Red Velvet Cake

A bouquet of rotting wildflowers sits stiffly on the windowsill. Rigor Mortis has set in. To merely touch the dried leaves would be like taking a hammer to glass or tapping a fingernail against a pyramid of playing cards. Helen, feeling cool from the open window, wraps an afghan snugly across her body. Granny made this. The cacophony of patrons exiting a restaurant from the street below interrupts Helen’s thoughts. She stares blankly outside, barely cognizant of the maple leaves flying effortlessly in the air and splotching the clear blue sky with little drops of red. This is her favorite season and she couldn’t care less. 

You would have been eighty eight today, she writes in her journal, then closes the notebook and tucks it away in her bookshelf. 

Helen’s gaze returns indoors to the post-mortem flowers, the ones she picked from the meadow behind Granny’s house on the day of the funeral. Heal-all’s. What a name. They were intended to be dropped atop the casket, but that would have acknowledged she was really dead, so Helen had taken them home. Two months later, they’re still sitting in the vase. 

Those flowers are dead now too.

Helen walks into the kitchen and looks at the fridge. There’s the scarecrow drawing her four year old daughter Scarlet drew at preschool. Helen looks at the picture closely. Suddenly she is a child again, sitting at Granny’s kitchen table coloring a Halloween scene provided by the local newspaper. A full moon with a witch’s silhouette hangs in the top right corner and a barren tree with tangled branches dominates the rest of the page. It’s for a coloring contest. Helen mixes various shades of Crayola to create a midnight blue and colors the night sky.

“Granny, do you think I could really win?” 

“I think you have as good a chance as any,” Granny says smiling and returns to washing dishes. 

Two weeks later, Helen’s mother received a phone call announcing her daughter had won second place. They were requested to come to the news office to receive Helen’s prize and have her photo taken with the other winners. Granny had suggested Helen wear something festive for her newspaper debut: an orange turtleneck with black overalls, her hair accented with glittery pumpkin clips. She was a walking jack-o-lantern. A tall man with round glasses shook her hand and gave her a check for fifteen dollars. Granny was the first person, aside from Helen, to hold the check in her hand. Thinking back now, Helen can’t remember what she had bought with the money. 

The oven timer abruptly brings Helen back to the present and her attention to the smell of cake. Thomas and Scarlett will be home soon. Promptly, she removes the two cake pans from the oven, waving away the steam with her oven mitt, and inspects them each with a knife. Clean. While they cool, she makes the cream cheese icing and crushes the walnuts for the topping. 

When was the last time she made a red velvet cake? Last Christmas maybe? Granny’s last Christmas. Helen had offered to help with the baking, seeing that her grandmother had needed help more than ever then. But out of stubbornness, she had ignored Granny’s advice not to overfill the cake pans and ended up with a swollen, unusable mess. 

“The cake pan runneth over,” she had said, laughing, trying to make light of her mistake. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Her husband had laughed too, scolding her, “your grandmother has made this cake every Christmas since Eisenhower was president. She ought to know how it’s done.” 

“Well,” Helen thinks now, “I’ve certainly never made the same mistake again.” She looks at the cake on her counter, which has been measured exactly according to the recipe on the handwritten index card taped on the back of her kitchen cabinet. 

Nothing runneth over this time. 

It’s two o’clock, the party starts at three, and Thomas and Scarlett still haven’t come home from the playground. Helen frets around nervously looking for something to clean. After she’s cleared the table of leftover breakfast crumbs and returned a barbie doll, half hidden in the couch cushion, to its proper place, she lights a pumpkin scented candle hoping to create an autumn mood. She opens the hall closet to check that all the gifts are wrapped then spots a forgotten bag in the corner. The decorations! Quickly, Helen blows up some balloons then gets a step stool to hang the streamers. Helen twists the tissue paper in not so elegant swirls, taping them a touch unevenly to the door frame. This will do.

Scarlett has been talking about her birthday party for weeks, and Helen has the vague feeling there is something profound about this party, some secret significance she’s unaware of. She’s hoping the party might help bring her out of the dark cave she’s been hiding in since Granny passed. For Thomas and Scarlett’s sake if nothing else. Her husband has been very patient and understanding, but Helen feels a certain expectation, or even an obligation to accept her grandmother’s death and move on. There’s a sense of guilt in not having progressed to some other stage of grief that would make things more comfortable for everyone else. 

Helen reminds herself that she is a mother, a wife. She has responsibilities. Last week she sent Scarlett to school wearing the same clothes for three days in a row. Dinners of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and frozen pizza have served far too often. Dishes pile up in the sink, the compost bin is molded to the point of resembling alien life forms, and the level of soap scum in the bathtub is obscene. Thomas tries to help when he can, but there’s only so much a man who works overtime every week can do. 

