The Best in the World

I was crying, under a table, while the ground shook. I was still young, and had no sense of real danger. I felt betrayed by the world I had always innocently loved. Books flew off the shelves, I covered my head, and I wept. I asked god to send my parents home from work, just so I could be with them. I didn’t ask him to end the earthquake. It was too much, even for him. My face was hot and puffy, covered in tears and snot. Terrified, I fell asleep.

I was a little girl, under a little table, in a little house. The city was too big, the shaking was too fierce, and the world was too vast for me. 

But when I woke up, I was in someone’s arms. Someone who was strong enough for anything. One whiff of her peppermint perfume, and I was safe. My grandmother consoled me, whispering in quiet tones. She told me my parents were just minutes away, and that (thank the lord) we were safe. Her rough, work worn hands rubbed my back. I played with the rings on her fingers. That night, by the light of a lantern, I sat in a circle with my family. My mother, my father, my grandmother, and my stupid little puppy Grover. We laughed, and we sang, and we told  stories. 

And we ate cookies. My grandmother’s cookies. They were the best in the world. 

They were crumbling, and buttery, and full of chocolate. They tasted like home.

They Tasted like the promise that I was going to be ok. With a smile on my face, I fell asleep. 

But that was more than a decade ago. Now, I make my own safety. I make my own family. And dammit, I should be able to make my own cookies. My five year old daughter plays in the adjacent room, with a small wooden kitchen set. She hands her dolls little plastic cookies of her own, and seems perfectly satisfied with her handiwork. Why is it so easy for her?

I ripped the third pan of cookies from my oven. They were irregularly shaped and colored. They were confusingly bubbling, and the chocolate chips looked like melted shit rather than enticing treats I remembered. What could I be forgetting? This is the fifth day in my conquest for Grammy’s cookies. I haven't tasted them since she died three years ago. And...I just, I really need them right now. But all I have are the abominations in front of me. What is it with family recipes and not writing things down? Am I expected to inherit the status of baking Goddess-dom? Is there some secret hidden in my psyche that I don’t know about? 

Clearly there is. Because I have enough cookies on my counter to feed a small country, and yet there is still an aching hunger in my chest. An insatiable hunger. I feel that I could collapse at any second and just sob. I am fragile and precarious, and I just need a cookie. I need the cookies that taste like everything I am missing. I need to be the arms that feel like safety to my daughter. 

So I will try again. I am a mess of flour and butter and sugar. I throw my ingredients into a bowl, when it is knocked off the table. My throat closes, I look into the playroom. Emma stands, confused, when there is a second tremor. 

“Under the chair!” I yell, and dive below the kitchen table. 

“Mom, wait!” She calls out to me. 

“Stay baby! Stay, I’ll be there soon!” 

“Mom!” She calls again

“Mom please!” Her voice is shrill and panicked

“Stay!” I scream desperately. The window above the back door bursts open, spraying glass all over the floor. Picture frames are knocked off tier places. I look for any opening to get to my daughter. There is nothing safe. I curl up and everything inside of me bursts. A deep, primal cry leaves my throat, and tears stream down my face. I cry loudly-deafeningly, and my shoulders are raked with the force of it. A bookshelf rips off the wall, and slams into the wall. My view of my daughter is now obscured. Her small body shakes, shakes along mine. Together we create a kind of music. A music of screams and cries and surrender. A music echoing around San Francisco, as millions of mothers beg their children to stay put. As hundreds of mothers aren’t as lucky as me. 

Please God, Please, please, please. I beg under my breath. I repeat the world desperately, putting my soul into the vague prayer. I do not know what I am asking for. But I need something. I need this something like I have never needed anything in my whole life. 

Suddenly the earth stops shaking. I know there are only minutes left before the after-tremors. 

“Baby, baby are you listening? Can you hear me Emma?” Tears roll down my face as I wish for an answer. 

“Mom? Mom help! Mom where are you?” 

I sigh and level my voice. It is still shaky, but less manic. “Ok. You are being so brave, ok? So brave. I am proud of you.” 

I can feel her smile through the walls. I continue. “I need you to keep being brave for me. I need you to do something, are you listening?” 

“Yes.” she calls back her voice watery and breaking. 

“Ok. Crawl under the bookcase, and over to me. Can you come to me?” 

She just begins to cry, but through her sobs, she crawls. On her hands and knees, she crawls over broken glass and sprayed flour. She cries and bites her lip and scoots herself over the debrie, as I encourage her. 

“You are doing so well, so well baby.” I say. “Only a few more feet.” 

When she reaches me, I pull her into my arms. Her small, skinny body is intertwined with mine. I am filled with an urgent love. The kind of love you have when you think you can’t love for much longer. Her hands and legs are bleeding, covered in tiny cuts from the glass. I bury my face into her feathery blonde hair, as she cries into my chest. 

“It’s going to be ok.” I tell her. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” 

My breath catches as the windows in the playroom burst open, and a tree falls through them. Emma screams. I hold her tighter and closer. The reality that she was in that room just minutes before fills me, creating a pit in my stomach. “I’ve got you.” I tell her. I feel her in my arms. I remind myself she is with me. 

She struggles free of my grasp, and sits next to me, under the table. She leans her head on my shoulder, and I run my hand through her hair. 

My eye is caught on a cookie. One of my cookies, on the linoleum kitchen floor. A misshapen, half burnt cookie. An insult to the golden orbs of my youth.  I picked up the burnt one for myself. I give a better one to Emma. 

She looked at me confused. “It was on the floor, Mom.” 

I chuckle. “Rules change in an earthquake.” 

She shrugs and bites into her treat, as I bite into mine. We sit in silence, and listen to the news blaring from the TV we never turned off. 

“A category four earthquake terrorizes San Francisco, citizens are urged to--” 

We sit, munching on floor cookies for what feels like hours. Let me tell you, I must have gotten the hereditary baking gift after all. These cookies taste like home. They taste like safety. Every crisp, crumbling bite whispers, “I’ve got you”. Every burst of chocolate tells me I’m going to be ok. I am the strong, work wearied arms that hold my daughter close. I am the phone call that one day will reduce her to tears. And her cookies, the cookies that are going to taste nothing like mine, or Grammy’s, or anyone’s, will be just like mine, and Grammy’s, and everyone’s: the best god-damn cookies in the world.