Muscle memory

I’ve never seen my mother. I haven’t heard her voice either, although I’ve been told many times that she draws out her vowels, and always sings flat. When I was younger, I’d run my fingers over her lips and cheeks, trying to guess what sounds she might make from the dips under her cheekbones and the cracks in her lip. On the nights I would trace her features again and again, she would gently lift my hands away.

“It’s okay, Bet,” she signed in my palm. “You know me better than anyone.”

At the time, I didn’t believe her. I assumed that one of the doctors that we visited had told her to say it, that it was in the pile of books they send you home with when they realize that your baby is deaf and blind and won’t ever sing nursery rhymes or sound out words in the children’s books you got at the baby shower. But I knew it was a lie. Strangers on the street knew her better than I did. One glance told them more than all my hours playing with her hair or mapping out the patterns on the stiff fabric of the skirts she wore every day. The thought made me feel alone, like a seed dropped in an empty field.

“I don’t know what your face looks like,” I signed back. “Everyone knows you better than me.”

“My face is the most ordinary thing about me,” she replied. “You know all the important things, all the extraordinary things that I wouldn’t tell anyone else.”

“That’s not true,” I would retort, and reach back towards her face, starting to cry. Mom caught my hands again and interlaced my fingers through hers.

“It is true,” she’d say. “What’s the one secret that you know that I’ll never tell anyone else?”

“Your chocolate cake recipe,” I’d reply, brightening up.

“That’s right. Shall we go make it?” I’d nod, and she would pick me up and sit me on the kitchen counter. She’d line up food containers next to me, and then ask me for the ingredients one by one.

“Pass me the flour, Bet?”

I’d find the openings of the thick paper bags, and feel the sharp sugar crystals, or smell the sweet, fruitiness of the cocoa powder. The vanilla extract bottle was hard and cold, and the eggs felt like the pebbles from bottom of Lake Michigan that I collected when we visited the beach. When I touched soft, feathery flour, I’d pick up the bag and hand it to her.

“Thank you, love. How much do I need?”

“One- and three-quarter cups,” I would sign back proudly. We went on like this until we’d added all the ingredients. Then she’d take the bowl, and I’d feel a brief blast of heat as the oven door opened and closed. Before long, a thick rich smell filled the kitchen. We’d eat the cake with our hands, feeling the warm, spongey pastry with our fingers and letting it melt on our tongues. When it was all gone, we’d lick our plates clean. Afterwards, Mom would carry me to bed. I’d rest my head on her shoulder, snuggling as close to her as I could.

“Only we know how to make the best chocolate cake in the world,” she’d whisper. “What could be more important than that?”

…

As I got older, I learnt that my mother was right -I did know everything important about her. I knew that she lightly tapped her pinky against my wrist when she was trying to think of what to say next, and that whenever she told me she was working on building her birdhouses, there would be band-aids on her thumb the next day. I knew that she wore her sweet perfume to work, and a muskier fragrance when she went out on dates on Saturday nights. I knew the clothes she wore when she was confident and exhausted, and the way she breathed in different moods. But her chocolate cake remained our most treasured ritual. We would cook it on happy occasions and sad ones, on birthdays and Christmases and on Sunday afternoons after we fought about my messy room. When I got too busy with homework and debate practice to cook with her, she would bake it herself. On days I had a difficult test, I knew that I would come home to a chocolate slab on the side table. When I won the seventh-grade science prize, I opened the front door to a house smelling of cocoa. And after the night I spent crying over the boy who had left me for the French exchange student, I stepped straight into a slice of cake that Mom had left outside my door.

…

It was the chocolate cake that first told me something was wrong. One week, it was slightly drier than usual. The next, it was overly sweet. Then it was thick and stogy, filling up my mouth like glue. I didn’t finish my slice.

“What’s the matter?” my mother signed. “Didn’t you like it?”

“It was delicious,” I replied. “I just ate a big lunch.” My mother said nothing. She carried the plates away. I made my way into the kitchen, to the small sink in the corner where she usually did the dishes and ran my hands around it. The tap was on, spraying a light mist of water onto my hand. But Mom wasn’t there. I turned to go check the bathroom, and my foot collided with something on the floor. I reached down and felt the familiar curly hair and ran my hand down to her shoulder. It was Mom. She was shaking. It took me a minute to realize she was crying. I groped for her hand.

“What’s up?” I asked, trying to keep my touches steady. I had never known my mother to cry. I lowered myself to the ground next to her and wrapped my arms around her. For a long time, she didn’t reply. Instead, she held my hand tightly. Finally, I felt her fingers move.

“I’m sick,” she signed.

“What kind of sick?” I wished my hand would stop shaking. There was another long pause.

“It’s what your Grandpa had. It’s making me forgetful. It used to be just small things, but now it seems like it’s everything.”

“And you can’t remember the recipe for the cake?” Mom bobbed her fist up and down on my palm.

“Yeah. I can’t get the quantities right, and I don’t have it written down anywhere. I can’t get make it taste good anymore, no matter how hard I try.”

“It was still yummy,” I told her. She elbowed me.

“I’m sick, not stupid.”

“It was,” I insisted. “Just maybe not as good as it used to be.” I felt her shudder.

“When you were younger, this was the only way I could comfort you. I could make it with my eyes closed. It was the only way I could look after you, and now I can’t even do that. 20 years of that recipe, and it’s just gone, and I-“ I grabbed her hand, cutting her off.

“One- and three quarter- cups of flour, same amount of sugar. Two heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder, three eggs. A pinch of salt, a dash of vanilla extract, and half a cup of butter, which is an ounce more than most people use.” Mom rested her head on my shoulder.

“You remember.”

“Of course I do,” I replied. “We baked it a thousand times, until I could do it myself. I don’t think there’s any better way of looking after someone.” Mom didn’t reply. We sat on the floor for a long moment, feeling the mist from the faucet against our faces. Then she reached for my hand.

“I’m worried I’m going forget everything,” she signed. “By the end, Grandpa didn’t even know who he was.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” I signed. My hands were steady. “I know you well enough for the both of us.”