Page 47 of The Corruption of Hollis Brown

4½ cups all-purpose flour

1½ teaspoons salt

4½ teaspoons yeast

1½ cups warm water (110°F/45°C)

About 1 tablespoon olive oil (or some cooking spray—I like coconut oil cooking spray)

Instructions

In a bowl, stir together flour and salt.

Make a small hole in the middle of the flour mixture and pour the yeast in the hole.

Pour warm water in the hole with the yeast and mix with your finger to dissolve.

Continue mixing/kneading until there is no more loose flour in the bowl (or until you have a dough ball). If you need to add a little more warm water than the 1½ cups, then go ahead and do it just a little bit at a time until you have enough.

Remove the dough ball from the bowl. Wash and dry the bowl, then spread the olive oil on the bottom and sides of the bowl.

Place the dough ball back into the oiled bowl. Flip it over once. Cover the top of the bowl with a dishcloth and place the bowl in a warm area.

Wait about one hour for the dough to rise.

Punch down the dough, then divide it into two sections (shaped somewhat like a mini loaf of French bread).

Place each section on a lightly floured cookie sheet or in a bread pan. Cover with a cloth and let rise about a half hour more.

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C.

Remove cloth and cook on the center rack in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Heart

What kind of music do you like?

They hadn’t listened to any at all since Walt had arrived.

Yacht rock is my favorite. The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, the Eagles, Hall and Oates. Walt licked his finger and turned a page of the book he was reading. Why?

No reason, I’m just surprised it’s not like . . . swing . . . jazz—

Walt snorted.

There was more than just swing and jazz around. Besides, yacht rock is a combination of a lot of things. It reminds me of jazz, but it has stories like country, a sarcasm to it like big band; it’s got folk guitar. It’s not chintzy or overproduced like stuff from the nineties. Smoother on the ears than things from now.

Like all the genres between then and now, just . . . averaged out.

Walt shrugged. You could put it that way.

He said he liked “playing music” that night in the bath. Maybe this would stop him from filling their head with wool and rain.

Can you play some? Like, make a playlist?

Walt sent Hollis a spark of annoyance but closed his book and pulled out Hollis’s phone. He spent about twenty minutes arranging something to his liking, then put Hollis’s phone in a mug by the side of their bed and pressed play.

It was . . . not exactly Hollis’s cup of tea, but it was certainly something.