Fiction by Christine Ahern
“The Essence” is an Editor’s Choice selection for this issue.
Sophia brought the cinnamon stick to her nose. Would this be it? Was this where she would find him? She closed her eyes and saw the image of Robert rolling out pie crust dough. She pictured his hands as they chopped and mixed and kneaded and powdered. Cakes and cookies, pastries and pies. The smell of the cinnamon skimmed along the surface of her brain. But cinnamon wasn’t it. It wasn’t what she was searching for. The nutmeg she had put in her coffee and sprinkled on her yogurt that morning was closer. But not it. The scent of cream, sugar, flour, butter, mint. All close. So close. But not it.
“Sophia.” Her mother sat next to her. She put a sprig of mint to her nose. “You are not going to find Robert hidden somewhere, in something. He’s gone.”
“Some part of him still exists. He told me. The essence of him is somewhere.”
For weeks after Robert died, she had wandered around the house and garden looking for the shadow of him. She had turned on favorite music, then sat in silence listening for the sound of him. She had lain in their bed, rolled on their sheets, showered in their shower, searching for the feel of him. Then, one foggy morning filled with the smell of damp earth and air, she realized she needed to look for him in a scent. The part of the brain that registers smell is closest to the part of the brain that holds memory. She knew this. So, she concluded, she would find the essence of Robert in a scent.
“He told me to look for him.” Sophia ran her hands through the mint then stepped to the cabinet above the stove. That cabinet held his spices. And they were his spices. The kitchen was his domain. She wondered suddenly, as she looked around, why she even considered looking for him anywhere other than the kitchen. She laughed. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said as she turned back to her mother.
“You were thinking that you missed him.” Margaret smiled at her with a look of relief that Sophia wasn’t sure how to interpret. “And, now that you have seen that this search of yours is only causing you more pain, I hope we can move on to talking about the decisions you need to make. About the house, the cars . . .”
Sophia shook her head. Her mother didn’t get it. This search of hers was the all of her days. It was the totality of her life. She would find him.
“Mom, why don’t you go home. I’m okay. I’m doing fine. I’m not losing my mind, like you and Rosie imagine. It’s only been two months. I think I am entitled to mourn however I need to mourn for at least two months. Don’t you?”
Margaret shrugged her sweater to her shoulders and stood from the table. “Your sister and I are just worried about you. It was all so sudden, after all. So tragically sudden.”
“Yes, it was. Tragically sudden. And tragically sad. Like everyone assured me they were heartbrokenly aware of in all the cards and texts and calls. But Mom,” she took Margaret’s hand, “at least I got to say goodbye. And he got to say goodbye to me. That was a gift.”
Margaret removed her hand and patted Sophia’s face. “You tell me, then. You tell me when you are ready to take the next step.”
Her mother’s hand smelled of mint. A lovely scent. But not it.
The accident that took Robert from her was one of those freak things, as they say. One of those things that wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to Robert. Not to her. Not at their young age. Not when they were just beginning. She got the call while she was at work. She made it to the ER just in time, as they say. She ran to his side and took his face in her hands and saw him open his eyes for the last time. She made it just in time to see life leave his body, in time to hear him whisper his last words: “Look for me.”
At first she thought maybe he meant to look for him in the next life, on another celestial plain, in her dreams. She decided, no, he meant something tangible. Because he was who he was, and he knew she knew him to be who he was. A practical man. Robert believed in what he could see, feel, and touch. And smell.
Sophia walked her mother to the door. “Tell Rosie I will call her when I’m ready to box up his things. I know she doesn’t think I should do it alone, and I appreciate that. Tell her I promise not to do it alone.”
Actually, Sophia had already started emptying Robert’s closet and removing his things from the bathroom. She had removed them in her search for him, and when she didn’t find him, she saw no point in putting it all back. She folded the clothes from his closet and put them and his toiletries in suitcases. Like she was packing him for a trip. And in a way, she thought, she was. The final trip. But she would leave the rest, for Rosie. Evidently Rosie needed closure, as they say. She needed to be part of Sophia’s grieving. She needed to be there for her. Sophia could give her that.
As she passed through the living room to the kitchen, Sophia ran her hand along the books in the bookcase. Some hers. Some his. Some theirs. She pulled out the bread baking book Robert’s grandmother had left to him. She held it to her heart. Opened it and leafed through the pages. She held it to her nose and inhaled. She inhaled the memory of his grandmother, whom she had grown to love in the short time she had known her. This book held her essence. She had always felt it. So, she knew it was possible for the essence of someone to be held in an inanimate object. As long as that object also held love, she thought. She slid the book back into its home among the other books and continued to the kitchen.
She stood in the dim light. Then she began to pull out drawers, one at a time. She opened and looked. She moved things around a bit, imagining that she was shuffling the scents, then bent to inhale. To her surprise each drawer held its own specific smell. One smelled slightly of wood, one of spices, one metallic. She opened cabinets, one at a time, and stirred up those smells. Soon her head was too full. Full of scents and thoughts. Of memories. Of longing and aching. Finally, she slid to the floor and leaned against the stove. Opposite the stove was the cabinet where Robert kept his pie pans and cookie sheets. His loaf pans and Bundt pan. She crawled across the floor and slowly opened it. The pans were stacked neatly, by size and type. All the Pyrex together, stacked large to small. All the stainless steel and aluminum, resting neatly inside each other. The Corning Ware casserole dishes Robert had inherited from his grandmother, stacked so that the flower edging and ivy trim showed. She crossed her legs and slid closer. She gazed into the cabinet and watched it like a movie screen. And memories played like a movie. The first time he’d baked her a birthday cake, the first loaf of banana bread he’d presented to her when she was sick with a cold and he’d decided she needed comfort food. Banana bread was his comfort food. The best quiche she had ever eaten. The rhubarb and strawberry pie she was sure she would not like, but did. The last loaf of sourdough bread he’d baked. The night before the accident.
Sourdough bread. The sourdough starter. She stood and swirled to face the refrigerator. She flung open the door and reached for Robert’s sourdough starter. The starter his grandmother had given him and that her mother had given her. He had told Sophia that a starter was a living thing and had taught her how to feed it. A living thing passed from one baker to another, one giver of life sustaining bread to another. Sourdough starters were the essence of love, he had told her. The essence of life.
Her hands shook as she twisted the lid from the mason jar. Her hands shook as she lifted it to her nose.
This was it. It smelled yeasty and earthy. She had found it. Robert’s essence. In a jar. Along with the essence of love and life. A living thing that Robert’s grandmother had nurtured before she gave it to him to nurture. Some part of him that she could, and would, nurture and keep alive. And pass on. So that someone else could pass it on. And someone else. And on and on.
Christine Ahern has been writing for as long as she can remember. Poems, children’s stories, short stories, novellas, and novels. She has had several short stories published in literary magazines and anthologized in several books. Her most recent publication is a novella entitled Trudy Is the Nightbird. Christine has worked as a custom framer, a licensed nurse, and an art store manager. She now manages one of the last remaining independent bookstores in the county. And what better way for a writer to spend her days, among books.