Aimee Bender - The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

A board! he said, clinking his glass to hers. How about that.

She frowned at him. Don’t be mean, she said.

Did I say anything? he said, widening his eyes. I can’t build anything. I can only re-build stools that are already built, he said.

He winked at her. She cleared her glass.

You know that story, Rose? he said.

A hundred times, I said.

Joseph picked up the pepper pillar and shook it over his food in a rain of black specks. Like our mother, he too had long beautiful hands, like a pianist’s, fingers able to sharpen and focus like eyes.

Too bland? Mom asked.

Joseph shook his head. Just experimenting, he said.

Today, Dad announced, patting his place mat, I saw a man walking a monkey. True story.

Where? I said.

Pershing Square, he said.

Why?

He shrugged. I have no idea, he said, wiping his mouth. That was my day. Next.

Joseph put down the pepper. Fine, he said.

Half good, half awful, I said.

Half awful! said Dad, waiting.

My head, I said, is off.

Looks on to me, Dad said. Very on.

Oh, Rosie, no! Mom said. She sprinkled some pepper onto her dish too and then leaned over to hug my forehead into her side. You have a beautiful head, she said. A fine beautiful girl in there.

Food is full of feelings , I said, pushing away my plate.

Feelings? Dad said. For a second, he peered at me, close.

I couldn’t eat my sandwich, I said, voice wobbling. I can’t eat the cake.

Oh, like that, Dad said, leaning back. Sure. I was a picky eater too. Spent a whole year once just eating French fries.

Did they taste like people? I said.

People? he said, wrinkling his nose. No. Potato.

You look well, Mom said. She tried a careful bite of her chicken. Better with pepper, she said, nodding. Much better, yes.

Joseph folded his arms. It was just an experiment, he said.

I’m going out with George and Joseph on Saturday, I said.

Only because it’s your birthday, said Joseph.

Her birthday, Mom echoed. Nine years old. Can you believe it?

She stood and went to the recipe page and wrote on it in big capital letters: ADD PEPPER!

There! she said.

I stacked my plate on Dad’s. He stacked our plates on Joseph’s.

Don’t you see? I said to Dad.

See what?

I pointed at Mom.

Lane, he said. Yes. I see a beautiful woman.

I kept my eyes fixed on him.

What? he said again.

Her, I said.

Me? Mom said.

What is it, Lane? Dad asked. Is something going on?

Nothing, Mom said, shaking her head, capping her pen. She laughed. I don’t know what she’s talking about. Rose?

She said she wants support, I said.

Oh no, no, said Mom, blushing. I was just teasing, earlier. I feel very supported, by all of you.

Can I go? asked Joseph.

She’s making a board, Dad said, bringing the stacks of plates to the sink. What else is there to say about that? She’ll make a perfect board. Any dessert?

I didn’t move. Mom kept smoothing her hair behind her ears. Smooth, smooth. Joseph stood, at his spot.

Can I go? he said again.

What do you want to do on Saturday, Rose? Mom asked. We could dress up and walk around in the park together. There are a couple more pieces of lemon cake, Paul, she said. Over there.

I have an important plan with George, I said.

Joseph squeezed out of his end of the table. After Saturday, nothing, he said to me. Got it?

George? Mom said. Joe’s George?

I’d know if she needed support! said Dad, at the sink.

Joseph left the room. My parents turned to me, with bright, light faces. We stood in front of empty place mats.

Do we say grace? I said.

Grace is what people say before the meal, said Mom. She moved to the piles in the sink. It’s to give thanks for the food we are about to eat, she said.

I closed my eyes.

For the food that is gone, I whispered. Grace.

Due to his role as moneymaker, my father was excused from doing the dishes, and Joseph was so overly meticulous with dish-doing that it was easier when he was off in his room, so it was my mother and me in front of the soapy sink: her washing, me drying. I zipped through the silverware using my new worn rose dish towel from Grandma. Mom seemed in good spirits, squeezing my shoulder, asking me a series of fast questions about school, but the aftertaste of the spiraled craving chicken was still in my mouth and I was having trouble trusting her cheer, a split of information I could hardly hold in my head. I circled the dish towel over wet plates, stacking each one in the cabinet. Dug the dish towel into the mouths of mugs. Strung it through the metal ring on the drawer when I was done.

Afterwards, I heaved my book bag onto my shoulder and headed down the hall towards my room. I kept my walking slow, like my brain was a full glass of water I needed to carefully balance down the corridor.

To my surprise, the door to Joseph’s room was propped half open. This was as rare and good as a written invitation since he’d recently installed a lock on his door, bought from the same hardware store with his allowance. He kept the new key also on that elegant silver circle keychain.

There was still a wisp of daylight outside, but his window shades were pulled, and he had clicked on the desk lamp instead. He was lying on his bed, feet crossed, reading Discover next to a clump of silvery radio innards.

Hi, I said. He looked up, over his magazine. His eyes did not reach out to say hello but instead formed a loose wall between us.

Sorry for hogging George, I said.

He blinked at me.

You don’t have to get me anything for my birthday, I said. Saturday can be my birthday present. You feeling better? I asked.

What do you mean?

Just earlier, with the toast?

He returned to his magazine.

Jesus, he said. You think everyone is in bad shape. I was fine all day, he said, into the pages. I just didn’t want to spend my afternoon watching my little sister eat snacks, okay?

He turned another page, reading.

I waited there, in his doorway, for a while. I poked at the O in the Keep Out sign on his door.

He raised his eyebrows: Anything else?

That’s all, I said.

Good night, he said.

I turned to go and was almost out the door when something blurred in my peripheral vision near where he lay on the bed. As if for half a second the comforter pattern grew brighter or the whites whiter. Then I turned back to look and everything was the same, perfectly still, him reading away.

Are you okay? I said, shaking my head clear.

He glanced up again. Didn’t we just go through this?

Just-

His eyes wide, looking. Half interested.

Did the colors change? I said. Is George coming by?

Now? he said. No. It’s nighttime.

Did you just move, or something?

Me?

Yeah, like did you move from the bed?

He laughed, short and brusque.

I’ve been here, the whole time, he said.

Sorry, I said. Never mind. Good night.

Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn’t love me-I felt the wash of her love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her it.

He was not the expected choice for favorite. Dad, who claimed no favorites, sometimes looked at Joseph as if he’d dropped from a tree, and very few people reached out naturally to Joe except for George. He’d always been remote-I had a vague memory, from when I was two, of finding Joseph sitting in his room in the dark, so that even my baby toddler brain associated him with caves-but sometime in his third-grade year Mom started taking him out of school. He was bored in class, outrageously so, and the teacher had taken to giving him her purse to sort through and organize while the rest of the class did beginning addition. Mom would pick him up and he’d have made some kind of chain-link out of Tic Tacs, threading each one with a needle he’d dug from the classroom sewing kit. Look, Mom, he said, holding up the mint-green linked cord. Bacteria, he said. The teacher flinched, embarrassed. He is so smart, she whispered, as if he had hurt her with it.