We watched the slow milling of the settlement below through the morning. Thinking through an impossible how. Abel found me in those quiet hours, when the frustration, the lack of epiphany, drove him to break from the puzzle.
“Tell me about her,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“I want to know why it all matters to you.”
“Mpf,” I grunted. It had mattered. Had. I wasn’t sure it mattered anymore. I eyed the empty sheath on my arm.
“How did you meet?” he pressed.
“My crew. We were talking about bread. I don’t know why. Simmon told me I needed to try real bread, that whatever I was describing was just hot, spongey grain. Not bread.”
I hadn’t thought about it in a long time. The thread glowed in the shadows. I followed it and smiled.
“There was a bakery in the Lake district. I smelled it most days. Went out of my way that day, passed it walking home. I didn’t want to deal with Simmon again in the morning.
“There she was. Covered in flour.”
“Is there a lot of bread in this story?” Abel asked. Like me, he was tired of cubes in sauce. I nodded, and he grimaced.
“As I walked in, she lifted this bag the size of a pig. I asked her if she needed help. She gave me one of those looks, those looks women teach each other in the secret halls of silent combat, to tell me, to make sure I knew, I was extraneous. She hoisted it onto her shoulder. Her arms, elbow to wrist, were ribbed with muscles like mine.
“What do you want?” she asked, holding it there.
“I… bread.”
“You bread?” she asked, softness coming over her face when I stuttered.
“I want bread.”
“What kind of bread?”
I was at a loss. Simmon hadn’t told me there were kinds of bread.
“Real bread?” I hazarded. That was all he’d given me.
But she laughed. “That’s the nicest thing a customer has said this week. This year.”
“Thank you,” I said. I don’t know why. She was beautiful. Flour fell from her hair as she finally flipped the bag to the ground with a twist of her back.
“You’re welcome,” she said, and looked me in the eye.
It was the first time I saw her smile.
I walked the long way home most days, then. I bought a loaf a week; what I could afford. Rye, sourdough, seedbread, even corn. Simmon had been right. One day it was dusk, and one of her streetlights was out. I looked at it, that dark spot above her wall, like the coming of dawn.
“Bread?” she asked when I entered.
“Your light is out.”
“Heh,” she laughed, “that and my mixer.” She rubbed her arm below the elbow. “What you going to do, right?”
She stopped her rubbing, noting the glint in my eye.
“I can fix it.”
She leveled a look at me. Long years of suspicion, nurtured by raw deals and hidden costs. The communes aren’t the wilds, but they are not a kind place. People have never handled desperation well.
“Not for bread, I’m assuming.”
“No,” I said. “I want cake.”
I remember the way she squinted at me then, measuring, weighing. I don’t know what questions she asked in that moment, but when they were answered, she said, “Sunday.”
“Sunday,” I agreed.
“What happened?” Abel asked.
“I showed up at sunrise with my tools. I left after sunset knowing I’d marry her.”
“How was the cake?”
I smiled but did not answer. I think the cake was indescribable, but all I properly remember is the kiss.