Page 84 of Honeyfires

I came home to find the kitchen looking like it had experienced a weather event, Vera at the epicenter in a mixing-bowl standoff, covered in white from the wrist up and in a determined expression that indicated she had been at this for some time and was not interested in my feedback.

"Don't," she said, before I could speak.

"I wasn't—"

"You were about to say something about the mess."

"I was about to say hello."

She turned to look at me. Flour on her nose. Flour in her eyebrows. Flour on the cabinet behind her in a pattern that suggested an incident.

"Hello," she said. "I'm making your grandmother's biscuit recipe. It's going badly."

My heart did the thing it did sometimes, without warning, where it just expanded past its normal capacity. She'd remembered. A throwaway mention of my grandmother's biscuits a week ago over a late dinner, and she'd remembered it and written it down and found the recipe and was currently covered in flour in our kitchen attempting to make it.

"Where did you get the recipe?" I asked, curious.

"I messaged your great aunt Helena on Facebook."

My mouth fell open. "Aunt Helena has a Facebook?"

"Everybody has a Facebook."

I lifted a brow. "I don't."

Vera wiped her hands on her apron. "Well, you're special."

I like how she said that. Special, instead of weird.

"Come here," I said.

"I have it under control."

"Vera. You have flour on your forehead."

"That's just a minor inconvenience. It can be cleaned." But she stepped aside, because she trusted me in kitchens now the way I trusted her in libraries, and we stood side by side at the counter with our hands in the dough.

"Less water," I said. "My grandmother always said less water than you think."

"I added the full amount."

"That's the mistake."

"The recipe says—"

"My grandmother's recipes are a suggestion, not law. She always used less." I guided her hands through the motions. "Feel it. It should be just barely sticky."

"Is this what it felt like? When she taught you?"

I thought about my Portuguese grandmother's kitchen. The distinct smell of it. Her hands over mine, the same way mine were over Vera's now. "Yeah," I said. "Pretty much exactly."

Vera went quiet for a moment, her hands working the dough. "Thank you for teaching me," she said finally.

"Thank you for wanting to learn."

The biscuits came out perfect. Golden and tall and exactly right, the way I remembered. Vera looked at them with an expression of such genuine triumph that I had to press my mouth against her flour-covered hair to keep from saying something embarrassing.

"We did it," she said.