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 magic,’ as she slid them into the oven.
I loved those days in Aunt Erma’s kitchen. They were full of pure joy and deliciousness. Aunt Erma made sure we had a pre-baking snack, usually cheese and crackers and some kind of fruit. ‘We have to make sure we have energy to complete this grand task of ours,’ she would say as we stood by the corner of her kitchen counter. We would pause after making the crust for another snack, which was usually a few pieces of chocolate eaten while we stood in the middle of the kitchen surveying our work-in-progress. She would ask me about my day and patiently listen to my long-jumbled stories about something that had happened on the playground or a dream I’d had the night before. She never interrupted me or told me I wasn’t making any sense. She just let me talk.
Then there was the post-baking snack – a big slice of the fresh pie, which we usually enjoyed as we sat with our legs outstretched on the light green carpet in her living room. She never worried about me spilling pie, though I did more than once. Somehow, she always got the stains out of the carpet.
I stared at the ingredients and drank my coffee. Did I have time to eat some cheese and crackers? I looked at the clock and realized I had to focus. Maybe if I concentrated all my energy, it would somehow magically turn into finished pies. Unfortunately, the power of my mind seemed to be failing me, so I set to work. I added all the ingredients for the crust to the industrial mixer. It was a little daunting to flip the switch to the on position because even though it had a protective guard around the bowl, I was still afraid somehow I would fall in and get mixed to death. I carefully read and re-read the recipe to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. I felt my confidence build as I looked at the giant ball of dough that actually seemed to resemble the pictures of pie crust I had found online. I covered the counter with a layer of flour and plopped the ball of dough in the middle so I could divide it into smaller chunks. Out of the blue, I sneezed right on the pie crust. A cloud of flour surrounded me.
I jumped when I heard a snort behind me. I turned and saw a tall man standing in the doorway. He was a good-looking guy who was probably in his early thirties with wavy dark brown hair, brown eyes, and thick eyebrows. His lips were pursed together as though he was fighting to suppress laughter.
He cleared his throat trying to compose himself. I attempted to brush the flour off me, but there was really no recovering from this.
‘I saw your door propped open, so I stopped to say hi,’ he explained. ‘I’m Henry.’ He looked like he was going to shake my hand but then, as if he remembered that I’d just sneezed, he dropped it back by his side.
‘I’m Susanna,’ I said with a sigh as I grabbed the ball of dough and dumped it in the garbage.
‘You’re the niece,’ he said. ‘I heard some rumblings in town about you.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Something about you loving the musical Annie?’ He raised his eyebrows questioningly at me.
‘That doesn’t sound like me,’ I said, somehow managing to keep a straight,
