Three Word Wednesday: Bread

knead, cleanse, melt

He had spent most of the morning moping. It wasn't as if he hadn't been productive earlier, he was entitled to moping. His mother had called already, her tone concerned. He could almost see the fine lattice of lines that was sure to be hanging between her eyebrows, the downturn to her mouth as she forced her voice into a more upbeat register. He had fended her off with platitudes and assurances he didn't feel, but she had hung up with a light, "I love you," and he had sighed and unplugged his phone from the wall. His cell phone hadn't had battery since the funeral. He wasn't planning on charging it. 

The sun was going down, tinting the blinds a brilliant orange and illuminating the apartment that had too many boxes stacked near the door, too many empty spaces on the walls. He sighed and put his hands in his pockets. He had packed up everything of Max's earlier. Lovingly organized books in boxes, selected clothes for donation, compressing a life into a few bits of cardboard and two plastic bags. They were all sitting by the door now, and he didn't want to look at them. 

He was sure that he had been productive enough for one day. For a week maybe. He wasn't sure what the protocol was for these things. But he wasn't used to being idle, his fingers already drumming against his thighs in anticipation of the something he knew he should be doing. 

He is in the kitchen without really remembering how he got there. When he cleaned, something else he knows he did without remembering when, he had washed all of the pots and pans, cleansed the countertops with a lemon-scented cleaner he didn't remember buying, and emptied the fridge. 

He puts an empty pot on the stove and clicks it on, melting half a stick of butter in it, his hands moving, adding things, stirring without any conscious decision on his part. The smell of chocolate fills the small kitchen and he turns, dusting the counter with flour and pouring the concoction into a glass-bottomed pan.  

The sun is setting, the blinds glowing a dusky purple and the light on his balcony snaps on with a loud click. He jumps and clutches his chest before he steps back from the counter, leaving white streaks of flour in his hair as he runs his hands through it.  

His sister had insisted that he needed to cry, earlier. When, he couldn't exactly remember, but he knew that had been a conversation he had participated in. Probably. He had insisted that he didn't need to. Jeez. I'm fine, he had said.  

He is wondering, halfway through a batch of banana bread, if maybe he needs to cry. But he hasn't felt teary, so he rubs the sleeve of his rolled-up dress shirt against his face and turns to finish kneading out the dough. 

It is only after the loaf comes out of the oven, perfect and glowing, that his breath hitches in the back of his throat and his eyes burn. When he cuts two slices from the bread without thinking, laying one out on the blue plate with the chipped edge, he remembers. 

The bread cools, the kitchen light casting a harsh fluorescent sheen across the counter, and he turns his piece in a forlorn circle.  

The sun sets completely and the curtains go opaque.  

He cries.