Bittersweet Tower

A woman well into her eighties, Nancy has enjoyed her fair share of sweets in her time. Vanilla slice with thick and creamy filling, her famous caramelised banana split, her Christmas trifle filled with cream, jelly, sponge, custard and a heavy helping of sherry, lollipops, candies, crumbly shortbread biscuits, marshmallows, every Halloween delight under the sun... you name it and she has baked it or eaten it. In fact, her family and friends from the bowling club praise her for her prowess in the kitchen. 

Tick tick tick.

Nancy has made her double chocolate cake annually for the last 59 years. Anyone who catches sight of it has their jaws drop at its immensity. It would take a whole sporting team to devour it, and then some. 

Tick tick tick.

Her husband, Bert, always bragged to their friends about Nance’s Famous Chocolate Tower, as he called it. He wasn’t exaggerating about the size. It was the centre of attention at Bert’s birthday party, bringing a childlike excitement out of every wrinkled face.

Tick tick tick.

Today, Nancy sits at her kitchen counter alone, staring at the dessert with her heart heavy in her chest. The sound of the oven timer ticking echoes through the kitchen, cutting through the otherwise quiet house. She wishes that the tick tick tick could worm its way into her mind to disrupt her solemn thoughts, but unfortunately she remains sitting with her spiraling unabated, hands folded on her lap.

Tick tick tick.

“Hey Ma! We’re here. You in?” calls a voice from her front door.

Nancy dabs at her wet cheeks and clears her throat. “Oh, yes, come in. I’m in the kitchen.”

Tick tick tick. Ding!

Having company always helps ground Nancy in the present and cool relief floods through her at the sound of her sons’ arrival. Allan and Kent have to lean down to give her a quick one-armed hug. If they weren’t well into their fifties, Nancy would think they have grown taller since she saw them at Christmas, but she acknowledges she is likely growing shorter. 

“Looks like we are just in time!” 

Kent helps pull the steaming hot cake layers out of the oven while Nancy whips up her milk chocolate buttercream and dark chocolate icing. There is no such thing as too much, Bert used to say, so Nancy slathers buttercream between each layer and pours the entire bowl of runny icing over top.

The cake icing drips down Nance’s Famous Chocolate Tower, making a mess of her bench. Each drip muddies her emotions, tainting her relaxed disposition earlier this afternoon with one that is both bitter and sweet. Nancy’s eyes sting and her lip shakes. The cake becomes a blurry mess and the tears spill over her sunken cheeks. Her apron doubles as a tissue before Allan and Kent can spot her distress.

Her sons shuffle in around the tight kitchen to take a seat at the dining table, running through their pleasantries and general catch-up happily with their mother, who has little to report on her end. 

After an hour passes, Allan’s eyes slip past Nancy to address the cake sitting on the table.

“Well... I s’pose we should get this over with, right Ma?”

“Don’t make it sound like such a chore.”

Allan eyes his brother with a flat, unimpressed look. “We both know you don’t love it either.”

“Nor do I,” Nancy sighs, staring at the cake sadly. “But it was your father’s favourite.”

When most people walk into a kitchen that smells of freshly baked goods, of decadent, warm dark chocolate, their mouth waters.

Nancy, however, feels sickened by it. 

They sit in silence. Nancy had organised plates for each of them while Allan ran a large knife through the middle of the tower, carving up the cake like one would carve a turkey at Thanksgiving. Only on this occasion, nobody is excited to eat what lays tauntingly on their plates. 

Kent prods his dense slice the size of his fist, as if expecting it to grow legs and scuttle away off the table. Allan mashes his up to plan for the shovelling; the quicker the better is his theory. Nancy stares at her portion, unable to even raise her fork.

“Ma.” Kent’s warm brown eyes are full of concern as he pats her hand. “We don’t have to do this.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” her voice shakes, breaking the façade she is trying so hard to hold up.

