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Jack didn’t remember this recipe being so hard to follow. It was a simple enough process, first mix the dry ingredients, then add in the eggs and vanilla; all very standard cake procedure. The issue laid in the frosting. He’d forgotten to set out the butter, and so the cold fat refused to mix with the powdered sugar. When that was finally mixed well enough, he added in more vanilla extract, but fumbled with the bottle and dropped the whole thing in.
“God damnit-” he mumbled under his breath, trying to dig the plastic bottle out of the bowl of frosting. In the living room, an old episode of the muppets played quietly, the chorus of singing frogs and pigs blending together with the hum of the oven. Despite himself, Jack swayed a bit to the song as he tried to salvage the frosting.
It was his mom’s birthday. He couldn’t exactly remember how old she’d be by now, and didn’t want to do the math. It would only be a reminder of how much time had passed, and this was hard enough as is. They’d always made this cake for her birthday; yellow cake and chocolate frosting. Jack always got double chocolate for his birthdays, but he hadn’t gotten a birthday cake in years. He was a pretty proficient baker, but it was nothing like how his mom could bake. Stirring cocoa powder into the sugary mix, he thought maybe he’d have to start making them himself. But for now, back to the task at hand.
The tv’s dull rhythmic sounds were disrupted by the ringing of Jack’s phone timer. He reached for oven mitts before taking the cake out of the oven, perfectly golden. The frosting situation was as good as it was going to get, still filled with little gross bits of cold butter that refused to mix, so he sunk onto the couch for a break while the cake cooled, knees popping as he sat.
It was still pretty early in the day, around noon, and thankfully it was a weekend. After everything that had happened lately, he needed a break from it all. Sure, sleeping through his class was great and all, but being slumped over in an office chair behind a wobbly desk was nothing compared to the comfort of his own couch. A familiar dusty smell rose from the floral couch cushions, filling his senses with nostalgia. The muppets were still singing, the house smelled like vanilla, and Jack odd. There was a stinging absence, impossible to place. It was impossible to tell anymore what he missed. Was it Lynette, humming in the kitchen while she made coffee? Or was it his old life, suits and ties and nice oak desks? Maybe he felt the absence of his father, like a sun stained wall only noticeable when a picture is removed, the ring of lighter wallpaper remaining where the frame once was. Could it be his mother, the sound of her ringtone that he never answered? In a reality where a human mind could understand itself, Jack would realize that it was all of these things, adding up into a feeling like a phantom limb. Does the cause of grief matter if the result is the same? Either way you have to feel it, so might as well dive in head first. But Jack only had room for one misery today.
Three and a half episodes of The Muppet Show later, Jack decided the cake was probably cool enough to frost. He needed to get moving, the drive was only thirty minutes but he wanted to be back home before dark. Pushing himself off the couch, Jack walked slowly to the kitchen where the cake sat, legs taking their time to start working again after sitting for so long. He took a deep breath, shaking his head to clear the fog. There was that pull again, that urge to just go back to bed. Sleep it off, sleep until the emptiness died and buried itself with his mother. The pull to curl up in bed and pretend like the world stopped, like the world decided to stop spinning and rest, time freezing.
He cut the rounded tops off of the cakes like he’d seen his mother do a hundred times, for birthdays and holidays and anytime she decided they needed something good in their life. You don’t need a reason to make something nice, Jackie. You take the good you can find and make the rest.
He could just go to sleep, pretend like it wasn’t her birthday. Throw away the cake, let the dishes soak until you couldn’t tell what had been on them. Dispose of the evidence.
Jack spread a glob of chocolate frosting onto the cake plate and stuck the first tier to it. He added more frosting onto the yellow layer of cake, spreading it evenly as he could. Put more frosting on the edges, it’ll make the next bit easier, he could hear his mother say. He remembered learning how to make this cake when he was seven, still having to use a step stool to reach the mixer. The first time he used the old electric he turned it all the way on high and flour went everywhere; the countertop and their clothes and even in the fridge, unfortunately open at the time of the incident. His mom just laughed it off, dusting her jeans with her hands. It was a good memory, the kind that’s blurry around the edges and glows in the back of the mind. The kind of memory that shapes a person.
Adding more frosting around the rim of the cake, then putting the second layer on top. More frosting, till the whole thing was drowning. Jack’s shirt was a mess, smears of frosting and flour decorating the fabric. The cake was a bit lopsided, Jack was exhausted, and the kitchen was a mess. One day, this would be a good memory.
The drive to the cemetery went like it usually did; painfully slow. Same crooked road signs, winding gravel road, a few abandoned houses, one or two only marked as lived in by the cars out front, empty evidence of life coupled with absence of it. He never saw anyone out there, no one driving to or from the cemetery, no one taking their dogs out to piss in front of the few homes actually standing. There were sometimes other people there when he arrived, but no one he recognized. For this he was grateful, some privacy in this godforsaken town was hard to find.
He continued his drive, glancing nervously at the cake buckled into the passenger sheet under a plastic tray and lid. Every bump in the road returned the pulling magnetic sensation to go back home. Forget it all, even after all the work of making the cake. Maybe if he didn’t see her grave today it wouldn’t be real. He kept driving.
It was a good thing the cemetery was empty when he got there, he sat in his car for at least ten minutes embarrassingly unbuckling and reaching for the door handle, stopping himself, buckling the seatbelt again and turning on the car. He had to leave. Could he leave? The feeling, the reality, of being there alone pressed in on him at all angles. He was there alone because she hadn’t had anyone else. It was just them, it felt like back then, against the world.
Something close to guilt finally compelled him to get out of the car, grab the cake and walk to the headstone. It was there, in all of its glory, left unchanged since the last time he’d seen it. The grass was tall enough so that the weeds rimming the headstone brushed the engraved bible verse.
If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
Romans 14:8
Who did Jack belong to anymore? He sat down and unlatched the lid of the cake container. The cake hadn’t unstuck itself from the plastic tray, even after traveling through the bumpy gravel road, and looked like it was in pretty good condition. Jack took a deep breath, and sat a moment longer. He could hear his mothers voice in the wind.
Some time passed, the amount not relevant, before Jack returned from his thoughts. Somewhere far away he was at the kitchen table eating cake with his mother. Somewhere far away he was running around a playground with a big pink balloon his mother had bought for herself. Somewhere very, very far away, he could see these things.
He looked down at the cake, a realization striking him. He’d forgotten a fork. And what did he do? He laughed. Just like that, the glass was broken, removed. Overwhelming, it was overwhelming. His mother was dead. He’d forgotten to bring a fork for the cake. All of these things were true, and somehow the fact of simply forgetting something so mundane made everything else real. His mother was dead. He’d forgotten to bring a fork for the cake. And he was less alone, laughing and crying and shaking his head. He knew exactly what his mom would do.
He drove home feeling less empty. He’d eaten about a fourth of the cake with his bare hands, not caring about the mess, not caring about the calories, not caring at all. There is a weightlessness to mourning, an absurdity, when you step back and really look at it. Jack drove home with grass stains on his sweatpants, cake covering his shirt and some still sticking to his face. He drove home with the windows down, breathing for the first time in a while. He wasn’t okay. He still felt the emptiness, the pull. But right now, it stayed in the back of his mind, letting the life back in. It’s a slow road, but tonight, Jack chooses to live through the hurt.