A chocolate story

I sit at the counter waiting for the results, nervously clicking a pen I must have grabbed while at the attorney. It had the number and was more functional than a piece of paper unless you needed to fix a wobbly table. These past two weeks have been absolute hell. I can finally feel my left cheek, and my eye looks horrible, but at least I can see now. I can hear my grandmother coming down the stairs slowly. She enters the room, and our eyes met briefly. I cannot face her, and she cannot look at me what a fright I must be and such a disappointment. With nothing to say, she grabs her worn apron and hands me the spare. I put it on obligatorily while tying the knot, and she begins to dictate to me.

"The first thing we must get is a big bowl; look under the cabinet by the refrigerator way in the back," she orders me. I get on my hands and knees to find the bowl, and I begin to shiver once the bowl is located. She directs me to get the sugar, salt, baking powder, and flour from the walk-in. I return with items in hand to find coffee, milk, eggs, cocoa, and vinegar. I follow her through the motions of organizing all the ingredients we turn on the oven; she turns to me and tells me she made a cake with her grandmother long ago. It was a dark time in her life as a young woman. She describes what to mix, and I allow her voice to soothe me. As the batter goes in the pan and the pan in the oven, she motions me to sit, pours the remaining coffee in two cups, folds her hands in her lap, and tells me her story.

When she was young, times were much different, but then she stops and says, "maybe things are not that different after all." She was a beautiful girl full of promise and life until one day she met a man who would forever change her life. He was a friend of the family who had come to visit one Sunday and kept returning each time with treats and gifts for her. He said it was their secret. These actions gave them a common bond that lasted for the summer until late one night, he crept into her and forced himself on her. She was so naïve about the world, and when she went to tell her mother, she was forbidden ever to bring it up as if the shame laid on her and not the grown man. She explained she went into a great depression that followed a hospital stay where the baby was taken from her custody before even hearing the first cry. My grandmother's eyes swelled with tears; the scandal was too much for her parents, and they sent her to live with her grandmother.

I listen to my grandmother talk about rape and life after she paused and then began explaining the cake and how it came about. The story represents many identities, and just like the recipe passed from generation to generation, so are the traumas done to us. She explained that the ingredients represent the life we are given the sweetness of life, like the day anew life comes into this world. The flour is rooted and strengthens the core of the family. The salt and powder are the staples of giving and take. The eggs are rebirth and fragility of life. Milk is a gift of mother to child, and coffee is reminded repeatedly; life is a jolt. She got quiet, and I asked, "what about the vinegar? Why is that necessary?" she lifted her eyes to meet mine and said, "honey, sometimes life is like oil and vinegar; it does not mix but still benefit each other. The combination creates a lovely cake that will delight the tastebuds and soften the heart. You are going through challenges, and your life is forever changed. You cannot unmix the batter. Cakes come in all styles, all shapes, and all flavors'; women are the same, but the history we share is baked into every cake we share."

The phone rang, and I held me breathe as the verdict was told to me guilty on all charges. The man would never hurt other women again. I had been the decisive cause, the district attorney said on the phone. The jury believed me when I told my story of that horrible night. I hung up and raised my eyes to my grandmother and smiled for the first time in many months. The timer for the cake went off, and she set the cake to cool. She glanced at me and offered, "you take a stand; you change your destiny." We proceeded to eat a slice of chocolate cake washed with wine. I cried for the first time in a long time and thought how many generations of women have stories of cake.