BY JOSIE MILLER
Copyright is held by the author.
THE COOKBOOK, opened to the page on gnocchi, lay on the counter. The spine was creased just so the book could lay completely flat, its face bare to the world. The pages had dust on them now, years after they were caressed by little fingers.
“Is this what we’re making?” The boy asked. He was so small then, no taller than a suitcase and about as graceful as one, clattering everywhere he went.
“Maybe.” Jane grinned. She wore a stained apron covered in flowers, one that her mother had sewn for her. The “home sweet home” title had worn off after years of washing, but she could still feel her mother when she ran her fingers along the red stitches. The tough fabric shielded her from the puff of flour that followed the boy’s laughter. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“How do you say it?” He traced the letters with his fingers the way she traced the stitches. “Guh-No-cheese?”
“Close.” She pointed at the word. “The G is silent. It’s gnocchi.”
“Who decided to spell it like that? With a G that you can’t say? Why would you have a letter that isn’t really there?”
She looked at the flour on the counter, dipping her thumb in it. “It’s all in how you say it, Kai.”
“What, knockie?”
She laughed, brushing his face with her flour-covered thumb. “Close enough.”
***
“So, what’s the first thing you do?”
Jane played with his hair as seagulls flew by, yelling about nothing in particular, their arguments thrown away by the wind.
“You find a good spot.” He stood on the beach, wriggling his toes in the sand.
“Not just any spot.”
“The best spot!” He held his hand up to his brow, surveying the long, empty beach before them.
The road, a mile or so away, whispered with the faint groans of traffic. In the distance, an umbrella poked out of the sand. It looked confused, oddly artificial against the backdrop of sand and seafoam.
“There, I think!” Kai pointed to a small headland in the distance. His eyes, round like marbles and fragile like glass, glimmered with excitement. “That’d be perfect.”
“Are you sure?” Jane’s striped shirt furrowed in the wind as her hands felt at home next to her hips. “It’s pretty far away. You promise you won’t get tired and make me carry you halfway there?”
“I don’t get tired,” Kai said, striking a pose to match Jane’s. His hands stumbled over his hips as he posed like a superhero, defiant in the morning sun. “I just get sleepy. There’s a difference.”
“If you say so.” Jane turned to watch Kai run along where the tide kissed the beach. His footprints filled with water, foam trapped in their edges. She counted them, one by one, as they went. Behind them, the footprints faded, filled in with sand moved by the tide. If they waited long enough, it would be like they were never there. But Kai didn’t want to wait, and Jane couldn’t ask him to.
***
The kitchen was empty, and the apron hung on the oven door handle. It swayed slightly, the faded flower pattern rippling like water, as it was moved by something Jane couldn’t see. She stared at the pile of flour on the counter. The chairs around the kitchen island watched as the cookbook yawned open to the only page it knew mattered. Gnocchi.
She didn’t have to read the recipe. She made it dozens of times and it quickly became Kai’s favourite dish. As much as the phrase pained her, she knew it by heart. It was the same three things — eggs, flour, and potatoes. The russets sat at the bottom corner of the pantry (Jane hid them there on one of her better days). Flour was on the counter, too much of an essential to hide and too commonplace to pay attention to. The eggs were where they always were, out back with the chickens she’d been talked into raising by her nosy neighbor who read one too many articles about emotional support animals. Jane had everything she needed. Everything except . . . The apron fell to the floor with a melodramatic whoosh. Jane remembered what her mother used to say.
A good cook is prepared. A better cook improvises.
She picked up the apron slowly, hesitant as if it might whip around and bite her. When the fabric turned out to be just that, fabric, she exhaled. Her breath echoed in the empty house, and she pretended not to hear it sigh with her. Jane grabbed an empty pot and filled it with tap water. The rush of the faucet felt painfully loud as it echoed in the kitchen. She set the pot on the stove, wincing as she turned on the heat. The knob clicked once. Nothing. It clicked again. Still nothing. Jane turned the knob harder, leaning on it. Fey, her nosy neighbour, had promised to tighten it days ago. Perhaps he overdid it like he did everything else. She cursed and put her body weight onto her wrist. This time the knob fell to the ground with a clunk.
“I thought this was fixed,” Jane muttered as she picked up the loose knob. She rummaged around in the drawer to her right. “We have to have matches around here somewhere.”