Get over it. She’s gone. 

But how can she just get over death like it’s the cold or the flu? 

Helen tries remembering the look of excitement on Scarlett’s face the day before and smiles weakly at the memory. 

“I’m going to be six, Mama!” 

“No, you’re turning five.” 

“But I’m already five and now I’m going to be six. At my party.”

Helen gently corrected her once more. 

“No, I’m six! I’m six!” Scarlett had started to cry then, and as Helen wiped away her tears with a cloth handkerchief, she relented and said, “ok darling, you’re going to be six.” This was a battle she would willingly lose. Scarlett could be six. 

The theme of the party had been chosen three weeks earlier. Mermaids, Scarlett’s idea.  Normally Helen wasn’t much for themed birthday parties. Too extravagant, too over the top. When she was a kid, it was a big pot full of spaghetti, some cake, and a few presents. But Helen went to the trouble of going to several costume shops and party supply stores and ended up coming home with matching paper cups and plates adorned with glittering fish scales, balloons, a purple vinyl tablecloth, and some turquoise and coral colored crepe paper to use for streamers. It seemed funny to her now that she had somehow forgotten everything in the closet. The red velvet was the only misnomer, not at all following the under the sea theme. But it was Granny’s birthday too, after all, and Helen needed at least some piece of her there with them. 

All of Scarlett’s friends from preschool have been invited to the party, even the boy who bit her last month. Thankfully the bite was not severe; she had managed to get away from Toby before his milk teeth broke through flesh. Scarlett, as a precaution, had avoided Toby after the biting incident. Then a week later, the teacher told Helen that, as if nothing happened, they were right back to sharing legos and coloring dinosaur pictures together. At age five (or six), it’s easy to forgive. But for Helen, at forty-two, forgiveness doesn’t come so easily. She isn’t granting any free pardons. 

It certainly wasn’t fair what happened to Granny. Cancer isn’t one of life’s cruelties Helen will willingly forgive. Seeing her that way, literally starving to death, while everyone else was eating take-out and casserole dinners. Seeing her lying in that bed for months, the once lively grandmother who threw the football in the yard with her grandkids, who still cut her grass with a push mower, lying there in bed unable to sit up. Seeing her, day after day in that room, watching her children change her diapers, dress her, bathe her. Her daily life had been reduced to the space inside those four walls. Unable to eat without vomiting. Unable to play the guitar, knit or crochet, unable to do anything that made her her. Where was the dignity in that? 

No, Helen would not forgive cancer.

Cancer could go to Hell. 

Finally, the door to the apartment opens. Thomas and Scarlett are back from the playground wearing huge smiles on their faces. Helen frowns. 

“You’re late.”

“Sorry, she was having too much fun on the slides,” Thomas shrugs in defense. 

“Mama, I went down the really tall one!” 

Helen sighs and hugs her daughter, then forces a smile. “It’s fine, just go wash up. The party starts in half an hour.”

Thomas takes Scarlett to the bathroom to wash the playground grime from her hands and a few minutes later, Scarlett joins her mother in the living room, dressed in her mermaid costume. “How do you like the decorations?” Helen asks. “I love them! It’s perfect,” Scarlett squeals then dances around the room in excitement. 

The guests arrive in spirited bursts. First is Scarlett’s friend Frankie, hiding behind her mother’s skirt, coming in and out of focus like a camera lens. Next comes Daphne, Henry, and Toby in quick succession. Within moments the sounds of giddy laughter and running feet fill the apartment. Parents have to speak above conversational volume to hear over the noise of so many children in a small space. Helen ushers the adult guests to the kitchen and offers everyone a drink. “Beer or lemonade?” Daphne’s mother, with baby on hip, grabs a beer and chugs it quickly, perfectly timing her one allotted alcoholic drink before she’ll be required to nurse. 

Most of the children have come here with their mothers, but a few fathers, especially those with multiple children, have been roped into joining their wives, at least for supervision’s sake. While Helen knows them all socially, she quickly realizes that not everyone knows each other and makes the appropriate introductions. After everyone nods and shakes hands, the guests slowly begin to relax and make small talk. 

“Love your sweater, Helen. Where’d you get it?” Frankie’s mom asks. Helen looks down. It’s the one with giant mauve colored flowers.

“Vintage, online.” And she can’t resist telling a story about where the sweater likely came from, how she had ordered it rather impulsively after seeing a similar one worn by an actress in a film. “You can find all kinds of vintage clothes online,” she adds, “and cheap too.” She rambles on about the sweater for several minutes. Thomas picks up on her nervous energy and hands her a cold beer. Taking the bottle from his hands, she nods at him and mouths a quiet “thank you”, then takes a long gulp. 

