My mother was a woman who was fond of bromides. She peppered her speech with them: “you can just as easily fall in love with a rich man as a poor man,” “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” “the nail that sticks out is the one that gets hit,” and, of course, “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
I never agreed.
I was one of those children who was always a little too wild, in the way of boys and girls who grow up to be bachelors and old maids. Society abhors a free-thinker, and society abhors an unmarried, quick-witted soul, and I knew from the time I was barely thirteen that I would be both.
When my cousin dared me to go into the haunted house and pluck a chin-hair from the witch inside, I didn’t think twice. I just did it, and got nothing but a broken ankle and a switch-beating for my trouble. At some tender age I declared to my father that it wasn’t fair that my aunt got to go around unescorted but Mama didn’t, and he said it was because she was a widow. “Well,” I announced, “I shall grow up to a widow too!” When Sister Margaret and I got into an argument about Doubting Thomas and the nature of faith, she told me hell was full of girls who thought they were clever. I looked right at her and said, “But I actually am.”
But when my mother coaxed me into the kitchen, and I suggested we switch out orange for lavender in the cake batter, the look of pride she gave me was never matched. In the kitchen, no one minded if my nose was covered in flour and my hands caked in oil. I was no longer a wild child, or, later, a strident woman – I was a baker. I was meant to nourish and in this one place I could; and the more time I spent away from society, feeding it, the happier we all were.
When I bought the shop I thought my sides would split from joy.
I had never known happiness like this.
I am still a wild child. I am still an old maid, and my ways are still strange and peculiar. But if you come inside, and smell the magic in the air, I think you’ll find you don’t mind so much. You see, here I have my cake, and eat it, too. Would you like to take a bite?
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Image courtesy of Hayley Mechelle Bouchard. Her work can be found at Little Cat Photography, with more information about Hayley on Our Contributors page.