Homemade

Elizabeth A. Dunham

She double-checked the setting on the oven—350 degrees—then stood on her toes to reach into the cupboard above the refrigerator to retrieve a square glass pan. She turned to face out the windows just over the kitchen sink so her next task wouldn’t leave a mess on the counter. First, she pulled a can of shortening out of the cabinet to the right of the window. She opened the can, used a square of waxed paper to dig out a generous dollop of shortening, and spread it evenly on the bottom and sides of the pan.

Then, she pulled a canister of flour toward her across the counter. The lid had tightened in the humidity-laden air so common this time of year. She had to tug sharply at the handle. After a brief struggle, the lid gave way with such suddenness that she almost lost her grip, and she had to drop the lid to keep from dropping the canister itself. As the lid clattered to the floor, she muttered mild curses and set the flour container on the counter. She bent down, a little stiffly, to pick up the wayward lid and noticed, to her astonishment, that her hands were shaking. Straightening up, she took several deep breaths, willing her racing heart to slow and pressing her hands against her apron to still them.

After fishing out the measuring cup she kept in the canister, she scooped some flour into the center of the greased pan. As she shook the pan vigorously from side to side, the rising breeze coming through the open window sent a cloud of flour dust wafting into her face, and she had to turn away to sneeze. After turning back, she dumped the excess flour in the sink and rinsed it down the drain.

She set the pan on the counter. Leaning lightly on the sink, she brushed a wisp of hair away from her face with her arm and surveyed the low, dark clouds scudding across the horizon. “Storm’s coming,” she thought, then began gathering her thoughts for the task ahead, as if she hadn’t repeated this ritual thousands of times in the last seven years. It was a ritual, each step performed in exactly the same way every single time. It was as if, even though she was a practical and far-from-superstitious woman, she practiced this particular ritual to perfection to bring about a miracle—the only miracle she’d ever wanted in her life.

She had sensed what he was going to say even before she opened the door to the admiral and invited him in.

“Today is different,” she told herself firmly. “Today is different,” she repeated, more hesitantly this time. Of course, she’d told herself that many times before.

A sharp gust of wind sent a tiny picture frame on the sill clattering into the sink, startling her and breaking her reverie. She gingerly retrieved the frame, afraid the fall had broken the glass, but it hadn’t. She set it aside with a mental note to return it to the sill after the storm had passed.

The world had seemed suddenly dark. He had tried to get her to sit down, as if sitting would soften the impact of his words.

The last ray of sunshine had fallen under the edge of the approaching gray-black clouds, and the kitchen was suddenly dark, even though it was still midafternoon. She flicked on the lights, then bustled about, getting out the ingredients she’d need. She ticked them off in her head as she set them on the counter.

She knew he’d spoken in sentences, but all she heard were the important words, separate and staccato.

Butter. Sugar. Flour was already out. Eggs. (“Must get more tomorrow,” she thought as she opened the carton to count them.) Cocoa powder. Salt. Vanilla. Walnuts, the already chopped kind. (She figured she was old enough—mature enough, she corrected herself—that she could indulge herself by not chopping walnuts for baking.)

Badlands. Maquis. Voyager. Lost. Doing all we can.

She unwrapped the stick of butter and let it fall out of the wrapper into a small saucepan. As she started the gas flame underneath the pan and began stirring to keep the butter from burning, the first faint flicker of lightning momentarily brightened the kitchen. Long seconds later, a subdued, barely audible rumble of thunder rolled across the landscape. In the uneasy moment of complete silence that followed, all she could hear was her wooden spoon faintly scraping the bottom of the saucepan. A sharper, more malevolent gust of wind rattled the window frame, and she glanced up suspiciously, an instinct born of a lifetime of Mid-western springs and summers spent dodging occasional tornadoes.

She had listened, unresponsive, as the painful, cutting words rolled off his tongue, taking a piece of her life with them. She couldn’t raise her eyes to meet his, so she focused on the pips on his collar, her stoic expression never wavering.

The butter melted quickly. She switched off the flame, and it disappeared with a quiet pop and a transient whiff of gas. Turning around, she rummaged through the less-organized cupboard behind her to find a glass mixing bowl. As she clattered around for the right bowl, she berated herself for letting her kitchen organization deteriorate. She finally found the bowl, and carefully poured the now-liquid butter into it. The sugar canister lid required far less effort than the previous one, and she measured out one cup of sugar into the bowl. She watched, as fascinated as a child baking for the first time, as the white quickly turned a golden yellow in the pool of butter. The wooden spoon thumped along the sides of the glass as she mixed the butter and sugar together. She watched a much more intense flash of lightning blaze across the sky. As she briskly broke two eggs into the butter-egg mixture, the thunder cracked in answer almost immediately, making itself felt all the way down into her tired bones.

Her stoicism had held firmly until she closed the door behind him. Then, as a sharp burst of thunder from a storm she hadn’t even known was coming exploded nearby, it imploded the deep ache of grief that had been growing inside her.

Before the thunder died away completely, the rain began. She smelled the ozone as the first few drops fell, heavy and loud on the roof. She inhaled deeply as the downpour intensified, finding catharsis in the storm’s fury. After returning to the chaotic cupboard, she found another, smaller bowl, set it on the counter, and filled it with one-half cup of flour, one-third cup cocoa powder, and one-fourth teaspoon salt. She stirred the powdered mixture with a fork, and gave a sharp cry of surprise when water splashed into it, sending up another powdery cloud, this one dust-brown. Realizing the rain, carried by the increasing wind, was now coming almost horizontally through the screen, she closed the open window, struggling for a moment with the stubborn, moisture-swollen frame. Finally, it yielded, and the raindrops now drummed out a rhythm on the windowpane.