Her hand struck gold, clutching a wrinkled cardboard box. The matchsticks were flimsy, and they left red powder everywhere. The box read in faded letters, “Sharpe’s Quality Matches, 20 count.” Jane only used the matches when it was time to light Kai’s birthday candles. Fourteen matches sat in the box, unused. She grabbed a match from the top of the pile that rattled in the box. Jane struck the box’s black side and the match coughed. She tried again, watching it sputter before it burst into flame. With her other hand, she put the knob back on and wrenched it to the right. She just needed enough gas for it to catch.
“Please,” She groaned as the flame approached her fingertips. “Burn, damn it!”
The fire kissed her fingers as she fell to the floor, the knob in one hand and a burnt stub in the other. She could faintly smell the gas in the house — probably should have that looked at one of these days — as she lay on the floor. Above her, water began to boil. Jane listened to the rumble of bubbles bursting against the sides of the pot as she closed her eyes.
***
The headland wasn’t anything impressive on its own. It wasn’t the sheer cliff that its name suggested with only a few feet separating it from the tide. Still, the stone was hard and unforgiving. It resisted the pull of the water for decades. It scowled at the pair as they approached. Jane hesitated while Kai raced forward. To her, it looked prone to skinned knees and elbows. To Kai, the headland looked like the edge of the world.
“Be careful,” Jane held out her hand for Kai. “You don’t want to trip and fall.”
“It’s not that high. See?” He peered over the edge, lying flat on his stomach. “I can almost touch the water from here.”
“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” She helped him to his feet.
“Can I build a sandcastle?” He asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Please?”
“I don’t think this is the best place for that.” She glanced over the edge. Three feet seemed a lot bigger than it did before. “There’s not a lot of sand here.”
“Then we can bring sand!” Kai ran back toward the beach, scooped up some sand, and threw it onto the flat headland. The sand whispered against the stone. “See?”
“I suppose,” Jane said, “but how are you going to get it to stick together? Sandcastles need water to stand.”
Kai looked at the water just beyond the headland’s edge. “Could you…?”
“You want me to get in there and get you water?” She laughed. “I don’t even have a bucket.”
“I don’t either. That’s what hands are for!” He held out his sand-coated palms.
She let silence fill the space between them.
“Oh, I get it!” Kai laughed. “You’re scared.”
“No,” Jane said a little too quickly. “No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are! You’re afraid to get wet. Who goes to the beach if they’re afraid of water?”
She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “From what I recall, a certain little boy requested this trip—”
“You still went!”
“Well, yes.” Jane stuttered. “I couldn’t let you go alone. You’re far too young for that.”
“So… what are you waiting for?”
“What?”
Jane turned to see Kai running full speed at her. She debated moving but couldn’t risk Kai falling in. The tide would take him before it could ever take her. The boy tackled her legs and shoved her with all his might. She fell back, arms flailing in the warm air. Saltwater enveloped her as she felt her feet hit bottom. She began to float aimlessly to the tune of Kai’s laughter above her, perched on the headland’s edge.
***
Jane awoke to the incessant screeching of an egg timer. The potatoes were done. She sat up, rubbing her temples. In the corner of her eye, she saw the open kitchen window yawning lazily into the afternoon. Peeled potatoes bobbed on the water’s surface as she approached the pot. She didn’t remember peeling them, much less cutting them and throwing them in. She shook her head, woozy. It didn’t matter. The potatoes were done.
She stumbled toward the sink with the pot. All she had to do was drain, mash, mix, and bake. Four simple steps. Jane took one step forward, blinking away the exhaustion that had swallowed her. She knew what she had to do. Hold the lid steady, tilt the pot, and breathe in the steam. Instead, she choked on the moist air and fumbled with the lid. Potatoes spilled into the sink, rumbling around the aluminum basin before settling beside the drain. The halting gurgle of hot water down cold pipes mimicked how Jane’s saliva stuck in her throat.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it.” She said, throwing the potatoes back into the pot. They burned her fingertips but she didn’t hesitate. “They’re still good, right?”
The question echoed through the empty house.
“I’m sure they’re fine.”
Jane mashed the potatoes without any particular fanfare or metaphor. She pushed until she felt the flesh give way. Unsatisfied, she crushed them into a fine paste and ignored the starch under her fingernails. She added the flour, coughing as it clouded the air. She refused to think about how it sifted through her hands like sand. She blinked away the salt water that coated her lips. Drops of olive oil pooled on top of the flour before forming tiny rivers. They dug through the mound of wannabe gnocchi like veins, oil gathering in the edges of the pot and the corners of her mind.
