The Baker

It was slow at first. Small towns can carry suspicion and the pastry that peered out of those first floor windows seemed foreign and so in question. But that first year Jack Whitaker’s wife had planned a wedding reception at their house on Elm. Their only son, just 18, was marrying a girl from the next town over. The girl’s mother asked Ms. Whitaker to make the cake. Ms. Whitaker loved her only son and she wanted it to be special so she asked around town and collected recipes and studied them until she settled on one. She gathered the ingredients and two days before the wedding began her labor of love. She measured carefully, greased the pans and stirred the batter as the recipe demanded. When she put the cake in the oven the day before the wedding she was sure it would be the best thing she had ever made. It had to be perfect. Her mother had told her a wedding cake is a sign …a sign of how sweet a marriage would be. And Ms. Whitaker, a sentimental woman, believed it because she believed everything her mother said was gospel. The wisdom of old wives. The cake was supposed to bake for just sixty minutes. But after half an hour, she began to worry. The oven was old and the heat sometimes uneven. The sound of her mother's voice in her ears warned her about burnt wedding cakes and half baked marriages. Perhaps, she worried, I should turn the pans to make sure they bake evenly. She peeked in, feeling the blast of heat on her face from the open oven door, then closed it, mollified for just a moment. She opened the oven again and again turning the pans trying to make sure that each was perfect. The oven door hinge creaked and groaned. Finally, just 5 minutes left, she reached for the oven handle. It was hot to the touch, so she took an oven mitt held it open and turned the cake pans one last time. As she did the handle slipped and the door banged shut. Afraid to look, she stood in the kitchen listening to her mother’s admonition, sure she had just broken her son’s only chance at a happy marriage. At 60 minutes she turned off the gas, said a small prayer, took a deep breath and told herself that old wives tales were just nonsense that mothers handed down to daughters. But as she opened the door to inspect her masterpiece she could see it had collapsed, fallen at the center. And she burst into tears. That afternoon in a panic she stepped into Joe’s. She explained through tears what she had done, how much she loved her son and how she had failed miserably. Her voice broke into sobs and Joe, the immigrant baker, came from behind the counter. He stood near listening hard to the trouble in her voice and in her eyes. “I know its late," she pleaded. “But can you help?” Joe looked at the woman. He did not see just the despair and worry in her. Instead what he saw was the sweetness. The sweetness of a mother trying and failing and asking in the only way she knew how for help from a stranger. “Of course,” Joe said. “You will have the cake. It will taste… like,” he struggled for the word. “ Like amore.” The woman looked up at the old baker, “Like love?” she asked. “Yes,” he whispered “like love.” He turned and started behind the counter again but stopped and turned back. “Your son will marry and have children and children’s children and they will all remember the sweetness.” As Ms. Whitaker’s heart swelled with hope she brushed the tears away. Weddings come and go in small towns. People are married and swear forever to each other and sometimes even got close. They have children and build lives. They pinch pennies and pay bills and count on the old verities of small town life. On neighbors and family, on Sunday dinners and Monday mornings where pickups still cough to life at dawn in a chorus of thank God there’s work. But that wedding had a sweetness that the town had never felt before. The couple seemed touched by something everyone recognized, something rare and impermanent, something they believed in and longed for. Something sweet, like hope battering down the knowledge of worry and money and loss. It was something electric. Like all the lights coming on at dusk together and holding off the night with their small determined brilliance. It was the kind of spark that everyone stands witness to and believes somewhere someday will cross over into them. Light like this still exists in small churches and tiny three room houses. It was there that day in the eyes of two young believers in the power of all they feel. That day the father of the bride wept alone in the vestibule before pasting a smile on his face and walking his little girl down the aisle away from home forever. And that day there was music and a best man's stutter, reading his earnest toast. There were rented tuxedos worn a hundred times before and maids of honor with babies in their eyes. And there was the cake. Everyone that tasted it remembered. It had a flavor they each knew and had forgotten and no one could name. It had a sweetness that the priest said seemed almost holy. And by the time the band had started in again on the 7 songs they knew by heart every crumb was gone. Ms. Whitaker, so afraid that she had ruined her son’s most important moment, looked at the empty plate, then at her son dancing, arms around his wife. He turned and winked at her. And she remembered her terror and her hope and the kindness in the old baker’s eyes. Nearly overcome, she stepped into another room, closed the door and quietly wept. In gratitude. And later she told everyone that asked that her cake had fallen. And that she had been saved. And so, soon the town crowded into the bakery on Sunday mornings after church. And they came to believe that, though the week ahead might be bitter or might require more all