“Oh, dear. What a shame,” said Danette, and she reached to examine the finger. She said nothing about the tears but abruptly enveloped Caroline in another paralyzing hug, this one longer and fuller than the one bestowed at the door. This embrace went on and on, and Caroline breathed in Danette’s scent (gardenia? or was it lily?), felt the tangy, sweaty heat of her, and found it all strangely and deeply comforting. This near suffocation by her mother’s unknown friend was the most comfort she’d accepted in years.
Danette at last released her, and Caroline stepped back. “I’ll be right in with the quiche,” Caroline said, wiping at her eyes.
“No, let me,” said Danette, and she carried the dish into the dining room.
* * *
They ate lunch. Danette and Noni told Caroline about their plans, the hotels they’d be staying at, the sights they’d see. After clearing the quiche away, Caroline checked on the girls (still sleeping) and made coffee. Another half hour remained until she needed to pick up the table linens. She returned to the dining room with the coffee pot and mugs on a tray.
“Laurie loved, I mean loved, linzer torte,” Danette was saying. “I have to tell you, Antonia, that’s really why I put Vienna on our list. I mean, it is a beautiful city, you will just adore it, but we are going to eat us some serious amounts of linzer torte.”
“Joe’s cake is more cinnamon,” Noni said. “He never really liked sweet sweet, but my God, he could have eaten that cake breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The first time I made it for him, he ate nearly half the thing in one sitting.”
Both Noni and Danette were smiling, talking about their dead children in an easy way that made Caroline uncomfortable. It was like talking about God, like talking about love: you needed to do it with a certain amount of reverence, in hushed tones, or on your knees. Caroline didn’t care for her mother’s breeziness. Plus, Noni was wrong.
“I made that cake the first time,” Caroline said. “Remember? That Christmas, I wanted to make something new?”
Noni tilted, then shook her head. “It was Easter 1984. Joe was ten years old. You were eleven then—I don’t remember you being a baker at that age.”
“I was. I was always a baker—I always made cakes,” Caroline said, feeling irritated and righteous. “I started when I was . . . I must have been seven or eight.” Caroline began to bake during the Pause, following the recipes printed on the backs of yeast packets and sacks of flour. Renee would prepare all the family meals, but she said that dessert was too much work. Memories of scorched cookies and undercooked cakes came back to Caroline, blistered fingers, struggles to reach the oven knob. “Noni, you weren’t there when I first started,” she said. “You wouldn’t remember.”
Noni narrowed her eyes and gazed at Caroline as though she were a distant figure whom Noni was trying in vain to identify. “No, Caroline,” she said finally. “I think you’re remembering wrong. It was Easter. I made the cake.”
There was a beat of silence, and then Danette remarked with great good cheer, “Well, whoever made it, it must have been a doozy of a cake. I need to get down that recipe. Laurie was never much of a baker herself, though she did like to eat the results. That girl had a sweet tooth, just like her mother.” Danette spooned sugar into her coffee, looking to Noni with raised eyebrows. And Noni nodded once, a short downward clip of her chin, and a look of understanding passed between them.
“I need to use the bathroom,” Noni said, and left the room.
“I did make it,” Caroline said weakly to Danette. “I did.”
“It doesn’t matter. You both made it,” Danette replied. “You all made it, really. You all made that cake for Joe.”
Danette’s tone was soothing, and Caroline wondered if Danette would hug her again, which she both longed for and feared. But no, Danette stayed where she was, gazing at Caroline across the crumby tablecloth with a look of frank pity. “Your mother’s told me that you’ve taken it the worst. Joe’s death.”
Caroline bristled. “Me? I think Fiona’s still a wreck.”
“You know, I don’t have any other children,” said Danette. “Laurie was it. As much as her father and I hated that—I mean, we lost everything when we lost her—I did think it was easier, in a way. Her father and I