Her rhythmic stirring matched her heartbeat. She didn’t stop until the ingredients were inseparable, unable to stand alone. There was no flour, no potatoes, no oil. There was only gnocchi, waiting to be boiled and bathed in sauce. Jane set the egg timer on the counter. She
counted the clicks as the sun dipped behind Fey’s fence, bathing her and the chickens in twilight.
***
She stood in the ocean, wincing at the cold. “You doin’ OK up there?”
Kai skittered toward the edge. “Yep! Just need some more sand . . . and then . . .” His sentences were separated by panting as he ran from the headland to the softer beach. “Water.”
“What?” Jane paused. She had been staring at her feet, mesmerized by their constant distortion in the ocean.
“Water. Give me some.” Kai pushed a small pile of sand closer to the edge. “Sandcastles need wet sand.”
“Oh, right.” Jane dipped her hands into the water, laughing as it ran back down her arms. “I don’t think this is the most effective way of doing this, but —”
“Come on,” Kai grabbed her wet hands and shoved them into the sand pile. “You gotta mold it.”
“Like this?” Jane pushed the sand into a thin line, dipping her hands into the water now and again.
“Yes.” Kai took her lines and curved them, slowly forming a spiraling tower. He carved out windows with his thumbs. His pinky drew lines that mimicked bricks, and his fingerprints on the ground became a mosaic of imaginary cobblestones. One tower became two. Then came walls and gates that shivered every time the wind blew. Kai’s kingdom grew until all it needed were the finishing touches. He propped up stick figures made of discarded bendy straws and placed trees made of seaweed and driftwood. Jane listened to him recount the stories of his people, of the battles they’d won and the ones they’d lost. She learned the memories of people who only existed in Kai’s head and laughed at their nonsensical names and wild backstories. All the while, she passed him handfuls of water to continue building.
Finally, Kai stepped back and put his hands on his hips.
“Satisfied?” Jane asked, shivering in the sea.
Kai stood proudly on the edge of the headland overlooking the setting sun, his kingdom tucked in his shadow. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m finished yet.”
“Kai, we should get going,” Jane said, hauling herself out of the water. She laid on the headland like a seal, stretching out in the last rays of sunlight. “It’s going to be dark soon.”
“Just a few more minutes.” He dug a small trench around his castle. “I can’t leave them defenseless.”
“Defenseless against what?” Jane laughed.
“The monsters. Duh.”
“What monsters?”
“The ones that come out at night,” Kai explained what he thought was blatantly obvious. “Every story’s got at least one monster in it.”
“If you say so.” Jane got to her feet and held out her hand. “It’s time to go.”
“OK,” He whined. “Can we come back tomorrow?”
“If you’re good, I’ll consider it.”
“Really?” He glanced up at her, two mirror images of herself floating in his glassy eyes. She didn’t recognize who she was at first. “You mean it?”
“Really. I do.”
The pair left the beach behind, zigzagging toward the far-off parking lot where their car waited. The busy labyrinth of the city stretched before them as they walked, Kai’s hand in Jane’s pocket. Even the side streets by the ocean were notoriously crowded. It was common to see bumper-to-bumper traffic during the five o’clock rush and dead squirrels pushed up against the curb by impatient tires. Here, people drove with a fast and furious attitude where speed limits felt optional. The faded 35-mile-per-hour sign winked at the duo in the setting sun. They walked by without a word.
“Do we cross here?” Kai asked, peeking around the front of a parked car.
“I don’t know.” Jane paused. There wasn’t a crosswalk around for another quarter of a mile, if not more. Their car, a shabby Volkswagen Atlas, sat across the street. She glanced up and down the avenue. It was dim, not quite dark. Cars might not have their headlights on, but she could still see fairly well. It wasn’t far with one lane of traffic going each way. If they hurried, perhaps they could—
Jane turned to the sound of squealing brakes. Kai was not by her side. Instead, he chose to cross the street with a squirrel as his crossing guard. The rodent scurried across the pavement, pausing by the boy sprawled out against yellow lines.
“Kai!” She screamed, sprinting to him.
“What the hell are you doin’ in the road?” The driver of a Ford pickup with a blood-stained grill yelled. “There’s a crosswalk just up ahead.”
“Kai, baby.” She shook his shoulders. His head lolled idly in her hands. Blood ran through her fingers and down her arms. It dripped from her elbows and settled on the pavement before crawling toward the drain inset into the curb. The sand under her fingernails ground against his matted hair. “Don’t go. You can’t go yet. We have to come back tomorrow. You have to come back.”
The driver stood passively, his phone hanging limply at his side. “Do you want me to call someone?”
