Driving home, Donna had been hoping that she’d come home to find her daughter right as she left her—sitting in the kitchen, with a full spread of baked goods behind her. Unmoved, untouched, and definitely uneaten. Delaney was just like her mama in a lot more ways than one, and that meant that her daughter had an unfortunate tendency to stress-eat. She supposed that it wouldn’t have been uncalled for either, with the way that she’d been acting.
Donna had seen it plenty of times before—not making the cut for the cheerleading team, her first boyfriend breaking up with her, friends flitting in and out of her social circle had been the major reasons that she had come home to find her daughter lumping on the couch with something sweet in her hands. She had been kicking herself the whole drive home for helping to add “unsupportive, dismissive mother” to that list of reasons that her daughter needed to start pigging out.
Coming through the back door with a sense of drama, like she hadn’t seen her daughter in months, Donna was greeted with an… almost welcome sight?
“Oh, you’re back.” Delaney said in a short, terse voice. Clearly, she had taken her mother’s abrupt exit to heart, “Did you have a fun time with Nancy?”
“Yeah, we um…” Donna paused, “…talked about how maybe me running out the door wasn’t the best way to Mom.”
“Look, I know that you’ve got this weird thing about food, it’s fine.” Delaney grumbled, whisking the batter in her bowl, “I just won’t ask you to help me anymore.”
Donna had not come home to an emptied-out kitchen, freshly baked cupcakes devoured by a histrionic daughter and cookie crumbs scattered all over the kitchen floor, as she had expected. Sure, there were two cupcakes missing from the pan that had been pulled from the oven and left out to cool, but the sheet of cookies that Delaney had been making before her mother’s trip out the door had been relatively untouched. Delaney hadn’t been stress-eating to cope with her mother’s lack of support, she had been stress-baking.
Which only served to make Donna feel like even worse of a mother—here she was, worried about her daughter scarfing down calories, and Delaney was venting her frustrations on that poor whisk and bowl, not her stomach.
“No, no Laney, I just…” Donna sighed, “…I want to help you out as much as I can, but—”
“But you’re afraid of getting fat. Yeah, I know.” Delaney scowled, moving from the countertop to the pan as she poured the sweet, unmistakably chocolate mixture into the personal-sized square, “Look, I get it, I’ll just get Raegan or Tiffany to do me the modest favor of eating the food that I make so that I can pass my college courses and get into a good culinary school—whatever.”
Donna felt her heart break as Delaney practically threw the pan into the oven, twist the timer like an Indian Burn, and cross her arms in a huff before trying to storm past her mother. On any other day, and in any other circumstance, this would have been prime lecture material, but Donna couldn’t argue that she didn’t deserve it. She’d been more and more distant with her daughter ever since she’d started bringing her schoolwork home with her.
“Honey, look, I’m sorry about being such a… well, such a bitch to you these past few weeks.” Donna said, stopping her daughter’s storming off with a hand on her shoulder, “I told you that you could major in whatever you wanted, and that I’d always be there to support you. I shouldn’t not do one when I promised to let you do the other.”
“You really shouldn’t.” Delaney sniffed, her eyes watery and her face already puffy as the beginnings of a good cry descended upon her, “Be such a bitch, I mean.”
“Okay, you get to call me that exactly once, so choose your timing wisely.” Donna cracked a smile as she pulled her daughter in close for a hug, “C’mere.”
As they stood in the kitchen, hugging out their problems, the smell of whatever Delaney had been cooking in the oven began to waft out into the kitchen proper. As the hug lingered, Donna felt the anxiety fall out from the arches of her feet as she was comforted by a nutty, distinctly chocolatey aroma that seemed so familiar and pleasant.
“So, whatcha making?” Donna asked, parting from the hug slowly and gently, “It smells great.”
“Brownies.” Delaney sniffed, “They’re, uh… grandma’s recipe, so I figured you know…”
“Oh yeah?” Donna had hoped that it would come out sagely and appreciative, but a small tension lingered in her voice as it wavered, “Putting that cookbook she gave you to good use, huh?”
“Y-Yeah… but I put my own spin on it—Professor Blackwell says that it’s important to make recipes your own.” Delaney continued unsurely before adding, hesitantly, “Do you maybe want to try one?”
The question had hit Donna like a ton of bricks. She hadn’t had one of her mother’s brownies in… years. Not even as a little snack. Once her mom had passed, that had pretty much been the end of her old country style recipes. Coincidentally, it had been the end of about twenty-five pounds, finally letting her settle back down under two hundred and at around one-eighty.
“Right, I guess I’ll just plate them up for tomorrow.” Delaney clicked her tongue sadly, as if she had been expecting a non-response, “Professor Blackwell said that I’d get extra credit for them anyway.”
“No no, wait.” Donna held up her hand, “Maybe, you know, when they’re done, you could… cut me off a couple.”
“Wow, really?” Delaney asked with raised eyebrows, “Thanks Mom.”
“You don’t have to thank me for giving me food.” Donna laughed, “Just, you know… I want to support you and, if you really really want to be a chef or a baker or whatever when you grow up then it’s my job to—”
Delaney kissed her mom on the cheek.
“Thanks mom.” She said, beaming, “I’ll bring you some when they cool off.”
Donna smiled as her Delany bounded off, leaving her alone in the kitchen. The smell of her daughter’s baking filled the whole house, but it was strongest here in the kitchen. A pan of cupcakes, unboxed in her daughter’s ennui, and a whole sheet of cookies left out to dry stared Donna down as she stood alone in the kitchen, face to face with temptation.
It’s just one little bite.
She told herself as she snuck a cookie off of the pan.
What’s the worst that could happen?