releases a shaky breath, eyes closing briefly to compose herself. Never has she been more thankful for her grandmother’s lack of prying. “Sure.” The word is ragged and raw—snagging in her throat before she forces it out—but Oma doesn’t call her out on it.
There’s something therapeutic about rolling the balls of dough until it’s evenly coated in cinnamon and sugar. The simple, repetitive motions. Mindless. It feels like the first time in weeks that she’s been able to breathe without every worry invading her thoughts. Beside her, Oma hums some old song that Sara recognizes but doesn’t know the words to, her hands molding the dough in time with the rhythm.
For the first ten minutes, no words pass between them, and the world seems a little bit calmer for it. Sara feels the coil in her chest loosen, the tension in her shoulders pulling away like a tide and (even though she knows the waters will rise again) she can’t help but embrace the reprieve.
Oma hands her another ball of dough, the song she was humming ended. “How are things with Roy?”
She never refers to him as ‘your father’—only by his name. There’s years worth of bad blood between them, but Oma has always refrained from pointing out her father’s (obvious) flaws. Sara suspects that calling him by his name is her grandmother’s way of passive aggressively downplaying the role he has in her life. Her father has never been as considerate, and the older Sara becomes, the more she appreciates her grandmother’s discretion.
“The usual,” she says, shrugging. There’s a tension in her neck she’s been unable to stretch out; a hollow ache at the base of her skull she can’t escape. She’s tried to rub it away for days with no relief, but the temptation to knead at the muscle remains. It’s only the dough and sugar sticking to her fingers that stops her now. “He wants me to stay with him for the rest of the summer, but once David’s released, he’s going home with his parents while he recovers.”
Sara winces, heart aching. “And I still need to figure out what to do about the apartment.”
The one-bedroom apartment David and her signed for. The one they were supposed to move into next week—together. The one she can’t afford on her own.
Oma’s hand rests on hers, a comforting weight. The oil from the dough has softened her grandmother’s lined palms. “Things will work out, my sweet girl. Everything happens for a reason.”
Sara says nothing. Once, maybe, she believed that. Never with the same conviction as her grandmother, but with the same half-hearted hope that one wishes on a shooting star. Now, she struggles to even listen to the words without openly flinching.
A final pat on the back of her hand, and Oma gives her a smile wide enough to almost make her hope. “You’ll see.”
The plate of cookies feels heavy in Sara’s hands as she rides the elevator up; they stare up at her with swirls of cinnamon and chocolate chip eyes. They hadn’t stopped baking after the Snickerdoodles. Maybe it was because Oma sensed she needed the distraction, or perhaps she was serious when she accused Sara of “needing more meat on her bones”, but they had gone straight to the family Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe as soon as the last batch of cinnamon-sugar cookies made it into the oven.
It’s not the first time she’s brought David food, but it is the first time it hasn’t come from the fast food or grocery store around the corner. Sara wonders if it even matters, or if the batch of cookies will end up in the trash, too.
She sighs. The elevator dings, doors opening to the fourth floor. She pulls her shoulders back, straightens her spine, and masks herself in a confidence she doesn’t really feel. The nurses give her pitying smiles as she walks down the hall; Sara can feel the whispers—a prickle at the nape of her neck—the moment she crosses the threshold to Room 432.
David is alone today; the seat his mother usually occupies is empty. He takes one look at her, a fleeting cursory glance, before rolling his eyes. “You again.”
Sara swallows down the hurt, knuckles as white as her grandmother’s china.
It’s not his fault, she reminds herself, he doesn’t remember.
Be patient.
“I brought some of Oma’s cookies,” she offers, setting them on an empty corner of his hospital table. The small shrug she gives is as weak as her smile. “You always liked them more than the ones I made.”
“Whatever.”
Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, rubbing her arm in a self-conscious effort to have something to do with her hands. “Is... is there anything else I could bring? To make you more comfortable? I know your parents—”
“Look, don’t you get it?” he sneers. Sara has never seen his expression look so ugly. “I don’t want you here.”
Sara stares at his hands, fisted and white-knuckled, in the crisp sheets. She remembers how those same fingers used to lace with hers on the center console with the sun streaming in the windows and the local country station coming in staticky on his old truck speakers. The pain in her chest doubles. “I’m just trying to help.” Her voice is small, rough. It feels like she’s speaking around gravel.