Grandma’s Cake

“You made Grandma’s cake?”

The words slashed through the Thanksgiving chatter like the first cold, unexpected blow of a storm wind on a sunny day. Three siblings, their spouses, their six children, plus the siblings’ parents - fourteen souls altogether - had made it through dinner in peaceful harmony; but that came to an abrupt, and maybe not so surprising halt, at dessert time.

“Come on guys, this is not the time…” Darian begged, his gaze trailing from his younger brother to his younger sister. But Frances held the cake up high, and her chin even higher. And Billy stared at her with narrowed eyes. “Come on, it’s a family holiday…” Darian pleaded.

“And this is family business,” Frances quipped.

“I am not signing off on the final draft of Grandma’s Recipes as long as it lists vanilla in the cake’s ingredients. Who puts down vanilla instead of nutmeg?” Billy asked.

“If you were in the kitchen with Grandma when she made the cake, you would know it was vanilla.”

“If you had a palate at all, you would know it was not.”

They both looked at their mother for arbitration.

“Don’t get me involved in this,” the old woman hissed. “You are behaving like children.” Then, turning to her grandkids with a smile: “Sorry, darlings, I didn’t mean anything about you. You are behaving wonderfully.” 

“I thought you agreed to leave this out of Thanksgiving, and not to make Grandma’s cake,” Darian said.

“According to Billy, I didn’t,” Frances sneered.

“According to you, you did,” Billy shot back.

They glared at each other, Billy leaning forward as if he was ready to destroy the cake as soon as it landed on the table, Frances holding the cake up in mocking display. The stalemate was broken by Darian’s four-year-old:

“Can we have dessert now?” she asked.

“Of course, sweetie,” Frances said and set the cake stand on the table, seating herself next to it and cutting the first slice. 

“Don’t eat that, Auntie Frances made with a bit of vanilla and a lot of spite.”

“Don’t listen to Uncle Billy, he gets bitter when he knows he’s losing a fight.”

“Liar!”

“Loser!”

“Vanilla-obsessed Thanksgiving-ruinner!”

“Nutmeg freak!”

A fist slammed one one side of the table, and a knife stuck through the tablecloth on the other. A child whimpered, and the old woman prayed, “Mother Mary, please stop them.” To everyone’s relief, the insults ceased. But the relief was short-lived, as Billy clutched his chest with his right hand, and gripped the tablecloth with his left. Frances did the same, a reversed image of her little brother. The tablecloth, tugged at from different angles and pinned by the knife, twisted and jerked the cake stand, sending it and its vanilla-flavored contents to the floor with a loud shatter.

“Not like that, Mother Mary, not like that,” the old woman sniffled. “Call an ambulance!” she screamed needlessly, as Billy’s wife and Frances’s husband had already dialed 911.

***

On Thanksgiving evening, Billy learned what an ECG was. Propped up in the hospital bed, he wondered if Frances felt as relaxed as he did. He had read that people feel warm before dying of hypothermia, so warm that they want to take their clothes off even as they are freezing to death. It must have been the same paradoxical effect that was making him so comfortable even as his heart was quitting on him. Obviously, feeling so content was a sign of imminent death. He wondered if it scared Frances as little as it scared him. 

He looked over at the bed next to him, where his sister lay.

“Nutmeg,” he said lazily and without rancor.

A smirk appeared on her lips, but she said nothing.

The nurse with the notepad scribbled something. The other one, the male nurse, who had the camera, kept on panning from Billy to Frances and back.

“Wait a minute…” Billy pointed a finger at them. “You’re not nurses.”

“We’re not,” said the one with the notepad.

“You’re filming a reality show, aren’t you.”

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly? So… a pilot.”

“You may say that.”

“A-ha … what are you going to call it? Dopes in the ER?

He laughed and the notepad nurse, who admittedly was not a nurse, nodded and wrote on. 

“Not bad,” said the cameraman. 

“How about Nutmeg Nutcases?” Frances grinned.

Notepad Nurse winced, and Camera Nurse just said, “Woooooh” and shook his head.

“Holy…!” Billy said in response to his sister’s suggestion. A loud beep followed. “What was that?” he asked.

“We bleep the bad words,” Camera Nurse explained.

“But I didn’t say a bad word.”

“You thought it. Same thing. The camera captures the truth.”

“No sh…!” This time he did say the bad word, but nobody could hear it over the bleep.

Notepad Nurse shook her head disapprovingly.

“I would advise against using inappropriate words,” Camera Nurse said. “You lose points.”

“So it's a game show,” Billy concluded. “And how does the camera show the truth?”

Camera Nurse flipped open a digital screen and turned it toward Billy, so he could see what the camera saw. There on the screen was a miniature Billy, much younger, and on his shoulders were two little…

“What are those?” he asked, straining to see better. “Are they…?” he started, incredulous. Yes, the tiny red figure on his left shoulder held a fork, and the tiny white one on his right held a harp. And if those details were not enough, the horns on the head of the former and the halo above the latter were dead giveaways as to their nature.