“Yes.” She yelled, cradling her child. “Someone. Anyone, for fuck’s sake.”
“I didn’t see him. I swear. He was just so small that I couldn’t see him over the hood and —”
“Give me that.” Jane snatched the man’s phone and dialed emergency services. She ignored the red fingerprints on the screen or the way the blood smeared against her cheek when she held the phone to her ear. “Please, we need someone. My son, he’s, he’s not waking up. He got hit by a car and he’s not moving. Please, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know —”
“One moment, ma’am.” The voice on the phone chirped back. “Help is on the way. I promise.”
“What do I do?”
“Can you tell if he has a pulse?”
“Uh, I don’t —”
“Put two fingers by his neck and tell me what you feel. Count the pulses.”
“OK, OK.” She stumbled over her words. “I can do this. I can.” She placed two fingers next to the base of his neck underneath his jaw. It wasn’t supposed to bend that way, but maybe the doctors could fix it. They could fix anything these days, right? Kai’s skin gave way, soft like dough. All Jane could taste was salt and iron. “I don’t, I don’t feel anything. What do I do?”
“Try not to panic, ma’am. I want you to put your hands on his sternum and start pushing. Can you do that for me? Try to keep an even rhythm. Help is two minutes out.”
“OK. I can try.”
Jane put her hands on Kai’s chest and began to push. She kept her elbows locked like she was told and convinced herself that it was just like mashing potatoes. She just had to keep going until she couldn’t feel any lumps. That’s all it was. She was making gnocchi. The boy’s head bobbed against the pavement.
“Just a little longer. You’re almost there.”
Sirens yelped in the distance. She felt something crack and give way under her hands but did not stop. She continued as vehicles surrounded her. Red and blue lights filled her vision, but she didn’t hesitate.
“Ma’am.” Someone on her right said. “You can stop now. Help is here.”
“It’s not done yet.” Jane sputtered through tears. “It’s not ready yet.”
She felt two calloused hands under her armpits. They pulled her away from her son. She watched as Kai was surrounded by every uniform imaginable. Firefighters, police, and paramedics swarmed him. They brought every tube, drug, and blood bag they had. They clambered over him, yelling orders that no one was listening to.
“What’s not ready?” The voice, now behind her, asked. Someone else checked her pulse while a third person grabbed a heated blanket. A fourth suggested she take a mild sedative.
“The gnocchi.” She sobbed. “It’s going to have lumps in it. You can’t eat it like that. Kai won’t eat it like that.”
“What are you talking about?” The man asked. He looked over his shoulder. “There’s no gnocchi.”
“But . . .” Jane pointed to the crowd backing away from Kai. Two men approached with a white towel and laid it over his body. “You can’t let the dough rest with lumps in it. It’s not ready yet.”
“She doesn’t need to see this.” The man glanced at his colleagues. “Take her to the hospital.” He then addressed Jane. “We’ll explain everything to you then, OK? Go with these men. They’ll take care of you.”
“You don’t need to explain it to me,” Jane yelled as a mask was put over her mouth. Her words were muffled by the hissing of gas against sterilized plastic. The men slammed the ambulance’s doors closed. No one paid attention to her as she cried. “I promise I know it, Kai. I know the recipe by heart!”
***
Jane did not return to the beach the next day. A week passed without a visit. That week stretched into a month. Seasons changed and the cookbook still sat open on the counter. Jane stood in her apron and stared down at her sauce-stained hands. It wasn’t her best effort, but it would have to be good enough. She took some of the fresh gnocchi and packed it in a child-sized lunchbox. Against her better judgment, Jane walked to the front door and took off her apron.
The drive was silent except for the rumble of rubber against the road. She walked the length of the beach alone, refusing to search for another set of footprints. Jane sat on the edge of the headland next to where the sandcastle would’ve been. She smiled with a warm container of gnocchi in her lap. Jane took a bite and nodded, satisfied. The sandcastle, like good gnocchi, didn’t crumble. It melted away until nothing remained but a small stick figure made from bendy straws.
***
Josie Miller (she/her) is pursuing an MA in Literary Studies at the University of Montana (U.S.). Born and raised in the heart of the Rockies, she’s been obsessed with writing as a way to overcome personal difficulties related to mental health and queer identities. As a lesbian, Josie aims to use her work to explore her identity and how it affects her place in the world. With three self-published novels under her belt and more on the way, Josie experiments with various forms including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and journalism. To keep up with her work, follow her Instagram @thejosiemiller or check out her website: https://thejosiemiller.carrd.co/.
