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If Ponyboy Curtis was to write a list of the things he missed the most out of everything in his life that he had lost, his Ma and Pa would take the top two spots, followed by his precious teddy bear that Dally buried in the backyard for some ritual when he was seven, that was never found again.
After his parents and his stuffy, the next thing on the list would be his Ma’s chocolate cake. Whether it was the actual cake Pony missed, or how it made him feel, he wasn’t very sure. Pony missed the warmth and love that emanated from every bite of the cake, something he would have done anything to feel again.
Pony would never forget when for his tenth birthday, his parents had placed a store-bought cake in front of him instead of the normal homemade cake, thinking that a special birthday needed a special cake. Never would Pony forget the surprise and love that radiated from his Ma’s face when all her boys complained that this cake wasn’t as good as her’s, and hovered around and helped her bake a new one.
Now he was turning 14, but it felt as though he had aged 10 years in the past eight months. He knew he wasn’t the only one feeling this way either. He noticed the premature wrinkles on Darry’s face, his hunched back from working too long and too hard. Or the way Soda would take smaller portions than the rest of them when food was in short supply or the darkening of his face when the bills were higher than normal. Even when they tried to mask it with a smile, Pony always knew.
That wasn’t the only reason Pony didn’t want anything for his birthday though. First off, he knew that his brothers would make an effort to buy him something for his birthday, no matter how small, just because that was just the way they were. It was just that birthdays were taken very seriously by his parents, all her boys (even the ones who insisted they were too old or cool for it) woke up or arrived at the Curtis household to a cake and banners and balloons and an impromptu birthday party.
These memories were some of the ones Ponyboy kept closest to him.
Now his parents were dead, buried six feet under in cheap caskets with simple gravestones showing the only lasting remnant of their existence on this earth. It was much less than they deserved, but all that could be afforded.
Since that fateful day seven months ago, chocolate cake felt like an absent member of the Curtis household. Everyone thought about it, with seven greedy, growing boys it was hard not to, but no one dared to ask anyone else to make it. It was Ma’s thing. Something that Ma had taken with her, the same she took with her warm eyes and soft smile.
But Ponyboy had something no one else knew he did.
One day very soon after the incident, before his parents' bodies were even in the ground yet, Pony found himself in their room, rifling through their stuff. It was before Darry moved in, before the grief had truly set in.
He had been digging through the cabinets of their bedside table, pulling out different bills, forms and notes that had been stuffed in there hastily. That’s when Ponyboy found it. Written on the back of an old receipt, was the ingredient list for his Ma’s chocolate cake. Pony had kept it stuffed in a notebook ever since, refusing to show anyone.
It was so insignificant, so small, and he couldn’t understand how a scrap of paper could evoke so much emotion within him. He didn’t look at it much anymore, but on the eve of his birthday, he couldn’t help but feel drawn to the little piece of paper. While the rest of the boys sat in the living room watching a movie and playing poker, he had silently slipped off into his bedroom with the excuses of homework needing to be done, knowing he had already completed it weeks ago.
Ignoring the suspicious and concerned looks that flashed in his direction, he silently closed his door, before sitting down at his desk and opening the notebook, letting the receipt fall onto the wood of his desk.
He stared at it, analysing every curve and line of his mother’s carefully written handwriting. He couldn’t help but notice they did the same flick on their E’s, or how they wrote the tails of their Y’s the same way. He continued to stare at it as his eyes grew heavy and he rested his head in his hands as his gaze never wavered from the piece of paper, as though staring at it long enough would make his mother magically materialise into the air.
Before he knew it, Ponyboy had fallen asleep, his forehead resting against the cold surface of his desk and the precious piece of paper resting above him on the table.
Soon enough, Soda carefully entered their bedroom, smiling softly at kid brother who was always working too hard. Soda never told anyone, but he knew that Ponyboy was going to get out of here, break the cycle that for too long they were all entrapped in.
After gently tucking Ponyboy into bed, he closed Pony’s notebook and put it away, knowing how protective Pony was of it and how he never wanted anyone to see what had been written inside. As he softly closed the drawer, he noticed the scrap of paper, in a handwriting much too neat to match Pony’s normal messy scrawl.
He picked it up, thinking it might be a note from a girl. He snickered to himself as he began to read it carefully, before realising who’s handwriting it was.
It was Ma’s. The ingredients for her cake.
Soda felt his heart break into little pieces. His sweet angel of a brother, who never asked anyone for anything, had wanted only one thing. But he had thought it would have been impossible, so he didn’t bother.
Soda rushed into the kitchen, finding Darry cleaning up after dinner, all the boys leaving for the night, whilst Johnny was sitting on the counter drying dishes.
“Darry! Look at this!” Soda yelped, holding out the piece of paper away from him like it was a bomb that would detonate and kill him.
“What is that?” Darry went to grab it with his wet hands and Soda yelped again pulling the paper away from him.
“Dry your hands first! This is important!” Soda cried. Darry huffed, drying his hands with a tea towel before grabbing the piece of paper from him. Soda watched as his face paled and his eyes squeezed shut for a second before he grabbed his keys from the counter and headed for the door.
“Darry-”, Soda hurried after him, Johnny following behind, “Where are you going?”
“To get the ingredients,” Darry looked at Soda as though he was being purposefully slow, “The store closes in fifteen minutes!”
“But- we don’t even have the recipe!” Soda stared at Darry, mild amusement shining in his eyes.
“We’ll figure it out, worse comes to worse we can ask Mama Matthews for help.” Darry closed the front door behind him as Soda and Johnny looked at each other for a moment, before each cracking a smile.