they had to give, that it too was sweet. Like Joe’s bakery. Joe sold the taste of joy. That sudden sensation of some small miracle in the midst of bitterness that spreads like salt on the winter streets, sometimes in any life. And for years the town counted on Joe’s for the sweetness it sometimes could only remember. Early one morning Joe rose again as he had 10000 times, kissed his wife’s face and touched her hand. He dressed in the darkness and stared into his mirrored face, gray and balding. But touched too by a calling, to sweeten the world in some small way. He crept down the stairs in the predawn dark. He lit the oven and heard the gas pop. And once again he the bitterness of being young and of all he had learned from living. He had learned how to sweeten the dough, how to urge it, like life itself, with his hands to take the shape it should. How to free the sweetness from the common and the bitter. He prayed with each creation, that everything he made would feed not just the bellies of this town but also the hearts. Sometimes alone at dawn he felt as though he himself was a creation, the bitter baked away by some master baker he could feel but never see. Alone in the darkness the old baker sometimes talked aloud to himself. It was the only way he could hear what his silent heart knew. “Yes…yes…I see” he whispered to the flour “…the bitter brings out the sweet.” “Who are you talking to Papa?” his son sometimes asked. “Never mind…I’m just an old man, listening for the voices I hear, telling me what I need to remember." “What do they say?” “They tell me what’s true.” And so each day he poured a hunger at the bottom of himself, a hunger for the sweetness, into all he made. It was a hunger that only a man that has known disappointment and loss carries. “Yes…yes…I see” he whispered again and again, “…the bitter brings out the sweet.” That morning when first light crept through the window he smiled once more in gratitude that he had finally recovered what was taken all those years ago. He had replaced the bitter with the sweet. The smells of his life’s work rose all around him, through the floorboards into the house and wafting into the air. Just then he felt the first pull in his chest. He raised his arms trying to hold onto all he had made of this life. Listening close he heard something like a whisper, low and comforting. And as his heart struggled to rise one last time, he called out “Not yet...” Then, as it fell, he heard... just once... a sound, like a knock at a door. And Giuseppe the immigrant who left heartache behind, the pilgrim in search of a place of rest, the baker trying to sweeten the bitter world nodded and smiled. And closed his eyes one last time. WLM Hide quoted text ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Will Maguire Date: Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 9:39 AM Subject: To: Will Maguire It was slow at first. Small towns can carry suspicion and the pastry that peered out of those first floor windows seemed strange and so in question. But that first year Jack Whitaker’s wife had planned a wedding reception at their house on Elm. Their only son, just 18, was marrying a girl from the next town over. The girl’s mother asked Ms. Whitaker to make the cake. Ms. Whitaker loved her only son and she wanted it to be special so she asked around town and collected recipes and studied them until she settled on one. She gathered the ingredients and two days before the wedding began her labor of love. She measured the ingredients carefully, greased the pans and stirred the batter as the recipe demanded. When she put the cake in the oven the day before the wedding she was sure it would be the best thing she had ever made. It had to be perfect. Every detail cared for. Her mother had told her a wedding cake is a sign …a sign of how sweet a marriage would be. And Ms. Whitaker, a sentimental woman, believed it because she believed everything her mother said was gospel. The wisdom of old wives. The cake was supposed to bake for just sixty minutes. But after half an hour, she began to worry. The oven was old and the heat sometimes uneven. The sound of her mother's voice in her ears warned her again and again about burnt wedding cakes and half baked marriages. Perhaps, she worried, I should turn the pans to make sure they bake evenly. She peeked in, feeling the blast of heat on her face from the open oven door, and closed it mollified for a moment before the worry began again. She opened the oven again and again turning the pans trying to make sure that each was perfect. The oven door hinge creaked and groaned again and again. Finally, just 5 minutes left, she reached for the oven handle. It was hot to the touch, so she took an oven mitt held it open and turned the cake pans one last time. As she did the handle slipped and the door banged shut. Afraid to look, she stood in the kitchen listening to her mother’s admonition, sure she had just broken her son’s only chance at a happy marriage. At 60 minutes she turned off the gas, said a small prayer, took a deep breath and told herself that old wives tales were just nonsense that mothers handed down to daughters. But as she opened the door to inspect her masterpiece she could see it had collapsed, fallen at the center. And she burst into tears. That afternoon in a panic she stepped into Joe’s. She explained through tears what she had done, how much she loved her son, how special this day was to her and how she had failed miserably. Her voice broke into sobs and Joe, the immigrant baker, came from behind the counter. He stood near listening hard to the trouble she held in her eyes. “I know its late.” she pleaded. “But can you help?” Joe looked at the woman. He did not see