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wrench in the gears.
    “I know,” she said again. “I know.”
    I let her off the hook after a couple more seconds of
    icy quiet. “How are you feeling?” I asked as I set Steve’s
    bowl down before his little head exploded from the
    waiting.
    “Owie.”
    “I’ll bet. Pain meds helping at all?”
    “If I take extras, they do.”
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    “Yeah, well, be careful of that,” I warned sternly. “e
    last thing we need is for you to become a Vicodin addict or
    something. at stuff can mess you up.”
    “Hey, you know what would make me feel a lot
    better?” she asked, her voice softening. “Some of those
    triple chocolate cookies you made around Christmas time.
    Remember those?”
    A few minutes later I poured myself a glass of
    Cabernet and donned my favorite apron, a simple black
    one with brightly colored spatulas all over it that Grandma
    bought me at least ten years earlier. Pulling mixing bowls
    and ingredients out of cupboards, I set to work making
    cookies for Maddie.
    My love of baking comes from my grandmother. I
    know it. She was a practical woman stuck raising her
    daughter’s child, not something she ever expected to be
    doing, I’m sure. She was fifty-five when my mother took
    off and left four-year-old me with her, an age where she’d
    been thinking about retirement, not how to entertain a
    small child. She wasn’t the kind to play catch with me or
    teach me to ride a bike (though she managed to do the
    latter), but she made a mean chocolate chip cookie, among
    other sweet confections. I still remembered shards of the
    very first time I helped her. I must have been five or six and
    she was working at the counter. I slid my little chair over
    and stood on it so I could see what she was doing. Once I
    was quiet enough, she simply began giving me
    instructions. “I need an egg. Be careful with it.” “is is a
    sifter; just pull on this handle until all the flour goes
    through.” “ere’s a bag of chocolate chips in that
    cupboard. Grab it for me.” And that’s how it began. It was
    sort of unspoken, but that ended up being the quality time
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    I spent with Grandma and it didn’t take long for me to
    grow to love it. Cookies and cakes were her way of
    showing me love, because I think she was so frustrated and
    disappointed in her own child, she didn’t know what to say
    to me.
    So we baked.
    I sometimes thought how weird it might have seemed
    to somebody looking in from the outside. Somebody who
    didn’t know, who wasn’t there during my childhood. But
    Grandma took care of me; she clothed me and fed me and
    put off her own retirement so I could go to a decent
    college. She wasn’t terribly verbal in the emotions
    department, but I knew in my heart that she adored me,
    and if the best way she could show me so was to bake me
    an angel food cake with marshmallow icing, that was good
    enough for me. I loved her right back. And as will happen
    with things that are handed down within a family, baked
    goods became a tool for me to show my love as well, at
    least in some cases. In other cases, I just like to bake. It is
    my cure-all. I bake when I am stressed out. I bake when I
    am sad. I bake when I am ecstatically happy. I bake when
    I’m nervous. I don’t know why. Something about the focus,
    the way I can concentrate on measuring and sifting and
    stirring just helps to relax and calm my frayed nerves. Very
    few problems in life can’t be made at least a teensy bit
    better by a mouthful of cookie dough.
    I finished up the last batch and left them to cool on a
    wire rack while I did up the dishes. It was late, but
    Grandma always hated to wake up to a sink full of dirty
    dishes, so I always clean up my mess even if I’ve been
    baking at three in the morning which is not unheard of.
    After wrapping up a package for Maddie, I took a cookie
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    Georgia Beers
    for myself, along with the essential glass of milk, and Steve
    and I headed to