Lincoln filed this observation away. It was logical. Perhaps even insightful.
“Excellence end,” Marie declared after tasting. Lincoln placed the crumble accordingly.
Then they reached the covered dishes.
“That one’s Aunt Ray’s,” Marie said, pointing to the aluminum-foil-wrapped mystery.
“How do you know?”
“The foil has the same bumpy pattern as last time.” Marie’s expression grew serious. “Aunt Ray’s dessewts are... adventuwous.”
Lincoln carefully peeled back the foil. Inside sat something that might have been brownies, if brownies had been through a traumatic experience. The edges were charred. The center looked undercooked. The texture appeared to be simultaneously crunchy and gelatinous.
“Assessment?” Lincoln asked.
Marie regarded the dish with the gravity of a scientist confronting an unknown specimen. “Aunt Ray lives in the woods. She’s very good at other things.”
“That’s not an assessment. That’s context.”
“But the context is important.” Marie poked the nearest brownie-adjacent object. It did not yield. “She’s very bwave. The people who eat this should also be bwave.”
Brave. Lincoln added another data point to his mental catalog of Marie’s speech patterns. Her ‘r’ sounds were unreliable, but her logic was impeccable. Not surprising given she was Jess’s daughter. Jess was a genius by every sense of the word.
“The brave end,” he said. “For items requiring courage to consume.”
Marie’s eyes lit up. “I like that. Not thebadend. The bwave end.”
His mother’s contribution came next—a pie with a crust that had achieved a color Lincoln could only describe asaggressivebeige. The filling had separated into distinct layers that moved independently when the plate was tilted.
Lincoln stared at his mother’s creation. He loved her. He did not love her baking.
“Mommy says Aunt Quinn twies very hard,” Marie offered.
“Effort is admirable. But results are what matter for categorization.”
“Bwave end?”
“Brave end.”
Aunt Charlie’s cookies had the density of small boulders. When Lincoln tapped one against the table, it made a sound like stone striking wood.
“These could be weapons,” Marie observed.
“The structural integrity is impressive. The edibility is questionable.”
“Bwave end.”
By the time they finished, the table had been transformed. Excellence anchored the right side—Joy, Ella, Violet, Finn’s surprising crumble. The middle section held the competent-but-unremarkable contributions. And the left side...
The left side was a testament to love over skill, enthusiasm over execution, the triumph of the human spirit over basic baking chemistry.
“It’s bewautiful,” Marie breathed.
Lincoln surveyed their work. There was a certain elegance to it—the clear progression from exceptional to questionable, the logical ordering that would allow party guests to make informed decisions about their dessert consumption.
“It’s efficient,” he corrected.
“Efficient is bewautiful.”
