Baking - John and Sonora Stoker

They don’t know if Abuela Rosa will ever wake up again. It’s wrong to see her in that hospital bed, her sun-tanned face pale in the unnatural bluish lights, her creased and crinkled skin seeming to sag like loose burlap. John can’t forget the way she looked when he found her in the shed, her eyes open but not aware, the horrible sound her breathing made in the still air.
He hasn’t gone back inside since. For all her cures, Abeula couldn’t protect herself from this. And he can’t fix it. All he can do is sit in a chair and watch her breathe and listen to Momma whisper prayers under her breath. The doctors won’t let her light a candle in the room, but there’s a small chapel down the hall.
Besides wait and pray, there’s nothing to be done. Which is why for now, Dad’s keeping vigil at the hospital, having insisted Momma needed to go home and get some rest. But from the sounds of pacing, and the smell of matches and candle smoke coming from downstairs, that’s not happening.
John can’t sleep either. Every time he closes his eyes he sees Abuela on the floor, the broken glass of an herb jar scattered around her. He rolls over, punching his pillow up a little, but the scent of the sleeping sachet Abuela tucked underneath seems to choke him.
He climbs out of bed and down the stairs. Momma isn’t in the living room anymore, although there’s the smell of candle smoke recently extinguished. But there’s plenty of soft clatter coming from the kitchen. The rattle of metal measuring utensils and the scrape of a wooden spoon against the big enamel bread bowl.
John knocks on the doorframe before stepping in, not wanting to startle Momma.
She turns around, already reaching for the cupboard to get a glass for water. But he’s not really thirsty.
“I can’t sleep,” He admits, pulling out a chair from the dining table and sitting down on it backward, crossing his arms on top of the back. He digs one fingernail into the chipping yellow paint.
“I know how close you are with Mama Rosa,” Momma says. “It’s hard to watch the people you love in pain.” Her hand falters for a moment, the wooden spoon rattling against the bowl.
Momma looks down into the bowl, then sets it aside and reaches for the pottery jar of flour on the counter. She pulls out a handful and spreads it on the long wooden section of the countertop, then flips the bread bowl over, scraping out any stuck dough with her fingers and pushing it into the soft brown mound of dough.
“When the things you can’t control get to be too much, sometimes it’s nice to remember you can still do something good.” Momma rolls up her sleeves. “Besides, kneading dough is a whole lot more productive than punching a bag of sand.”
John smiles, just a little, as Momma cuts the lump of dough in half with one of the big knives and spreads out a second pile of flour on the counter beside her. He rubs some flour on his hands and then pushes the dough against the countertop, letting the pressure of the past few days run down though his palms and into the work. Neither he nor Momma talk, standing side by side in silence. But they don’t have to say anything. For now, it’s enough to be together, making something good.