Chapter 3

By the time we reached home, dried frosting had tightened across my knuckles. Whit carried his jacket upstairs and left the cake boards leaning beside the back door. I washed the knife, dried it, and opened the pantry for flour.

I wanted bread dough under my hands. Press, fold, turn: a rhythm that had steadied me after funerals, fevers, and every birthday party that ended with someone else's dishes in my sink. I set the flour and yeast on the counter, then opened the cabinet beneath the window.

The wide mixing bowl was gone.

I checked behind the colander and the roasting pan. My shoulder brushed the cabinet frame as I reached deeper. Only the smaller bowls waited there, each one too narrow for dough that needed room to rise.

Whit came back in wearing house shoes. He opened the refrigerator and studied the shelves as if dinner might have prepared itself while we were gone.

"Where's the big bowl?"

He looked toward the cabinet, then above it. "Perry moved it."

I followed his glance. The bowl sat on top of the cabinets, near the ceiling, its chipped rim turned toward the wall. Below it, four white bowls nested beside the flour tin, bright and identical.

"Why is it up there?"

"She brought you new ones." Whit lifted the smallest from the stack and tapped its clean edge. "These are lighter. Better for your hands."

The old bowl was large enough for two loaves. I had braced it against my hip through years of kneading, the chip useful beneath my thumb because it told me where to grip. Now I could see half its base beyond the cabinet molding and no safe way to reach it.

I dragged a chair from the table. One leg caught in the grout line, and the seat struck the cabinet with a hollow knock. Whit took the chair back from my hands before I could turn it.

"Don't climb for a bowl."

"Then bring it down."

He pressed one palm to his lower back. The same hand had carried two folding chairs from the car when a guest asked him, but he stood beneath the cabinet and gave me a patient smile.

"Tomorrow. You're worn out."

I could have fetched the step stool from the laundry room. I could have waited until he went upstairs and climbed alone. Instead, I returned the chair to the table and pulled the largest new bowl from the stack.

Flour skated across its glossy bottom. The bowl turned whenever I pressed the dough forward, so I trapped it against my ribs and kneaded one-handed. Its rim bit into my forearm. Twice, the dough climbed over the side and dragged flour onto the counter.

Whit watched long enough to see me manage. Then he took an apple from the refrigerator and went upstairs.

I shaped one loaf instead of two. After covering it with a towel, I washed the new bowl and dried every pale streak from its surface. I nested it with the other three and stood looking at the stack.

Four new bowls, and not one of them had ever held anything.