Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
The pie isn’t anything fancy. My dad doesn’t do some wild design with the pastry, creating edible artwork like he sometimes does. When Luca has the bottom rolled out, he sets it in the pan with a single motion that speaks of years of practice. He empties out the filling, and my dad crosshatches the top.
I thought the pie was it. The hard part. The silent communications. The unspoken apologies. The line from the past to the future.
I don’t know why Dad has such a solemn expression on his face when he comes back from putting the pie in the far top oven. He never uses anything to measure out ingredients, and he doesn’t set a timer. Ever. Some people have an internal compass when it comes to directions. That’s my dad, but with baking. It’s years of practice, but I also call it passion and genius.
Mom reaches over and takes my hand again. She squeezes tightly, holding onto me like an anchor and like she needs anchoring all at once. I snap my eyes to her face. She’s wearing the same kind of heavy-lined, shadowed expression that my dad has on.
Luca leans against the prep table and crosses his arms over his massive chest. The stance makes his arms do delicious things and his veins something even more decadent. I quickly flick my eyes to his face. He’s watching my parents carefully, and he has himself locked down.
If he’s silently doing the fuck’s sake, here we go, the pie was just a test, and now the real shit is going down thing in his mind, I can’t tell.
Dad stops, creating a Lucahug and group hug between us in the chairs and Luca over at the prep table. He sighs so long and loud that it seems to creep into my chest and wind me up, tying my lungs and stomach in knots.
“This may not be the right time to tell you this, Dulcie, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Your mother and I both have.”
This kitchen is so tense now that I understand my poor rental car’s pain at hearing the crack and knowing it was right in the path of the sound of major destruction and couldn’t move or get away.
If the car could have thoughts, that is.
I sympathize. I know Dad is about to drop something major on me.
“The bakery has been in the family for generations. As the oldest son, I didn’t get a choice. It was made for me before I was born. I’ve tried to make it my passion, and I feel as though I’ve failed, but that’s on me.” Dad points to himself, his finger trembling in mid-air. He turns to Luca with one of the saddest expressions I’ve ever seen. “It was convenient to say you took the magic when you left, instead of looking at myself. The truth is, when you were here, this was fun. It was more than bearable. It was something I didn’t have to wake up every day and endure.”
Crack? No. This is no mere tree falling. This is the sky coming down. More like BLAM, SCREECH, CRASH, WRENCH, GRIND, SILENCE. All in screaming capitals. Especially the last part. The silence in the kitchen is the loudest sound I’ve ever heard. The soft buzz of the oven is nearly unbearable as it’s so magnified in my brain. You never realize how painful your own head can be until you’ve got a migraine or one of those frontal lobe headaches that settle in right behind your eyes. Dad’s words just drilled through my skull and burrowed into my brain. They fly out from there as impulses, shooting through my bloodstream and embedding themselves in my tissue and bone.
“You can’t be… Dad…” I choke. “Why did you never say anything?” I’m so sorry in advance for my poor mom’s hand. Because I’m clenching the ever-loving shit out of it.
Dad hangs his head. “I should have. I just… never felt like I could. That’s the real reason your mother wanted you to choose your own path. She hoped that one day I’d retire and sell the bakery, and we’d go and do the things we’ve waited a lifetime to do.”
I lean so far forward in the chair that I nearly tip myself out of it. All those pieces I should have put together and kind of did, but not really… they all hit hard, making a terrible kind of sense. I used to think my family had no other choice in their destiny when their last name was Piecroft, and maybe Dad thought that way too. He had a lot of pressure on him and expectations from the family. My grandparents, especially. It makes so much sense why he felt he couldn’t say those words out loud. Did he ever even dare to whisper them to my mom? Or did she just know and coax him into conversations about what my future should be?