A Mother's Cookie

“The secret ingredient, my dear, is love,” Tina remembers her mum saying.

She remembers the baking weekends when they would spend all day covered in flour, aprons draped over their clothes. The sound of rolling pins against the cold, hard, marble tabletop. The wonderful smell of cookies that came from a metal box with buttons that light up when you press them. She remembers grabbing a ball of dough with her chubby toddler hands, and placing it in her mouth. She didn’t understand why her mum had such an odd expression on her face whenever she did that. She would raise her eyebrows, her eyes would be wide and her mouth would formed an “O” shape. Did she want some too?

Tina lived in a town house with a park across the street. She has always liked the street lamps that would flicker on just as the sun begins to set. The children would start going home but she would always want just that one last go down the slide before heading the same way. Her mum would wave at her across the street, telling her to hurry up and get ready for dinner. She loved the sound of her mother’s voice, sweet like an angel with all the kindness of the world. She would run towards that voice any day.

She sits on the sofa and pulls out an old photo album. She flips through the pages. A smile comes across her dull face as she reminisce the days that had gone past. She flipped a few more and suddenly realised there was a drop of water on her skirt. Then a few more. Before she knew it, her face was in her hands. Her sobbing echoed across the empty room where the fireplace stood cold and uncared for. She could hear the sound of chirping birds outside the window, its scene now covered by a thick tree trunk. She remembers the day her dad planted that tree there. It was only as tall as she was back then. Now it was taller than the house.

When she was a teenager, her friends would come over every day after school. She remembers the shenanigans they would be up to. Her mum would sometimes come out of the kitchen with her arms on her hips, an amused smile on her face, head moving from side to side, and a laugh when they did the silliest of things. She had painted her little brother’s face one day, and Kate would put a dress on him. They would laugh at him when they were done. Peter had no idea what they were doing. He was just happy he got to play with the “big girls”.

“Shall we go get some lunch, Honey,” Mat calls out from the front door.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I’ll be out in a minute”, Tina returns to the present world. She puts down the photo album and moves across the dusty floor.

“What’s wrong?”

“What, this? Just some silly tears. I have no idea where they came from.”

“You miss your mum, don’t you?”

Tina looks up and into the eyes of the one she chose to marry, a smile crossing her face. She had never regretted her decision to let him put a ring on her. This is the man she would spend the rest of her life with. She trusted him and knew he always had the right words for every situation.

“Come now, we wouldn’t want to keep Kate waiting,” she said.

They walked towards the end of the row of houses where her good old friend stands on the concrete pavement. The park looks just as lovely as ever as the flowers started to bloom on a warm spring day. This pavement was where she had fallen many times over when she was learning how to ride a bicycle. It was the same pavement she met Mat on, and the same place where they had their first kiss right under the street lamp one December night. Oh the joy she felt as she composed herself behind the closed door afterwards. She felt like pixies were teasing her cheeks, for they had gone red and round. The day he proposed to her was the day her dreams came true.

“If you two old lovebirds wouldn’t quit taking so long to get here, I thought I’d run over there and give you a good smack,” Kate had her fists on her hips and her nose was wrinkled for a second before receiving them with a warm hug.

“Hope you’re doing alright, my dear. I know how hard it must be for you right now. And going into that house too.”

“I’m fine now, thanks.”

“I’ve got some shepherd’s pie in the oven so let’s get to it. There’s nothing better than a homemade shepherd’s pie to settle the tummy, eh. Mat, you’ll need to help me get it out. My back is hurting terribly at the moment.”

After lunch, Tina and Mat took a stroll in the park while Kate rested in bed. The sun was shining beautifully today. Though there were now patches in some places, the grass grew wild and unruly, overgrowing onto the pebble ground. The trees had more branches now, some overgrowing and turning into giant mushrooms. She had scraped her knee here once. It bled terribly but she didn’t notice it till she saw the shocked expression on her mum’s face when she returned home. And that was followed by her fainting and being taken to the hospital where they gave her a blood transfusion. She has visible scars to this day, a reminder of ignorant days.

They returned to her mother’s house and took a few important things with them before closing the door and driving home. The echoes of laughter that had once passed those walls followed behind her, soon disappearing as Mat turned the corner. She had cookies to make this afternoon, so she couldn’t stay longer than she would have preferred. The cookie recipe was the one thing she inherited from her mother which she had passed on to her daughter Cassey, the owner of the best cookie shop in the region. It took her thirty years to understand what her mother meant when she said those words, and another twenty years for her to see its outcome. A bit of love put into a cookie, flattened with a rolling pin and shaped with a cookie cutter before being placed into a hot oven to produce a mini package of happiness for those who eat it.

“The secret ingredient, my love, is love,” Tina had said. Cassey tilted her head to the side, not fully understanding. She was just six years old.