Bake It Till You Make it

“Step 1. Today, we’re baking the perfect sponge cake! Line your tray with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 180 degrees,” your cooking class instructor announces.

You find her chirpiness unsettling. She, a snow-haired woman, resembles the fairy godmother from the Cinderella storybook. Did she introduce herself? Perhaps she did, and you didn’t catch it because the thoughts in your head are noisy, bordering on cacophonic.

You do not know what to call the instructor, and so, you name her Nani, meaning grandmother in your native tongue. 'Nani', like the grandmothers back in your country that smelt of cinnamon, turmeric, and home.

At five and twenty years, you are the youngest here, also sticking out because of the color of your skin. Nani here is the only jovial person in a sea of gloom that brims with morose faces reflecting the various stages of bereavement; a mélange of bitterness and barrenness.

What were you expecting? After all, this is a grief support group.

Your fellow participants signed up for this, like you, influenced by tacky advertising that encouraged them ‘To bake their way out of grief’. As if, it were that simple! However, in every sorrow, there is a time when you think, if cake is the solution, so be it.

“Step 2. Mix the dry ingredients and sieve them,” Nani continues.

You follow the instructions mechanically.

“Next, combine the milk, oil, and vanilla essence.”

She throws in a fact or two about vanilla, where it is grown, and what makes it special. Small details like this will make her class stand out.

You measure the essence using a spoon. The scent hits your nostrils. Vanilla. Your favourite flavor. Or was it his? You can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. He is gone.

“Crack six eggs and whisk them till they are nice and frothy!”

You crack the eggs one by one, the smell of raw yolk nauseating you. As you watch the creamy white contents swirling in the bowl, your mind wanders to other white objects.

Medical monitors. Melancholy shrouds. Mourning lilies. The images are unnerving.

“You OK, love?” Nani asks, worriedly.

Even though you shake your head vigorously in the affirmative, she knows you are lying but chooses to give you space. Staring at the walls, you blink away the tears that are threatening to spill and spread over your cheeks like fast-growing roots in soil.

The room’s wallpaper catches your attention. It bursts with sunflowers and framed quotes. Words and more words. About coping with grief, moving on, and departed ones becoming stars and looking out for you.

Could HE be watching you from above?

You hear women whispering behind you. You catch bits and pieces.

“Foreign woman, widowed, so young. T’was an accident. How tragic!”

They are talking about you. They think you can’t hear them, but you can. You were sensitized to the slightest sounds, always anticipating his footsteps, awaiting his return.

But now?

His stride has been silenced forever. You’ll never hear it again.

“Step 3. Mix the ingredients, wet and dry, together. Use the electric beater.”

The word 'beater' twists around your tongue. Beater. Beat. Beater. Battery.

“Here’s some more trivia! The earliest sponge recipe was invented by Gervase Markham!” Nani beams.

You did not know this snippet. But then there are things no one knows. Like how your late husband beat you, body and soul. Like how you begged for mercy till you went numb. Like how the next morning he would act as though nothing had happened, and life would go on.

You could have told someone. But what good would that have done?

Had you protested, he would have sent you packing. Back home, where your worth didn’t matter, but your marital status did.

Married. Widowed. Dead. All superior to divorced; but by different degrees.

Is that why you muffled your screams while he, reeking of rum and ruthlessness, plundered you every night? What did you crave from this relationship that you never received?

Respite. Romance. Respect.

After much deliberation, you confided in your mother once. Men are like that. Women have to adjust, she shrugged. And so, you endured, till you couldn’t.

You are beating the batter with too much force, and it is splattering everywhere. A woman walks up to you and places her hand over your shoulder, breaking your trance.

“Step 4. Pour the contents onto the tray. Your sponge has to be light and well-aired. Mitts on!” Nani announces, and you follow.

Setting the batter down and smoothening it, you pop the tray into the warm oven.

“You are doing a smashing job. Be STRONG!” Nani gushes.

Be strong.

That’s what the paramedics said to you after your husband’s drunken, ill-fated fall down the stairs.

Be strong.

That’s what the doctors said to you when you rushed him to the hospital.

Be strong.

That’s what the nurses said while you waited, nervously awaiting his fate and yours.

At the hospital, they hooked him onto machines. You were terrified. That he might never wake up again. That he might wake up again.

The nurses thought you were sobbing for him. They held your hands.

Hands that pushed him when he lunged at you. Hands that refused to break his fall. Hands that delayed calling emergency services.

Would he remember all this when he woke up? Then what would he do?

BEEEEP!

The life-support machines screamed, much like your insides. Minutes later, the doctor’s grim face confirmed the end.

Accident. Alcohol. Aneurysm.

He is in a better place, they said. I’m in a better place too, you add in your head.

Your initial reaction was of relief. He couldn’t hurt you anymore. The next response was guilt. You didn’t mean to kill him. You only wanted him to suffer, to make him feel the agony he was subjecting you to. Should you come clean?

No!

How could you allow him to continue to torment you? Not now, when you were rid of him, at last. The world turned black, and you collapsed.

BEEEEP!

Nani is calling out your name and gesticulating. Your oven is screaming its lungs out, while you stand frozen. Mumbling a hasty apology, you rush to pacify the appliance.

“Step 5. Take your cake out and cool it before frosting. You are almost there. Congratulations on the cracking effort!”

Wearing your mitts, you gingerly extract the cake. Your perfect sponge is a perfect mess. Full of holes and uneven surfaces.

Is this symbolic of your existence?

A tear trickles down your cheek. For a multitude of moments. That could have been. Would have been. Should have been. And yet…weren’t.

Nani rushes over.

“You poor lamb! It’s still a jolly good cake. You can fix this!”

In your head, you name stuff that needs fixing. Your cake. Your family. You.

As you tremble, you realize there is an audience watching you.

You can fix this. You can fix this.

Pulling yourself together, you apply copious frosting to hide the cracks. Like concealer to mask bruises. Or tears to mask relief. Or band-aids over that gaping hole that used to house your soul.

At last, the cake comes together, the craters and troughs smoothened under truckloads of icing. Wholesome and intact, no one knows of the trauma beneath.

Nani asks everyone to clap for you, and they do. Someone even remarks that there was no way to tell your cake apart from the others. They think it is a compliment. You know better. That way, you and this cake have a lot in common. You held it together even when you were falling apart. You still are.

For yourself. For the life growing within you. A life, that deserves the chance you never got.

Your life’s been no piece of cake, but you’ll bake it till you make it. For you and that sliver of hope that is baking in your oven.