Old Recipes

Old Recipes 

She crushed her pills into her water and swallowed a swig before raising a dry hand to her moist lips. Her eyes darted to her daughter, standing tall on a bar stool stirring something in a bowl. Katey loved to cook and bake, a passion she seemed to just inhabit out of nowhere. Fingers dawdled over the shelf that held the cook books from generations ago, concealing recipes of many family favorites. 

Today she’d be cooking something simpler, something she’d love eating, but not so much for her mother, as nutrition was getting steadily more important in her coming years. She’d be making chocolate chip cookies, and she had to have a certain recipe to feel as if she was satisfied. Things like that had to be specific, crucial to her cooking manner. 

Katey sat down on the bar stool, her legs swaying just over the ground, hovering in a timeless air. She was pondering what recipe to use, as if her brain had memorized all the cookies she had ever eaten and already knew their recipes. 

She looked up from her magazine as she heard her daughter call out to her from the kitchen. 

“Where’s grandma’s recipe book?” She asked.

Pushing her glasses up on her nose, she began to look around for an excuse. She didn’t even know where she put the damn thing; she buried it somewhere, just like she did with everything her mother had touched after she passed. For the first time in a while, she felt as though remnants of her were beginning to sprout. 

Trying to find it would be like finding a needle in a haystack, and opening something that still had grandma attached to it would open up something her mother did not want to invite in. 

“I don’t know, Katey. Try the top shelf.” It was where most of the cookbooks were anyways.

“I already did.” She responded, as she began to hear the cabinets close- like the doors slowly closing in on her. She felt she would never be able to escape her mother’s wrath, her grasp from beyond the grave, something coming to take her life back.

“Is there another recipe you like?” She asked, looking for an answer that would be a way out. 

“No, not really. Grandma always made the best cookies when we visited and had the best recipes. She gave them all to you, so I don’t know where you put them.” 

Whether it was just an old excuse or genuine memory loss, she really didn’t know. She just wished it would store itself away instead of dumping it onto her shoulders, like everything her mother had given her had done. 

There was no legacy for her kin, no memories lively enough to look back to, no inheritance besides the mental illnesses she received from her mother. She didn’t want to even think about trying to find the book, but it felt as if Katey needed to have it in her hands in order to make these cookies. 

There was silence in the house as Katey began to continue gathering her supplies and scour for new recipes. She felt guilty about not being able to provide for her daughter’s needs- even the small things like this, making it feel as if she was stranded, so she pushed herself up and made way to the closet in the hallway. Legs that knew the hurt and truth behind the thin door of the closet wanted to turn around and escape it, hoping that her daughter would find a new recipe and go on with her routine, but she willed herself on for her daughter.

It was the grave of her mother, and going near it felt ominous. It felt as though she lingered near, wanting to protect the things she left behind. 

She swung the door open, a mountain of memories like an avalanche, came crumbling down. Smells of worn out years, black and white candids, bags of jewelry that would never be worn. Frames like white bones, earrings like teeth from a carcass. 

This really is that bad. I didn’t think she was this much of a collector, consolidating her whole life into all these belongings. It’ll take years to go through all of this. 

A roach appeared from a small corner where there were scattered belongings and it scurried behind some bags of items that were never discovered, at least to her knowledge. 

Great. It felt like she was at a cemetery, watching maggots feast on her mother’s body. 

She began to peel back one of the trash bags, by some luck containing books that used to be strewn all across her mother’s house. Only true fortune would bring her to find the book as quickly as possible so she could please her daughter. 

She opened a leather-bound book, revealing yellow pages of scrawled handwriting. If this was the book, there was no way Katey would be able to read the scribbles. She tossed it back into the bag and sighed heavily. 

She tried to think of the last time her mother had done something for her daughter, and almost laughed as the thought seemed improbable. It was almost like a joke. The only thing her mother had given her were years of trauma and depression. Katey’s grandmother was no joyous angel as was often described. She was an avid alcoholic, smashing bottles against walls and things in the house that were closest to her. Very short-tempered and bipolar, often crashing without her daily medicine prescribed over-the-counter. The whole town knew her name, knew her legacy- mainly from the hospital visits. 

It had become her job to call the cops when she passed out on the couch or was raging wildly. She shuddered at the thought of leaving that behind for her daughter, for her to cope with that legacy always at the back of her mind. For her to continue on life when she was gone and still feel that presence of her terrifying mother was unbearable. 

That’s why she moved when she became pregnant with Katey. Staying posed the risk of an highly unwanted miscarriage, and leaving meant new life, new opportunities for the both of them. It was a clear decision to make, but not exactly proving easy. 

It had always made her sad when Katey began to ask questions about her relatives, where they were and why they never visited. It was the same ordeal with all of them, scrambling as soon as they could, not keeping in contact for fear their mother would come after them and plague their new lives with her distress and wild temper. 

She searched deeper into the bag, arms being impaled by the edges and spines of weary books. Randomly, she pulled another book out, and flipped to an open page. The writing was cleaner, more organized, obviously implying its older age. 

There was a diary heading. 