Despite her aversion to the dense sweet mud cake and icing that could choke you with its bitter richness, she stabs the cake and brings the fork loaded with the dessert into her mouth. Instantly, she feels repulsed. The sugary cake base churns her stomach and the pure dark chocolate icing is an assault on her tongue, but she chews through it, anyway.

Following her lead, Allan and Kent take their first bites. For several minutes, the trio sit in silence while struggling to separate the gooey cake from the sides of their mouths in order to swallow. Kent pauses the affair to grab a glass of water.

“Remember how Pa’s teeth would be covered with chocolate after he ate a slice of this thing?”

“Silly man walked around smiling and talking to people with his teeth almost blackened with cake icing all afternoon.” Nancy allows herself a wistful smile.

Allan laughs quietly. “He used to say he preferred it that way, so he could save some for later and enjoy it all day!”

A heavy quietness holds each of them in its squeezing grasp as they continue eating. The cake is thick like clay, weighing down their fragile bodies with each bite. Nancy feels like the dessert is pushing straight through her veins, clogging her body, ready to stop her heart.

“Looks like we take after you, Ma,” Allan says with a look of distaste as he stares at his empty plate.

“Not at all. You don’t like chocolate cake, but you are both your fathers’ sons. Exactly like him. We always had people say that you look like him most, Kent. Allan, you behave just like Bert.”

The men take it as a compliment as valuable as gold, hiding their smiles from their mother as they work on the dishes together. Their father was a revered and well-respected man in the community. He encouraged them to play tennis and taught them how to swim. Unlike the fathers of other kids Allan and Kent grew up with, Bert never raised a hand against them. He had strong morals, and Allan in particular emulates Bert for that.

Nancy shuffles into her sitting room, thinking that walking might help wipe away the fatigue that came from eating the cake. There is still a heaviness weighing her down, but it isn’t the cake. On this day, their house would usually be full of Bert and Nancy’s friends, but for the last six years it’s only her and her sons.

What was once a celebrated birthday where eating cake was an indulgence is now a weekend of mourning the death of her husband. The cake is always a reminder that she will die just like Bert did. Each slice is a stab at her heart as she reflects on memories of Bert with her children, only to be broken from the reverie and find herself alone at home. Bert’s booming laugh is nowhere to be heard and it never would be again.

Nancy tries cleaning her already spotless house to distract herself, but it doesn’t work. Allan and Kent sense her restlessness and entertain her through the afternoon, taking her for a walk around the nearby lake, and cook dinner for her together in the evening.

They only made a simple, small salad. Throughout the evening, their eyes dart toward the giant amount of cake still awaiting them. The tradition must continue.

“Yum yum, pig’s bum,” Allan says weakly, staring sadly at the chocolate lump on his plate.

“Pa said that all the time! I hate it so much,” Kent says to himself, forcing a forkful of cake into his mouth.

“You know, Bert didn’t come up with that himself. He said it because his father used to say it.”

“Really, Grandpa said that? The old guy was so stone-faced and cold-hearted I would never have guessed it,” Allan mutters.

“Nor would I, but I heard him say it once after eating this chocolate cake.” Nancy lifts her fork to stare at the monstrosity.

“I knew there was a reason we cut contact with that side of the family,” says Kent grimly.

Allan’s booming laugh makes Nancy flinch in fright. His thick hand slaps the table as he laughs and Kent joins in, grinning widely. He looks at Nancy and she giggles at the sight; Kent’s teeth are smothered in a thick layer of chocolate icing. In this moment, she forgets her dislike for the chocolate cake and she feels herself surrounded by love, by the sound of a deep, joyful laugh, and teeth covered in chocolate on Bert’s birthday.

“Alright, let’s not get too excited. We still have another three slices each to go on that thing.”

“Ma, can’t you make it smaller these days?”

She shakes her head with a soft smile. “Bert always loved Nance’s Famous Chocolate Tower.”

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