“No way!” Billy said, avoiding another bleep with his careful choice of words. “Do her, do her!” he pointed at his sister.

The camera turned to Frances. She also looked like she was just out of her teen years, and had two tiny advisors on her shoulders. 

“Amazing technology!” Billy said in wonder.

“It's not exactly technology,” Camera Nurse started, but Billy’s entire focus was now on his right shoulder. His real right shoulder. He couldn't see anything on top of the hospital gown. He brushed it, like one does when he discovers some lint on his shirt, and the angel on the screen toppled over and fell on the pillow. The devil raised his fork in the air and started dancing in a tight circle on Billy's left shoulder. 

“Right,” Billy laughed and flicked the tiny dancer off too.

Notepad Nurse sighed and added more notes. “I'm not surprised,” she said to herself, and her voice stirred something in Billy. He looked over at Frances, who was also staring at the nurse. But the notepad was covering most of her face, as she kept writing, and they couldn't see her expression.

“Anyway,” Billy turned toward his sister. “I was thinking…” There was the slightest brush against his right cheek. His heart felt light and his words came easy. “Maybe we should call someone and make sure the book goes forward, while we still can.” Frances looked at him with a smile. On the camera's flipped screen, her young version clasped her hands together in front of her chest and nodded enthusiastically. “You know,” Billy continued, “a book that honors grandma, keeps our memories of her for our children and their children, and shares her love of cooking - which was her love for her family… Let's say it had one little mistake in it, so what. It's better than no book at all.”

Young Frances had tears in her eyes, and real Frances did too. The sound of the scribbling pen stopped. Billy felt quite proud of himself. There was the slightest touch on his left cheek, which he ignored as he continued:

“You know, the only reason why I wanted you to fix the cake recipe was because I knew you were wrong, and I wanted the book to be perfect.”

Real Frances didn't move, but the on-screen Frances crossed her arms and scowled. The pen went to work again.

“Oh come on!” Billy said in exasperation. “I'm trying here, but this is…” Bleep! “...ing impossible! What,...” Bleep! “... is a bad word? I can't say…” Bleep! “Who made these…” Bleep! “...ing rules? It's ridiculous!” Bleep - bleep - bleep!

The camera was fixed on Billy. The tiny devil was propped in his fork, holding on to it for support as he was bent over laughing.

Bleep! “...you!” Billy said and flicked him off his shoulder. “You're nothing but trouble.”

All of a sudden, an incredibly bright light hit Billy's eyes.

“Wait!” he screamed in fear, with the sudden conviction that he was not on any kind of television pilot, and the tiny advisors on his left and right were not CGI either. “I'm not ready!” he screeched. “My affairs are not in order, I need just a little more time!”

The light flicked off for a split second and then hit him again with the same intensity. Then it went off for good and he felt a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“You're doing well. We need you to stay calm. You're safe in here and we're keeping an eye on you.”

Oh. A real nurse! … Hopefully?

He looked over at Frances, who was smirking again. The nurse fussed with him for another minute, then moved over to Frances, checked her pupils with a penlight, checked her vitals and left with a few reassuring words.

“You idiot, she was just checking your eyes,” Frances laughed. Her devil had his hand on his hip triumphantly and seemed to enjoy himself. “I'm not ready to go into the light!” Frances mocked her brother.

A sigh came from behind the notepad.

“Well, at least I am trying to prepare myself for that moment,” Billy said. “When that light comes and my life flashes before my eyes… Heey!” he turned to Camera Nurse. “Can you do a… what would you call it, a montage of my life, show my whole life… am I not entitled to one of those before I die?”

For the first time that evening, Camera Nurse stuck his head out from behind the camera, and looked at Notepad Nurse for approval. 

“That's allowed,” she said.

Billy looked at the screen for a confirmation that this was a good idea, but both little beings stood in expectation, neither leaning to tell him what to do. From the other bed, Frances laughed.

“I am entitled to a montage…”

The screen started to show what looked like old family video tapes. The images followed each other fast and the events changed in such rapid succession that Billy could hardly keep up. 

“Can you slow down a bit?” he asked.

He stared intensely at the screen. Then he saw what he was looking for.

“Stop! There!” he yelled. The images stopped. He was a detective watching surveillance footage. Only he was not looking for clues to a crime, but for the key to a recipe. There on the screen was child-Billy, about five years old, walking in the kitchen where Grandma was preparing his favorite cake. Frances was there too, stirring away. He inventoried everything on the table. He foud what he was looking for, between the flour and the sugar: a spice jar.

“Can you go back… stop… zoom in. Yes, perfect. Nooo…”

The jar's label was facing the other way. The camera could zoom in on the picture, but could not make the jar turn around.