November 18, 1978

Elli has her third grade fall pictures soon, and Charles and I have scraped together just enough money for us to have three pictures. One for us, some for her- if she wants them. She comes home from school, goes into her room, and waits for dinner, expecting it to be made. I worry about her sanity and expectations of other people. I hope she has friends at school. Then, she would have something I didn’t. She got a lot from me - my hair, my eyes, my nose. It seems as though my whole identity has been robbed of me. 

I want the pictures now. I’ll see myself in them. I can make her just like me, something of my own. Maybe I can envision the life I never had. 

She rubbed her finger over the worn out and dried ink, like raisins sucked of their very being. She held her breath in her throat, not wanting to let it go because she felt it would disappear into the hands of her mother. 

She flipped through the pages, trying to look for the date after she had left with Katey. She knew that would be an interesting entry. 

March 17, 1992

Elli has left me. Charles has left me, for a while now. I knew Elli was pregnant, and I will find that child. I will find her. They are the closest things to me because Elli has a life destined just like mine. I want to be there to see it crumble. I want to raise another child like my own- and start over. Elli doesn’t deserve that child. No. No. No. I do. 

Some day I might miss them.

She threw the book away in another trash bin, one that was going to the landfill for sure. She wouldn’t read any more entries, not that she wanted to anyways. 

She continued to file through books, albums of pictures of her younger self that were kept clean in her mother’s presence, but had now grown layers of dust around the covers. It felt strange to look back at that, and being able to pinpoint the exact moment in time it happened because she had the traumatic memories so dramatically engrained in her head.

 Looking at her younger self, felt like she was looking at another person, only a small thread connecting the two. It felt like two strangers, bound together by two seats right next to each other in the city tram, left to sit in each other’s wake of silence and intensity as they said nothing until their next stop. 

She could hear Katey whisking up some things in the kitchen, occasionally hearing the pitter-patter of her feet as she walked to and from the pantry gathering supplies and rounding the countertops to check in the bottom drawers for larger bowls. 

She was a very disorganized baker, very frenzied, but it made her delicacies all the better.

After hours of searching through the legacies of a broken mother, there were three books left in the bag. There was a red cover on one that seemed appealing enough to pick, so aching arms and fingers flipped open to a random page, landing on a cream pie recipe. Her mother had made this once for a bake sale at school, but had caused a scene the day Elli was supposed to help run the sale. It felt like a wave of relief washed over her, no one would remember that except her, and that embarrassment was all taken away with her mother. 

Her shoulders sagged, relaxing, as if to say, ‘at last’. 

She continued to flip through the pages until she found chocolate chip cookies, and dog-eared it. She blew the dust off the cover, and tucked it endearingly under her arm as she strolled into the kitchen with a pleased smile. 

Her mother left her a legacy she would use to her advantage, she was no longer controlled by her, no strings attached to her. It felt like all the feelings, all the cherished and not cherished memories, all the collected items were being uprooted for good, and some were being buried. Her mother would be buried with them, taking them wherever she went now, a load onto her shoulders. 

She shut the door behind her, like closing the lid to the casket, and took a deep breath. This was her legacy now. One for her daughter, and continuing on. She would see the joyous spark in Katey's eyes and that would be enough to fix all the hurt, all the glass shattering of bottles and all-too-easily-broken hearts. 

It would be enough to fix the shaken nights, the nights in hospitals and the evenings after school, everything that led to the crushing tentatively of pills plopped into water. And it started with this, a new life, a new legacy for herself. 

She found Katey stooped over in the kitchen, displeased, going through recipes that weren’t ‘just right’. With a smile, she exclaimed brightly, 

“Katey, I found an old recipe book. Want to make some cookies with me?” 

Katey’s head turned sideways and looked at her with an expression of joy and excitement. 

“You found it!” 

Katey ran to her and crashed into her mother’s legs, now weakened from being bent while going through the closet. She nuzzled her head against Elli’s thighs before running back to her position at the bar stool. 

She opened the dog-eared page and began calling out to her mother for certain ingredients. Her mother internally laughed as she followed them like orders, collecting the needed supplies from the fridge. Katey mixed and mixed in the larger bowl she had retrieved, and with the work of the duo, were able to get the cookies in the oven in no time. 

Despite her promise, Elli had a few bites of the soft cookie, teeth sinking deeply into the cookie and embellishing her mouth with the chocolate gooey-ness. It felt amazing to be making new memories with her daughter, ones that her daughter would carry on forever. 

With big eyes that seemed to hold every emotion Elli had ever experienced, Katey looked up to her mother with a warm smile. She was relieved to pass something down to her daughter that wasn’t unpleasant or something of a burden. 

It felt like she was truly a mother despite spending countless nights awake by her bedside, changing diapers that threatened to extinguish her sense of smell. She felt like she was truly leaving a legacy for her daughter, like footprints in sand. 

And Elli knew that one day her daughter would be stepping in those footprints, following the path her mother set out for her. 

She looked down at her daughter, the red-cover book of recipes embalmed in sweaty hands. She pushed it into her daughter’s still-growing palms and bent down to whisper in her ear, 

“This is my legacy to you. Take good care of it for me.”