Aimee Bender - The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

At six-forty-five, my father’s car drove up and parked. He pushed the door open, jovial, bellowing I’m home! as he usually did. He said it to the hallway. By the end of the day, his hair, black and thick, was matted and rumpled, having taken the hit for all the work worry in his hands.

He paused at the kitchen door, but we were all too busy to run to greet him.

Look at the team go! he said.

Hi, Dad, I said, waving a knife back. He always seemed a little like a guest to me. Welcome home, I said.

Glad to be home, he said.

Mom glanced up from her fry pan and nodded.

He looked like he might want to come in and kiss her but wasn’t sure if it would work, so instead he lined up his briefcase against the closet wall, vanished down the hall to change, and joined us just as we sat down with the food surrounding steaming in bowls and platters. Joseph began serving himself, and as slowly as I could, I put everything on my plate in even spoonfuls. Half a chicken breast. Seven green beans. Two helpings of rice.

It was dark outside by now. Streetlamps buzzed on with their vague blue fluorescence.

The dinner taste was a little better than the cake’s but just barely. I sank down into my chair. I pulled at my mouth.

What is it? Mom asked. I don’t know, I said, holding on to her sleeve. The chicken tastes weird, I said.

Mom chewed, thoughtfully. The breadcrumbs? she said. Is there too much rosemary?

Oh, it’s fine, said Joseph, who ate with his eyes on the dish so no one could get eye contact and actually talk to him.

As we ate, my brother told a little about the after-school astronomy program and how a cosmologist from UCLA would be visiting soon to explain universe acceleration. Right this minute, said Joseph, it’s just getting faster and faster. He indicated with his fork, and a fleck of rice flew across the table. Dad told a story about his secretary’s dog. Mom pulled her chicken into threads.

When we were done, she brought the iced, finished, half-sliced cake out on a yellow china plate, and made a little flourish with her hands.

And for dessert! she said.

Joseph clapped, and Dad mmmed, and because I didn’t know what to do, I forced my way through another slice, wiping at the tears with my napkin. Sorry, I mumbled. Sorry. Maybe I’m sick? I watched each of their plates carefully, but Dad’s piece was gone in a flash, and even Joseph, who never liked much about food in the first place and talked often about how he wished there was a Breakfast Pill, a Lunch Pill, and a Dinner Pill, said Mom should enter it in a contest or something. You’re the only person I know who can build doors and cakes and organize the computer files, he said, glancing up for two seconds.

Rose thought I missed a part, Mom said.

I didn’t say that, I said, clutching my plate, cake gummy and bad in my mouth.

No way, said Joe. It’s complete.

Thank you, she said, blushing.

We all have different tastes, honey, she said, rubbing my hair.

It’s not what I meant, I said. Mom-

Anyway, it’s the last cake for a while. I’ll be starting a part-time job tomorrow, Mom said. With a carpentry shop, in Silver Lake.

First I’ve heard of that, Dad said, wiping his mouth. What are you fixing, more doors?

I said carpenter, Mom said. Not handyman. I will be making tables and chairs.

May I be excused? I asked.

Of course, Mom said. I’ll check on you in a minute.

I took a bath by myself and went to bed. I felt her come by later, as I was dozing off. Her standing, by my bed. The depth of shadow of a person felt behind closed eyelids. Sweet dreams, sweet Rose, she whispered, and I held on to those words like they were a thread of gold I could follow into blackness. Clinging to them tightly, I fell asleep.

My family lived in one of the many centers of Los Angeles, fifteen minutes from a variety of crisscrossing freeways, sandwiched between Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose. Our neighborhood, bordered by Russian delis to the north and famous thrift shops to the south, was mostly residential, combining families, Eastern European immigrants, and screenwriters who lived in big apartment complexes across the way and who were usually having a hard time selling a script. They stood out on balconies as I walked home from school, smoking afternoon cigarettes, and I knew someone had gotten work when the moving vans showed up. That, or they’d worn through their savings.

Our particular block on Willoughby was quiet at night but in the morning leaf blowers whirred and neighbors revved their engines and the thoroughfares busied. I woke to the sounds of kitchen breakfast bustle. My father got up the earliest, and by seven-fifteen he was already washing his coffee cup in the kitchen sink, splashing water around and humming. He hummed tunes I’d never heard of, exuding an early-morning pep that had drained into a pure desire for television by the time I saw him at 7 p.m.

When he drove off, heading downtown to the office, he always gave one quick blast on the horn. Honk! He never said he was going to do it, or asked anything about it, but I waited, buried deep in my bed, and when his horn sounded, I got up.

Good morning. My stomach felt fine.

After breakfast, a mild and unthreatening cereal grain bar, I poured my mother a glass of water and tiptoed into her bedroom, placing it carefully on the nightstand.

Here you go, I whispered.

Thank you, she said, her eyes half closed, her hair spread in a thick fan over the pillow. The room smelled warm, of deep sleep and cocoons. She pulled me close and pressed a kiss into my cheek.

Your lunch is in the fridge, she murmured, turning over to the other side.

I tiptoed out of the room. Joseph and I grabbed our stuff and walked single file down Willoughby to Fairfax. The sky a strong deep blue. I kicked stones as I walked, deciding the food stuff of the day before was a one-of-a-kind bad deal, and I had a good day planned ahead, one involving the study of fireflies and maybe some pastel-crayon drawing. Eddie Oakley was regaining most of his usual proportion in the indignant section of my mind. The morning was already warming up-the news had signaled an unusually hot spring week ahead, into the nineties.

At the bus stop, we stood a few feet apart. I kept my distance because I was mostly an irritation to Joseph, a kind of sister rash, but as we were waiting, he took a few steps back until he was standing right next to me. I sucked in my breath.

Look, he said, pointing up.

Across the sky, in the far distance, the thinnest sliver of white moon hovered above a row of trees.

See next to it? he said.

I squinted. What?

That tiny dot, to the right? he said.

I could catch it if I really looked: a pinprick of light, still faintly visible in the morning sky.

Jupiter, he said.

The big guy? I asked, and for a second, his forehead cleared.

None other, he said.

What’s it doing?

Just visiting, he said. For today.

I stared at the dot until the bus arrived, praying at it like it was God, and before Joseph stepped ahead, I touched his sleeve to thank him. I made sure it was the part that didn’t touch his actual arm, so he would not whip around, annoyed.

Inside the bus, he sat several rows ahead of me and I settled behind a girl singing a pop ballad into her collar. Kids around snapped bubble gum and yelled out jokes, but Joseph held himself still, like everything was pelting him. My big brother. What I could see of his profile was classic: straight nose, high cheekbone, black lashes, light-brown waves of hair. Mom once called him handsome, which had startled me, because he could not be handsome, and yet when I looked at his face I could see how each feature was nicely shaped.