As the rain had begun, she had collapsed into the chair she had so steadfastly refused, and her storm of tears echoed the torrential downpour outside. Her grief, deep and seemingly infinite, startled her as much as the storm had. After all, loss was as much a part of Starfleet life as storms were a part of summertime in Indiana.

With the storm at its height, lightning flashed and thunder crashed almost simultaneously around the house in wave after wave of light and sound. She dumped the flour-sugar-cocoa mixture into the buttery goo and began stirring rapidly, relishing the warm chocolate smell released by the mixing. She watched the oak tree outside bending its smaller branches to the storm’s fury.

After the tears had subsided, she had felt the need to do something, anything. So she stood up, brushed herself off briskly, and strode into the kitchen. After splashing cold water on her face and washing her hands, she switched on the oven.

And began making brownies.

This was her favorite part: the finishing touches. She poured one-half cup of chopped walnuts and a teaspoon of vanilla extract into the batter, the sharp odor of vanilla rising over the smell of cocoa.

She wasn’t sure when it had gone from “something to do” to a ritual. Of the first batch, she had eaten a half of a brownie, then thrown the rest away, any food—even the chocolate variety—seeming unpalatable in those early days. Appalled at her wastefulness, she gave later batches to the mail carrier, the farmer next door, visiting well-wishers. She tried not to bake when she knew the brownies would go uneaten, but she had thrown away more than a few pans of moldy treats.

After one final, very satisfactory stir, she spread the batter in the pan she had so carefully greased and floured. When she opened the oven door, a blast of heat rolled over her, and she slid the pan in quickly, closed the door, and set the timer for twenty-five minutes.

Over the ensuing years, her brownie-making had decreased in frequency, but not intensity. Every batch had been made the same way, with the same care and the same hope—a hope she would never utter aloud, lest someone call her an old fool.

Then the unbelievable: The admiral had reappeared, uttering more staccato words—these bringing in joy what his first words had brought in despair.

Voyager. Delta Quadrant. Safe.

She had continued baking brownies with renewed fervor. Her neighbors must have thought her eccentric, even mad, as she traipsed up and down their country road, delivering foil-wrapped packages of still-warm baked goods.

She gathered up the dishes and stacked them in the sink. She realized, as she filled the sink with dish soap and steaming water, that the rain outside had relented slightly, and that more time was elapsing between lightning and thunder. She washed each dish slowly and carefully in the hot soapy water, even though she had a dishwasher that could have done the task for her. She didn’t want any idle time on her hands. With the washing complete, she turned her attention to wiping up every drop of moisture with the fluffiest dish towel she could find and returning everything to its proper place. She even managed to restore a bit of order to the mixing bowls.

When the admiral had come to stand on her front porch for a third time, she had seen the smile in his eyes long before it reached his lips. “When will I see her?” she had asked, even before he could open his mouth to tell her the good news.

Straightening up from her organizing, she surveyed her gleaming kitchen, casting about for more busy work. She spotted the photo she had moved, and picked it up. She successfully fought back the tears that threatened as she gazed at the smiling woman in the picture. “What are you boo-hooing about?” she asked herself scornfully. “You have nothing to cry about today.” Blinking hard and sighing, she returned the picture frame to its rightful spot on the sill just as the oven timer beeped softly and the first ray of returning sunshine burst through the departing clouds.

She opened the oven door and considered her handiwork. Perfect, she decided as she looked at the brownies pulling away just slightly from the pan edges.

The brownies were cooling on a rack when the doorbell rang.

She quickly untied her apron and hung it on the oven door handle, dusted stray flour off her skirt and, with a hand that had begun trembling again, brushed away that stubborn wisp of hair. “Coming,” she called, hoping the person at the front door could hear her over the now-diminishing wind. Her voice wavered as much as her hands.

The distance between the kitchen and the front door had never seemed so huge. She urged her feet to move faster, but a part of her was reluctant to open the door. What if, like so many times before, it turned out to be part of a cruel waking dream, and instead of the person she longed most to see, it was someone else in a Starfleet uniform?

But when she put her hand on the doorknob, the trembling stopped. Its cool, firm surface reminded her that this was real life, that this time, it wasn’t a dream. It yielded smoothly to her touch, and the door swung inward.

She was greeted with a smile sweeter to her than any in the universe.

“You made brownies, didn’t you? I could smell them coming up the walk, even with all the rain.”

She nodded wordlessly, blinking back the torrent of tears that had welled up in her eyes and were now threatening to spill over onto her wrinkled cheeks.

The woman in front of her put out her arms and pulled her into a hug. Only then, as she returned the embrace and gathered her grown firstborn daughter to herself, did she allow herself to believe it. She inhaled deeply, savoring all the scents in much the same way she had the first time they had placed her daughter in her arms: the chocolaty aroma of the brownies, the damp-fresh of the wet, recently mown grass, the sweet, familiar but too-long-absent scent of her daughter’s hair and skin.

The tears spilled over as she squeezed her daughter tightly, stroked her hair and patted her back—afraid to release her for fear she would disappear.

“I’ve been thinking about your homemade brownies for seven years,” the woman in her arms whispered into her ear. “Somehow, the replicator just never did them justice.”

She heard a chuckle escape her lips as she pulled back slightly. It was only when she saw her daughter’s cheeks damp with tears, too, that she was able to speak.

“Replicators know all the ingredients, but—” she began, and her daughter piped in.

“—they can’t put the love in it,” they chorused together. Her daughter’s laugh was hearty and musical as she drew her mother close for another hug.

As her arms again tightened around her daughter, Gretchen Janeway uttered the words she had rehearsed in her head over and over—almost as a good-luck litany—since she’d first been told of Voyager’s disappearance.

“Welcome home, Kathryn. Welcome home.”