But Sunday afternoons, that time belonged to the neighborhood. Maybe it would be around twilight. The purple-silver light reflecting off the wide expanse of the river. Couples walking their dogs under streetlights, just necessary as the dark slowly settled in. Businesses open, but not all, and those that were are closing early.
Frank’s there, having a laugh on the patio of Donahue’s Bakery. My grandfather stepping out from the back room of the bakery in the same white-flour haze that always seemed to follow him, like Pigpen from the Peanuts comics. I would steal the whole comics section from the thick newspapers Donahue’s Bakery would receive on Sunday mornings. On the weekday, I would hunt for the abbreviated section behind the sports.
Those were good times. The best times.
I try to infuse those Sunday-afternoon feelings into the biscotti. To capture river light and purple haze for someone’s tongue. So they can taste the relaxed feeling downtown always got on those days. Like the company had gone home and the city didn’t have to try so hard. Didn’t have to play host. It could breathe again.
Just enough hazelnut for nostalgia, maybe. To evoke vinyl booths and glass pastry cases. Good coffee and good friends. An owner who knows you and remembers you like heavy cream and two sugars and that you're fond of the raspberry danish on Fridays.
There is magic in those afternoons and in those feelings. In those memories. If Frank wanted to capture it into a flavor, he could have done. I could do it too, but that was using what he taught me, and Frank’s lessons are a forbidden fruit. Luckily, I have a few things I learned from people other than Frank Donahue. But I find myself unconsciously adapting to Frank’s ways, to the ways my hands know best without even really thinking about it.
I breathe in the memories until my lungs burn with it, until they infuse the blood in my veins. I let them catch on that little ember of hope refusing to go out.
“You see those zeros, right?” Nico asks me, shoving a stack of paperwork toward where I am rolling out dough.
“I see them, what do you want me to do with them, Nico?”
“Talk to him, Theo. He listens to you.”
I draw up short before I overwork the dough because I am irritated. “And say what? Give up your legacy? Retire?”
Nico shrugs, leaning against the steel table. His suit will somehow still look pristine, despite him doing that. “Talk sense into him. This will be ours one day, Theo, and we will have to decide what to do with it. We all know what happens when he’s gone. This offer is for the business alone.”
I knew what he wanted to happen, but I was not so sure that was the only option. “I could run it. That’s always been the plan, right? I can bake, and you can run the business side of things. What’s so wrong with that? You are in business school. I start culinary school in a month or so.”
“That plan is a million miles away. Think about now. Maybe this isn’t the kind of business I want to be in. Plus, Frank’s only making those plans for you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Come on. You know it will be different when it isn’t family baking for Donahues.”
I rest my hands on my hips, then drying them against my apron for something to do. My heart is heavy. Part of me worried that Nico thought that way. That me being the stepson of Nico’s uncle, only Frank’s grandson by my dad’s marriage to my mom, made me less a Donahue. Or one in name only. Despite Frank being a real a grandfather as anyone could have. I learned by his side for years. But, that was it, wasn’t it? No matter what plans Frank and I had, Nico didn’t see me as family, and he never would.
Chapter 7: Matt
“Matt.” My ten-year old niece Piper mouths the word at me at a near whisper, then makes a little rolling gesture with her hand.
I give her a smile, holding up a finger. “What do you call beans that have been left out in the sun?”
I see Piper roll her eyes, but still game, gives me the obligatory “what?”
“Baked beans.”
She gives me a cringey sort of smile.
“Just trying toproducesome laughs.” I say, before quickly finishing up the smoothie that we are making together for her social media.
“It’s a good thing everyone says you are pretty, Uncle Matt.” Piper quips while tapping something on her phone once the video is done. I swear these days she’s more preteen than little kid.
I give her a side hug. I would do anything for this kid, I swear. But getting all serious about food for a video? Out of the corner of my eye I see my mom, Ellen, raise and eyebrow watch Piper scamper off out of my embrace.
“She is very serious about her online presence, you know,” Ellen says.
I do not roll my eyes, but it takes effort.
“She’s not old enough to be very serious about her online presence.”
Piper’s social media is a mashup of skiing videos, other sports and activities, and her obsessive desire for a pet, so lots of dogs and cats. Farrow, who is both an emotional support animal and a pet, makes a frequent appearance. Occasionally, a rabbit from one of her school friends shows up. Lately, she has been asking me to make a few short, instructional videos with her in the kitchen.