just the despair and worry in her. Instead all he could see abd all he could feel was the sweetness. The sweetness of a mother trying and failing and asking in the only way she knew how for help from a stranger. “Of course,” Joe said. “You will have the cake. It will taste… like,” he struggled for the word. “Amore.” The woman looked up at the old baker, “Like love?” she asked. “Yes,” he whispered “like love.” He turned and started behind the counter again but stopped and turned back. “Your son will marry and have children and children’s children and they will all remember the sweetness.” As Ms. Whitaker’s heart swelled with hope that reached up into her eyes, she brushed the tears away. Weddings come and go in small towns. People are married and swear forever to each other and sometimes even got close. They have children and build lives. They pinch pennies and pay bills and count on the old verities of small town life. On neighbors and family, on Sunday dinners and Monday mornings where pickups still cough to life at dawn in a chorus of thank God there’s work. But that wedding had a sweetness that the town had never felt before. The father of the bride wept alone in the vestibule before pasting a smile on his face and walking his little girl down the aisle away from home forever. The couple seemed touched by something everyone recognized, something rare and impermanent, something they believed in and longed for. Something sweet, like hope battering down the knowledge of worry and money and loss. It was something electric. Like all the lights coming on at dusk together holding off the night with their small determined brilliance. It was the kind of spark that everyone stands witness to and believes somewhere someday will cross over into them. Light like this still existed in small churches and tiny three room houses. And in the eyes of two young believers in the power of all they felt. That day there were music and a best man's stutter, reading his earnest toast. There were rented tuxedos worn a hundred times before and maids of honor with babies in their eyes. And there was the cake. Everyone that tasted it that day remembered. It had a flavor they each knew and had forgotten and so no one could name. It had a sweetness that the priest said seemed almost holy. And by the time the band had started in again on the 15 songs they knew by heart every crumb was gone. Ms. Whitaker, so afraid that she had ruined her son’s most important moment, looked at the empty plate, then at her son dancing, arms around his wife. He turned and winked at her. And she remembered her terror and her hope and the kindness in the old baker’s eyes. Nearly overcome, she stepped into another room, closed the door and quietly wept. In gratitude. And later she told everyone that asked that her cake had fallen. And that she had been saved. And so, soon the town crowded into the bakery on Sunday mornings after church. And they came to believe that, though the week ahead might be bitter or might require more all they had to give, that it too was sweet. Like Joe’s bakery. Joe sold the taste of joy. That sudden sensation of some small miracle in the midst of bitterness that spread sometimes in any life, like salt on the winter streets. And for years the town counted on Joe’s for the sweetness it sometimes could only remember. Early one morning Joe rose again as he had 10000 times, kissed his wife’s face and touched her hand. He dressed in the darkness and stared into his mirrored face, gray and balding. But touched too by a calling, to sweeten the world in some small way. He crept down the stairs in the predawn dark. He lit the oven and heard the gas pop. And once again he dreamed of being young and of all he had learned from living. How to sweeten the dough, how to urge it, like life, with his hands to take shape it should. How to free the sweetness from the common and the bitter. He prayed with each creation, that everything he made would feed not just the bellies of this town but also the hearts. Sometimes alone at dawn he felt as though he himself was a creation, the bitter baked away by some master baker he could feel but not see. Alone in the darkness the old baker sometimes talked aloud to himself. It was the only way he could hear what his silent heart knew. “Yes…yes…I see” he whispered to the flour “…the bitter brings out the sweet.” “Who are you talking to Papa?” his son Martin sometimes asked. “Never mind…I’m just an old man, telling myself what I need to remember. Listening for the voices I hear.” “What do they say?” “They tell me what’s true. I try to follow the sound.” And so each day he poured a hunger at the bottom of himself, a hunger for the sweetness, into all he made. It was a hunger that only a man that has known disappointment and loss carries. “Yes…yes…I see” he whispered again and again “…the bitter brings out the sweet.” That morning when first light crept through the window he smiled once more in gratitude that he had finally recovered what was taken all those years ago. He had replaced the bitter with the sweet. As the smells of his life’s work rose all around him, through the floorboards into the house and then wafting into the air, he felt the first pull in his chest. He raised his arms trying to hold onto all he had made of this life. Listening close he heard something like a whisper, low and comforting. And as his heart struggled to rise one last time, he called out “Not yet…not yet.” Then, as it fell, he heard... just once... a sound, like a knock at a door. And Giuseppe the immigrant who left heartache behind …the pilgrim in search of a place of rest …the baker trying to sweeten the bitter world nodded and smiled. And closed his eyes one last time. WLM