Never Too Sweet

Gran taught me all I know about baking. She was the best baker in the world, as far as my family was concerned. As far as I was concerned.

I found myself in the kitchen with Gran most weekends, learning all the secrets and tricks to making the ideal peach cobbler. I enjoyed baking, but I think it was only because it was a reason to spend the day with Gran. I enjoyed telling her about my day and watching her face light up as she told me of her own youth, before she met my grandfather. This day was such a day, and she was going to teach me how to make her famous peach cobbler, her most tried and true dish, for Thanksgiving.

“Never add too much sugar,” she advised as I sprinkled a sugar-cinnamon coating onto the near-finished product. “The peaches are the main character here.”

     I accidentally added too much cinnamon instead. Sitting at the dining room table, Gran’s face remained unreadable as we taste-tested some leftover bits, while mine twisted and my lips puckered.

   “This tastes nothing like yours… ” I whined, disappointed in the much anticipated cobbler. I’d been hoping to share my finished product with my family for the holiday, especially my grandfather, who never turned down Grans peach cobbler. Most likely because she made it perfect each time.

   “Go grab some more sugar from the top shelf of the pantry to put on the dish and we can serve it with ice cream, it’ll taste completely fine then.” Gran advised, reaching her hand over the table to place on my own. Her hands were warm and sunmarked, coloured a bit purple around the wrists. An age thing, most likely. As I looked down at her hand covering my own, Gran lightly tugged her sleeve down a bit and smiled. Encouraged, I got up from the table and dashed into the pantry, sidestepping the spot where the floorboards creaked.

     Gran was that type of person, you know? One who always knew the solution to every problem, especially in the kitchen. It was as if she knew the secret behind every ingredient, the formula to make every dish the way it was meant to be. As I reflected on this, I bent down to pull out the pantry stool stashed in the cupboard. Reaching into the dark, my hand bumped into a plastic jug, not out of place in a kitchen with as many ingredients as Gran’s. But strange, considering how stashed away it was. Perhaps a rarely-used ingredient, like the truffle oil my grandfather gave to Gran as a Christmas gift? Gran never had much use for it, considering her distaste for mushrooms. But this wasn’t it. Heavy with unused liquid, it was an unopened bottle of antifreeze. I put it back, not altogether surprised. There were random objects in bizarre spots throughout the old house, like the belt my grandfather had in the living room next to his chair. 

  “Are you finding the sugar okay?” Gran called from the dining room.

  “Yeah, just coming now!” I responded, now rushing to step onto the stool and grab the sugar. Except I hadn't realized just how much sugar Gran and I had been using, spending hours in the kitchen baking for the next day. There was hardly any left! It was barely enough to make a difference, but I brought it out to the dining room anyway. 

   “Oh, I suppose I’ll have to ask your grandfather to go out and grab some sugar,” Gran commented as I held up the meager bit left of it for her to see. I reached out to help her up from her chair, and she shuffled into the living room, where my grandfather had been sedentary in front of the TV since I’d arrived. The gentle sounds of Gran’s voice drifted through the hall, followed by a gruff murmur of protest, and a distinct “Why don’t you get it yourself?” from my grandfather. Gran returned to where I awkwardly stood, a resigned expression on her face.

   “I’m sure the cobbler will be more than ideal with the ice cream,” she said, smiling for my benefit. Since she’d fractured her hip several years ago in some sort of fall, Gran couldn’t make many trips to the grocer like she used to. Nowadays she relied on my mother to buy most things for her, although she’d occasionally ask my grandfather if he was in a good mood, such as if his favorite sports team won a game. It was apparent that the opposing team had just scored a touchdown on TV. Either way, we’d made a good four desserts today, and I’d be helping prepare dinner with Gran tomorrow instead of going to the Thanksgiving day parade, so I supposed no one would suffer too greatly at the taste of one dish. I moved to the kitchen to tidy up with Gran and we began chatting about our plans for the following day. A bit later, after Gran finished wrapping the cobbler up for storage and I’d cleaned up the counters, my dad arrived to take me home.