“Let it roll,” Billy said, resigned, and the film started playing again. 

Child-Billy licked the spoon his grandmother offered, then ran out of the kitchen. The images changed and continued to parade.

Billy laid back in the hospital bed, suddenly exhausted.

“Hey France,” he called his sister by the nickname he used when they were kids. “Let's have the book published,” he said, his words trailing like in a drunken speech. “The way it is.”

Young Frances showed up on the screen, teary-eyed and smiling.

“Love ya,” Billy said, and she blew a kiss at him. The red figure on her left shoulder sat down and rested his head in his palm, dejected. 

Having made peace with his sister, Billy was now ready to say good-bye to this world and look forward to the next.

“Frances,” he said as a feeble realization tried to make its way through his foggy mind, “I wanna say bye but nobody's here. Where's everybody? You'd think visitors hours are not a thing when someone's on their death bed, wouldn't you?”

“You would,” Frances agreed.

The camera zoomed out. It went from showing young Billy's portrait, to showing all of him lying down in the hospital bed, and…

On the frame of the bed, big print letters read “PANIC ATTACK BED”.

“I'm not on my death bed? We - we're not on our death beds?” he asked in dreamily stupor.

“Certainly not,” said Notepad Nurse, who had stopped scribbling. Her voice sounded oddly familiar, but Billy did not have enough brain power left to try to place it.

“Hey Frances… we both had a stupid panic attack.”

Frances would have burst out laughing, but she didn't have much energy left either.

“You're not taking away what you said, are you?” she asked softly.

“No, no… even if I've been tricked by Grandma over here,” he said, with a weak motion of the head toward Notepad Nurse. “I mean, it's good to get your affairs in order without waiting for you last day on Earth,” he concluded before closing his eyes.

“It certainly is,” Notepad Nurse said warmly, and the voice was so familiar that Billy wanted to look at her, but his eyelids were too heavy. 

“Ah, the sedative kicked in,” someone said. The real nurse, the one with the penlight. Thankfully, she did not stick the light in his eyes again; or, if she did, he was too sedated to remember. All he remembered was a light touch on his forehead, the warm familiar voice saying “Well done, Billy”, and a sweet and spicy smell.

***

Frances's phone rang. Not the usual ring, but the odd clankety sound that her phone used for announcing video calls. Her little brother's name came up on the screen.

With a shrug, she picked up.

“What's up, Billy?”

“Hey, you're gonna think I'm crazy, but…”

“I already think you're crazy.”

“... but I just went to the store and bought all these.”

Frances frowned at the screen. Billy's face disappeared. His hand described an arch in the air and presented a large collection of spice jars lined up on his kitchen counter.

“This has something to do with the Thanksgiving thing?”

“Yep!”

“You still think that Grandma set us up with panic attacks to force us to make up?”

“Yep!”

“For the hundredth time, we had a stupid fight that raised our blood pressure. We're related, so we had similar reactions, and we received medicine that got us to calm down and made us a little loopy. That's all there is to it.”

“Yeah, I know you don't believe me, so I'm not going to try to convince you, but here's the thing. I opened all of these - you know I don't know squat about cooking and spices - but I smelled them. All of them. And guess what?”

“What?”

Billy picked one up and held it victoriously. 

“This is the one. The same smell from the hospital.”

“Billy, the hospital smelled like camphor.”

“No. No. You didn't smell it just before Grandma left?” Frances rolled her eyes. “Doesn't matter. Listen, this is the spice in Grandma’s cake! Wait-wait-wait, don't hang up…”

“I'm not hanging up.”

“... I'm not asking you to change the recipe in the book, I don't care about that. But would you try to make the cake without vanilla, and use this instead?”

Frances stared at small jar on the screen. Cloves. Could it really have been cloves? She tilted her head to her right, trying to summon her memories.

“Yes, listen to him,” Billy said.

“Him who?” 

“Your… never mind. Try making the cake with cloves please?”

“Sure.”

***

“You made Grandma’s cake!”

The words cut cheerily through the Christmas chatter. Three siblings, their spouses, their six children, plus the siblings’ parents - fourteen souls altogether - had made it through dinner pretending they did not know what to expect for dessert; but the wait finally came to an end.

Frances put the cake on the table and started cutting slices, to everyone's pretend-surprised ooohs and aaahs. 

“Tastes just like your Grandma’s,” her mother said.

Frances exchanged a look with her younger brother, while her older brother picked up the proof copy of Grandma’s Recipies.

“I'm almost envious that anybody buying the book will be able to experience this… scrumptiousness,” Darian said.

“Here, here,” the father raised his glass. “To our health and to Grandma's memory. Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas!” came a chorus of responses. 

From the picture on the mantle, Grandma smiled at the merry gathering.