“Depends whether you leave enough butter for the batter,” I said.

I brushed a patch of pale sawdust off my right thumb with my index finger.

“Mark said he’d bring two extra pounds of butter after his shift at the lumberyard,” she said.

“Then we’re making the cake,” I said.

She flipped the eggs without breaking one yolk.

Ten years of long mornings had turned our little kitchen into a smooth assembly line where nobody got underfoot.

My old denim work shirt was ragged at the cuffs, one of the same three shirts I had rotated since the year she turned two.