Daphne’s mom addresses the group and asks about Halloween plans. Helen, along with a few other parents, commit to going trick-or-treating. Then Henry’s mother surprises everyone with news of a fifth family member scheduled to arrive next spring. Everyone congratulates her, and Helen nudges her bottle of IPA to cheer the pregnant woman’s lemonade. Then Daphne pulls Helen aside and quietly asks her, “you doing okay?”, to which Helen answers, “I’m doing alright.” 

Banter continues while the children run amuck around the apartment. Several conversations are paused while parents are summoned to intervene in disputes over toys or redirect newly walking toddlers from bumping into sharp corners of furniture. 

Then it’s time to cut the cake, and Helen calls everyone to the kitchen where the red velvet is sitting on the table, ablaze with five single candles. Everyone starts singing “Happy Birthday” and Helen’s gaze is fixed on Scarlett who is smiling widely and looking around the room, beaming because all the attention is on her. She’s so happy. She’s so young. And Helen thinks, despite the cliches, it really does seem like only yesterday she was cradling a baby in her arms, watching her learn to walk. It really does all go by so fast. Next year she’ll be starting the first grade. And hopefully one day Scarlett will graduate, go to college, get married, maybe have children of her own. 

An entire life flashes before Helen’s eyes. Birth. Death. No stops in between. Life itself is a moving thing. A river. The wind. Until it isn’t. And that was the miracle of it, the horrifyingly beautiful, painful truth of it all. You have to appreciate life for what it is. And seeing Scarlett now, just five years old, her whole life ahead of her, put things in perspective for Helen. She could be sad about Granny being gone. It is sad. She is sad. Death is sad. 

But she, Helen, is alive. 

Wiping a tear from her cheek, Helen looks at her daughter and takes a deep breath. Then she smiles and joins the others in singing, “happy birthday to you.” Scarlett is hovering over the cake like a hummingbird. She looks at her mother, just for a second, then extinguishes the candles with one forceful blow. 

If only Granny could be here. 

Soon the cake is cut and everyone is given a slice. Helen opens a celebratory bottle of champagne for the adults and offers lemonade to the children. Just when Helen is about to offer up her glass to everyone for a quick “cheers”, Thomas makes an impromptu toast, “Let’s cheers to Scarlett,” then looking at Helen with sincere admiration, “and to her mother for preparing this wonderful party.” All eyes are on Helen and she smiles as she bashfully raises her flute to the crowd, mustering a timid “cheers.”

Everyone makes light conversation and Helen finds herself giggling at a cheesy dad joke. I laughed, she says to herself as she moves about the kitchen rinsing dirty plates and emptying glasses. I really laughed. She looks for Thomas and spies him in the corner of the room apparently chatting with another father about their golf swings. The father is pantomiming how he swings a club. Scarlett, who has taken only a few bites of her cake, has scurried back to the living room to play with her friends. Helen can still see them from the kitchen. Scarlett is pretending she is a mermaid and trying to convince one of the boys to be a prince. Daphne’s mom has come into the room and is standing next to Helen. “Aren’t they so cute?” she says and offers to help clean up. “Adorable,” Helen says, already putting the last remaining slice of red velvet into a box for her to take home. 

“Time for gifts!” Thomas, with the help of a few other guests, brings the wrapped packages to the table. Scarlett, now in a balloon fight with Toby, eagerly stops mid swing and takes her seat. She unwraps the first gift slowly. A book about ballerinas. Her face beams as she shouts a high pitched “thank you!” to the crowd. Frankie’s mother calls from the back of the room, “hope you like it!” The gifts are then opened in rapid succession, Scarlett’s reception of the gifts justifying each purchase. 

“I always wanted this!”

“A mermaid doll!” 

“Thank you! Thank you!”

The party is winding down now. A few parents check their watches and one family starts the leaving train. Scarlett throws her arms around each of her friends, hugs them fiercely, and tells them all she’ll see them soon. Helen makes playdate plans with two of the parents before the monotony of goodbyes. And finally the apartment is emptied. 

 Scarlett and Thomas are sitting on the living room rug playing with a new set of legos while Helen sits in her armchair. They are building a dollhouse. Scarlett is tired from all the excitement and impatient. “I can’t do it!” she moans as she struggles to place a tiny blue block in place. But Thomas has the patience of an owl. He could easily just insert the block himself, but instead coaxes Scarlett into doing it herself. And she does. “See,” Helen says, “all you have to do is keep trying.” 

Helen looks outside. The sky is a cornflower blue and the juxtaposition of the red maple is brilliant. A cardinal has come to the bird feeder attached to the glass on the window. The bird eats sloppily, spilling sunflower seeds onto the window stool. Silly bird, don’t waste them. 

Helen smiles. Then she picks up the vase of dead flowers and discards them in the compost.