It was not a question.

“You are coming right back here, and you are going to teach me how to bake.” I said it before I had fully thought it through, but the instant it was out of my mouth I knew it was the truest and most important thing I would say all day, because it was the exact opposite of everything the morning had been.

The whole morning had been about a shut door, about secrecy and suspicion and a woman hiding a joy she was afraid to be seen with.

And here I was, throwing that door open as wide as it would go, not just forgiving the flour but demanding to be let into it, asking to be taught, asking her to bring the very hobby she had hidden from me out into the middle of my kitchen every single week.