     In the car, Dad talked to his buddy on the phone. Something about a big sale in the magazine on winter supplies at the hardware store. I listened casually in the passenger's seat, waiting as patiently as I could to ask him about buying a bag of sugar on the way home. Unfortunately, with the comforting tone of Dad’s voice and the familiar lull of his warm truck, I found myself drifting off, until I was completely asleep. I awoke the next morning tucked snugly into bed, the perfect start to the day. It was time to prepare for the holiday.

     Thanksgiving dinner went off perfectly well, and everyone was having a fine time, now settling into dessert. You wouldn’t know that by the way that my grandfather was complaining right now, though.

   “Did you add any sugar to this, Mary?” he asked, making a face at the cobbler he was eating. “I swear, it’s like she forgets her brain some days,” he joked to the rest of the family, gathered in the living room. Some of the family laughed genially, others shifted awkwardly and tried for forced smiles. Seated between my parents, I picked at the crocheted tablecloth on the coffee table, staring at an old brown stain on it as if it were suddenly very interesting. 

     I was young then, but not too young to understand my discomfort at the joke. Did they know that I was the one who’d helped make the desserts this time? The tray of peach cobbler on the coffee table was nearly empty anyway, as were the rest of the dishes. A testament to Gran’s culinary prowess. My grandfather always found there to be something wrong with everything, I supposed. My favourite uncle always told me that that was just the way he was. My mom said nothing, but her tense expression told me enough. The rest of the holiday went on as usual, and I enjoyed the time spent with my cousins, who I only saw on holidays. We played hide and seek, ducked into the kitchen to steal extra desserts, and avoided the stuffy conversations of the grown-ups. As I tiptoed into the kitchen to nab a lemon square for the last time, I saw Gran sprinkling topping onto another dessert she’d been baking earlier. She’d probably used the baking as an excuse to slip away from the group herself and destress a bit. I slipped away unnoticed in the haze of Gran’s concentration, back into the living room, and snuggled next to Mom. Gran came in a few minutes later, carrying a pie dish much smaller than I’d initially thought. She placed it in front of my grandfather, who sat up in some interest.

   “I made you another peach cobbler, since you didn’t get to enjoy the one earlier,” she handed him a fork. “Make sure to eat well,” she almost simpered. I struggled to hide my surprise towards Gran. She was too kind. But Grandpa didn't seem to enjoy the new cobbler either. He at first began eating with gusto, which transformed quickly into distaste.

   “This one is far too sweet!” the man complained. This comment didn’t gain as much assent as the earlier one. Now he was just being impossible to please, no? My grandfather ate the rest of the peach cobbler in silence once he realized that he was being deliberately ignored.

   “Say goodbye to Gran, we’re leaving now.” Mom muttered in my ear some time later as my eyes struggled to stay awake from fatigue. So we began saying our goodbyes, and of course that took another half hour of hugs and promises to see each other again soon. I was exhausted.

     That night, I fell asleep quickly only to have a strange dream. I dreamed of flashing blue and red lights blinding me to the scene before me as vague figures rushed about, shouting. I knew I should feel worried, but I was utterly calm throughout the dream. It was as if I were observing something that I’d always known would take place in a matter of time. As the dream faded and I began to open my eyes, a distant voice spoke in hushed tones. My mother was on the phone. The sky was still coloured orange, the sign of a still young morning. I crept out of bed and to my doorway to better hear the conversation.

   “So you called the ambulance once the symptoms worsened?” Mom asked interrogatively. A pause for a response from the other end. “Okay, that seems like the right thing to do. Are you alright at home by yourself?... Fine, but I’m coming over once I’m done at work,” she said. Something must have happened, something I sensed I was too young for. That was adult business, as Dad would say, and I didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping. So I snuck back into my bed and closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep until Mom came into my room and woke me to tell me the news.

     The funeral for my grandfather wasn't a particularly mournful event. Instead, it was one in which any tension in Gran had dissipated, and everyone ate well. So my grandfather never did end up buying the sugar, but the next time I needed to reach something up high in the pantry, there was only the stool stored in the cupboard, as if nothing had ever been out of place at all.