‘’You better get those dishes done, Johnnycake, I have a feeling we won’t be getting much sleep tonight.” Sodapop grinned at Johnny as they walked back into the kitchen.
The two of them did the rest of the dishes in a comfortable silence, preparing bowls and spoons that would be needed. Within thirty minutes Darry opened the front door, in his arms two large bags that he set down on the counter and the three boys got to work.
After two hours, and two frantic calls to Mama Matthews and accidently making butter instead of icing on their first attempt, the cake stood proud on the kitchen counter. It was a little wonky, the icing put on a little too thick, but it looked like Mama’s, tasted like it too. The three boys cleaned up the kitchen, laughing at how Johnny had managed to get chocolate icing literally everywhere, but the cake was carefully put into the fridge and the boys went to sleep, excited to see Ponyboy’s face the next morning.
Darry woke up the next morning at the crack of dawn. It didn’t matter that it was a weekend, or that he didn’t have work early the next morning, the minute the sun was up, he was as well.
He quietly took a shower, before heading to the kitchen and opening the fridge to admire their handiwork. He made himself a coffee and wrapped the last of Ponyboy’s presents (a pair of nearly new track shoes) and placed the presents all pretty on the living room table, just like Mama did.
He went back into the kitchen, staring at the receipt that miraculously stayed unharmed during their baking session last night. Johnny walked into the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of his eyes when he saw Darry staring at the receipt. An idea formed suddenly in his head he excitedly told Darry about it, causing Darry to check his watch before grabbing his keys and the receipt and heading out the door after thanking him for it.
Twenty minutes later he walked through the front door and let Johnny wrap up Ponyboy’s final present and place it on the table.
Johnny and Darry made pancakes together just as Soda woke up, and Two-Bit and Dally walked through the door, both placing gifts down on the table. Darry’s heart swelled at how full the table looked now, it was just what Ponyboy deserved.
After breakfast was done, the boys got sick of waiting for Ponyboy to wake up, and slammed open the door, jumping all over him and the bed, wishing him a happy birthday.
“Get off, Two, you're squishing me!” Pony squirmed under Two-Bit who was sitting on top of him.
After a hearty breakfast of pancakes and ice-cream, Ponyboy’s favourite meal, it was time for presents.
First was a copy of ‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote with a Twix bar stuck to the front of it. Pony had really wanted to read this book, and he felt warm and rosy at the fact that Two-Bit had remembered.
“You wanna know the real kicker Pony?” Two-Bit said, halfway through his seventh pancake, “I didn’t even nick the book! Paid for it like a gentleman.”
Dally got him a tuff lighter, something Pony had been talking about after seeing the lighters the socs used to light their cigarettes.
“Press the side of it,” Dally instructed, and when Ponyboy did, a small sharp blade popped out.
“Now, you better only be pulling that out during a tight one, savvy?” Darry said sternly, but his face was light and youthful, the first time in a long time that Ponyboy had seen him like that.
Darry and Soda had gotten him a jacket and shoes, which Ponyboy liked immensely, especially the shoes, his ones were falling apart with holes in them.
Ponyboy picked up the last present curiously, it was small and rectangular and he couldn’t imagine what it was. As he unwrapped it, he realised with a start it was a picture frame, with the receipt he was staring at last night framed inside. He looked up in shock at his brothers, confusion written all over his face.
“You fell asleep while staring at it last night,” Soda answered automatically, practically able to read Ponyboy’s mind.
“You should thank Johnny, it was his idea.” Darry said, grinning at Johnny who turned red and smiled inwardly.
Ponyboy flashed him a smile no one else would be able to decipher, but the two of them understood what it meant completely.
“I think I know the perfect place for it.” Ponyboy said, getting up and going into the kitchen. He tucked the picture frame on the shelf above the oven, next to Mama’s cookbooks they never used or touched, but couldn’t bear to remove. Removing them would mean removing her from her own kitchen, and that was something they couldn’t do.
Darry clapped his hands, “Cake time, everybody!” as everyone moved towards the dining table.
Ponyboy’s shoulders tensed slightly, and he suddenly wondered if he could do it, eat a different cake that wasn’t his Mama’s on his birthdays. It hit him full force that she would never be there for another birthday, never see them blow out their candles again.
Johnny, who could read Pony better than anyone else, even maybe Soda, placed a gentle hand on Pony’s back, gently but firmly leading towards the table. Ponyboy sat at the head of the table, it was tradition after all, as Darry brought out a brightly lit cake and placed it in front of him, cherishing the way his eyes widened with joy and his mouth opened with shock.
“What?”, Pony spluttered, “But- how?”
“We had the ingredients, we put our big brains together and made the cake.” Soda said, grinning from ear to ear.
“We did have to call Mama Matthews twice and the first time we tried to make the icing, we made butter instead.” Johnny said quietly, smiling bigger than Pony had seen in the longest time.
Ponyboy didn’t know how to articulate how he felt to the others. Never in his life had he felt so lucky to have such a group of brothers, ones who cared so deeply and remembered the little details. Maybe he felt so loved, because he felt so known.
“Thank you,” It didn’t feel enough, but looking at the faces of every person sitting at the table, he knew that they knew what he meant.
He blew out the candles, and wished for peace, in whatever shape or form, for every person sitting at the table with him.
He took a bite, and nearly fell off his chair with remembrance. It tasted just like hers, the same warm chocolate and buttery icing that melted on your tongue. Looking around at every person sitting at the table, Ponyboy knew they felt the exact same way.
It wasn’t Mama, that was for sure, but it felt as though a piece of her had come home to her boys again.