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They heard there's peace in him that's good, hope it can stop him saying things he shouldn't.
Oh, you mama's boy, don't stay the night if you plan on breaking hearts.
Every spring, Sarah would make cake batter, and pour it into the pan they’d had forever that was brown, and burnt, and shaped like a lamb. Every spring she would pipe white frosting as its fur, put two round sprinkles as the eyes, and every spring she would tell Steve the story of his father. About how they had met at a church picnic in spring, Sarah had been in her best dress, the blue one, that brought out her eyes, and Steve’s father had been in a freshly pressed suit, khaki, to match his hair. She would tell Steve about how they locked eyes across the green lawn, and how she’d smiled knowingly, because of course, she knew right then and there that she was going to marry the man with the funny smile and dark hair. The man with brown eyes and a khaki suit. With a kind gaze and smart expression. He’d walked over to the table and asked for a slice of her lamb cake and Sarah had responded with a smile and said, “why, of course you can.” Joseph had thanked her, and the next week at Sunday service, on a cool spring day, he’d returned to Sarah’s table with a bouquet of marigolds and the same sweet smile. They’d gotten married a month later, and he’d left for War the next year.
One spring, Steve ran home with another boy in toe, and he’d told her that the boy’s name was Bucky. Bucky had saved Steve on the playground, when a bunch of bullies ran his way at recess and Steve told her about how Bucky had punched every last one of them. Bucky was suspended now for a week, but that only meant he would have more time to help his father work on cars. Bucky’s father was still alive, and he worked in a mechanical shop on main street. They were rich, because only rich people had cars, and they paid handsomely if you knew anything about them. Steve’s mother had served the strange boy a piece of lamb cake, and the boy had gobbled it up and confessed that his mother had never made something that tasted quite as good.
Bucky never stopped coming by.
One spring, Steve came down with the flu, and his small body had not been able to face it. He laid in bed for weeks, sick as a dog and shivering with a fever. Bucky had come by every day and sat by his bed and told him stories about school and all that Steve was missing. About how Catherine Paddock had punched Billy Smith in the nose for pulling her pigtails. Bucky said that Catherine reminded him of Steve, because they both got into fights. Catherine appeared one day when Steve was better, and that spring, Sarah had worried that maybe she would take her son away, but Catherine disappeared just as she had appeared.
Bucky came back.
The spring that Steve turned 18, Sarah came down with tuberculosis, and Steve had made a lamb cake and brought it to her in the hospital. Bucky had come too, holding onto Steve’s shoulder, a comforting gesture, and a good friend that she trusted her son with.
Sarah didn’t see another spring after that, but her son did, he moved into an apartment with Bucky, and he kept the lamb pan, and he continued to make a cake every spring, no matter how poor they were. When Bucky got drafted, they’d cried in the dark, silence of their apartment and Steve had thrown the pan, brown and burnt with age, at the wall, anger coursing through his veins for the man he would lose. The friend he would lose. The love he would lose.
He kept all these things in his heart, and the sheep pan eventually made its way into the trash, and Steve went into the ice and his memory became frozen as his best friend lived on, and on, and on.
Spring didn’t come again for either of them.
“I’m home!” Bucky announced as he walked through the door. The spring air nipped at his hair as he stepped into the house, and Steve, from somewhere inside yelled back, “hi, baby!” Bucky dropped his backpack by the shoe rack and walked into the house, waiting to be ambushed but for some reason, no one came. He finally made his way into the kitchen just in time to see Steve, with all the kids standing around something on the counter. Something white, and lamb shaped. The memories came flooding back, Sarah Rogers and her lamb shaped pan. Natasha, and Winifred smiled up at their dads with bright smiles and Natasha squealed, “can we eat it now, daddy?”
“Well, let me tell you a story, honey. About the first time I saw your dad.”
Every spring, Steve would make cake batter, and pour it into the pan they’d had forever that was brown, and burnt, and shaped like a lamb. Every spring he would pipe white frosting as its fur, put two round sprinkles as the eyes, and every spring he would tell Natasha and Winifred, and all the children who came later, the story of how he met Bucky. About how they had met on a schoolyard playground, Steve in his best button-down, Bucky in a blue shirt that brought out his eyes. He would tell them about how they locked eyes across the green lawn, and how he’d smiled knowingly, because of course, he knew right then and there that he was going to make enough memories for a lifetime with the boy before him. The boy with blue eyes and kind eyes. With a curious gaze and smart expression. Steve would tell them about a wedding full of marigolds, and a wedding cake in the shape of a sheep.
He would tell them, every year, the story of spring.
Don't make me cry. Can you walk me home? Sleep in a field of marigold, you'll need the space for growing old. Only a mama's boy.