I started stacking dishes in the dishwasher. I looked at the huge mountain of crusty dishes and stopped. Why was I here? My car was out front. I could leave this all right now and who would even know? Aunt Erma wasn’t here. She hadn’t even bothered to call today. She hadn’t left a forwarding number. What reason did I have to stay?
I thought about my job back home. The hours were long, and my boss was a big burly guy with just two emotions, angry and annoyed. Despite that, I knew I was really good at my job. I’d had a knack for fixing things ever since I was a kid and my talking doll stopped talking. I had ripped her open at the seams – which originally concerned my parents because they thought I was a serial killer in the making – and I carefully took the box from her torso out and reconnected some wires. The doll began to talk again, and I duct-taped her closed. That was not manufacturer recommended, by the way.
Even though I’d just left home, I longed for the familiarity of my tiny studio apartment with the thin walls where the ever-present sound of cars rushing down the highway reminded me that I wasn’t alone. There was no dog who might lick me in the mouth while I was sleeping. I had the number of the best pizza place on speed dial in my phone. Was there even a pizzeria in this town? My pillow was lumpy in all the right places. Why didn’t I remember to bring my pillow? The pillow was the final straw. I was going home. If I left right now, I could be home before the pizza place closed. I went upstairs and grabbed my bag. I began to throw the few things I’d unpacked back inside. Mitzy watched me from her perch on the arm of the sofa.
‘The shop will be better off without me. I don’t even know why she called,’ I justified to Mitzy. ‘C’mon. I’ll take you to Flora’s,’ I said, hoping Flora wouldn’t mind the intrusion. Was it my imagination or did she just shake her head no? I sighed; I was in no mood to deal with a reluctant dog.
‘Come,’ I said a little more forcefully. Mitzy popped to her feet and went over to the bookshelf. She pawed at a book with a blank purple spine. ‘Don’t do that,’ I said. She made eye contact with me and pawed at it again.
‘Obedience school, that’s what you need,’ I told her as I grabbed the book off the shelf. The cover was embossed with a gold flower. I opened it up, and the pages were filled with pictures of me throughout the years. Me as a baby sitting on the floor with a bowl in my lap all covered in flour. Me at about three years old wearing a bright yellow dress proudly holding up a pie. Me in that same dress smeared in dark blueish purple juice as I cried at the overturned pie tin on the floor. Me on Aunt Erma’s lap as she read me a book. There were even pictures from after she’d left. Me awkwardly trying to pin a corsage on a boy before a school dance. Me and my mom at my college graduation. How had she gotten these pictures?
Before I could even give myself permission to cry, the tears began to fall. I felt the sharp loss of the family I’d once had. We had been so happy – my parents, Aunt Erma, and me. I had a chance to reconnect with Aunt Erma. Maybe we couldn’t get those lost years back, but we didn’t have to lose any more.
When the tears stopped, I sighed and unpacked my bag.
Day 2 ― Thursday, November 3rd
I woke up before my alarm. A rarity for me. Even though I had been exhausted, it took me a while to fall asleep. It was just too quiet. In my apartment back home I could hear cars driving on the highway all night. Here, nights were quiet aside from Mitzy’s snoring. I eventually turned the television on for a little background noise. I had slept on the red sofa in the living room. The thought of sleeping in Aunt Erma’s bed made me uncomfortable. I knew she wouldn’t mind, but it felt like an invasion of privacy.
I stood up and stretched. My stomach knotted when I thought about baking pies by myself. Mitzy cracked open an eye when I got up, but since she wasn’t nervous about anything, she decided to stay curled up on her perch on the back of the sofa.
As doubts over my abilities crept into my mind, I packed my bag again. If things went badly today, I wanted to be able to leave quickly. Then, I showered, got dressed, pulled my mess of curls back in a ponytail, and went downstairs with my coffee. I dreaded facing the mess in the kitchen.
I stopped in my tracks the minute I entered. The place was spotless. All of yesterday’s dishes were clean and put away. The floor had been mopped. The kitchen actually seemed to sparkle.
What was going on here? I’d never been the victim of a break-in, but I was pretty sure most criminals didn’t clean up. I debated about what I should do. Call the sheriff? And tell him what? That my kitchen was inexplicably clean? That would probably give him a good laugh. There had to be a good explanation for all of this, even if I didn’t know what it was yet.
Mitzy brought me out of my head with a bark from upstairs, reminding me that dogs have to go outside in the morning even if they are reluctant to get up.
Once Mitzy was back upstairs and curled up on the couch (it looked like she had her day planned), I went back to the kitchen to once again look for pie recipes.
I opened cupboard doors and dug through the papers on the desk in the back corner hoping I’d missed something yesterday. But after another thorough search, I was still empty-handed.
I sighed and went upstairs to get my laptop. Mitzy had managed to pull down my pillow from the spot I had carefully tucked it and was now sprawled across it.
‘Hey,’ I said indignantly as I pulled the pillow out from under her and tried to brush off any dog essence. She looked surprised and confused. ‘Don’t lay on my pillow,’ I scolded, and I swear she narrowed her eyes at me.
I put my pillow on top of the high bookshelf. Then I saw the necklace Aunt Erma had left for me. I had left it next to her less-than-helpful note. I examined the sparkly bottle at the end of the chain, and then slipped it on over my head. It wasn’t really my style, but I tucked it under my shirt. It made me feel slightly more connected to Aunt Erma. I grabbed my laptop and headed downstairs.
As I began searching online for pie recipes, I thought about all the hours I had spent in Aunt Erma’s kitchen growing up. I closed my eyes for a minute and tried to dig way back in my memory to see if I could recall anything Aunt Erma had taught me when I was a kid. It was amazing. I could remember the exact pattern of her star covered apron, every word to the songs we used to make up and sing, and the number of gnomes on the wallpaper border in her kitchen, but I could not for the life of me remember anything concrete about the actual baking.
I think the butter in the crust was supposed to be chilled. Or was it supposed to be melted? Or was I supposed to use shortening in the crust? I distinctly remember Aunt Erma telling me that one was better than the other, but which one? I let my head bang down against the computer keyboard for a minute before taking a deep breath and scrolling through the recipes. I found a couple that looked doable.
I lined up all the ingredients from the two recipes I had picked out and cracked open the back door to let in some cool air. Today was going to be a choice of two kinds of pie: apple or blueberry. I would make six of each pie and hope that the day didn’t get too busy or I might have to shut down early. If these went really well, I might get crazy and add a third, like French silk. I loved French silk, but that recipe looked complicated.
I was very young when I started helping Aunt Erma in the kitchen. I remember her tying me to chairs with towels so I wouldn’t fall off as I stood at the counter to help her. Mostly I helped by playing in the flour. My parents didn’t let me make a mess in the kitchen like Aunt Erma did. She would pour a cup of flour onto the counter in front of me just so I could squish it between my fingers or spread it around and draw in it. She would sing and tell me stories that would leave me breathless with their magic. Keeping a child like me quiet took a special gift. I always thought it was funny when she would talk to the pies, singing little rhymes as she sprinkled the spices on top. She would wink at me and say, ‘Now they can work their