Page 24

“I’m surprised you can tell.” Her eyes gleam. “I can’t imagine many people would recognize those poor stubs. I cut them down each fall thinking they’ll never grow back, but they do. However, I’m afraid I might have been too aggressive last October.”

“They’ll come back. You can cut them to the nib and they bloom again. A good pruning lets them keep all their energy in the warmer ground.” I accept the proffered cup. “My mum had a bush she tended in our building’s back courtyard. She once wrote how angry all our neighbors were at first that she wasn’t using that bit of earth for a victory garden. But once she started delivering blooms to their flats, the anger vanished. I believe that garden was the one thing in her final years that brought her any happiness.”

“What a lovely thing to do in such a fraught time. We can’t have beauty without thorns, they say, and thorns do come in all shapes and sizes, don’t they?” Her tone takes on a sly twist. “Even neighbors.”

“Yes.” I nod and sip my tea.

I sense she’s not referring to my mum’s but rather to my “neighbors” and my disaster over Peggy’s birthday cake on Monday. I want to cringe, as she must know every detail. Everyone does. And the story, as expected, did get large enough to include an ambulance ride for Mrs. Sharpe to the hospital in Oxford.

Mrs. Beurton continues to stare out into the garden. “They take so much work, silly things, but that’s life too. All the important things require commitment, stamina, and perseverance.”

My gaze trails from the roses across the garden’s expanse again. This time I notice her back shed has a large radio antenna atop it. The incongruity stops me, and I study it before turning back to her, a question on my lips. But right as we make eye contact, her focus shifts from me to her cup. “You mentioned your mother’s ‘final years.’ I take it you lost her?”

“Soon after I was brought home from Yorkshire. She was never well. Not very well.”

“I lost my mother too. Though our circumstances were different, I sense you and I might have felt similarly. Neither of us were our mothers’ top priorities.”

I blink. She waves her hand as if letting bygones be bygones. “Mutti was always busy doing her own thing, far too glamorous for the kitchen, or to be bothered with any of the six of us, or to have any real concern about our lives. Yet we adored her despite it all.”

Mrs. Beurton wiggles deeper into the armchair, and her eyes focus above me, as if lost in a memory. Her sigh sounds quiet, somehow distant. “She passed away a couple years ago, while visiting from Germany, and I was devastated.” She looks at the window. “She’s buried up in the village cemetery.”

“I’m sorry.”

She continues as if she hasn’t heard me. “I often wonder if I would have felt so distraught had she died far away in Germany. She was always so aloof, so removed. But she was here and remains here, and now all I think about is how badly I behaved during our little skirmishes. Perhaps that’s how she planned it.”

Mrs. Beurton’s eyes capture mine, and she gives me a compressed and mysterious smile. “She was manipulative like that.” Her eyes twinkle as if she’s made a joke, but before I can comment she races on.

“Baking is a science, you know, but there’s a bit of art to everything, wouldn’t you say? That’s where true differentiation lies—the artistry atop the science. The attention to detail is important, as well as all those pesky terms you mentioned Tuesday.” She stands and beckons me to follow, flapping a hand at the table to leave the remnants of our tea there.

Once in the kitchen she slides two ceramic canisters, one marked Sugar and the other Flour, towards me, sets out a bowl, and declares, “We’re beginning with shortbread. Simple and always delicious.”

In the next few minutes I learn not only how to “cream” butter and sugar together but how to “knead” the dough on her flour-dusted countertop and to roll it to half an inch thick before slicing it into small rectangles. She even lets me place the tray in the oven, and while it bakes, we wash up from tea.

“That was so easy.” I laugh. “The last time, I mixed up some of the ingredients and the dough was slimy.”

“There’s a trick to that. Pay attention to the moment, focus on it, but always keep two steps ahead too. They must remain right off center, like in your periphery. Do you play chess?”

“No . . . I . . .”

“You should learn. Let’s dry these last bowls and we’ll set up the board.”

As shortbread bakes for only twenty-five minutes, there is just enough time for me to learn the names of the chess pieces and get a rudimentary understanding of how each moves across the board. The timer rings, and as Mrs. Beurton stands, she taps the black queen.

“This is my favorite, and she’s the most powerful piece on the board. The king is the most important, but never take your eyes off your queen or your opponent’s. Chess. Baking. Life. Success is all in the details, and you have to pay attention. You also need to know who holds the power.”

I stand, partly stunned, partly awed. I came for one thing—baking lessons—and yet I feel so filled, so hopeful, and so energetic. Like I was lost and now I’m found. Like there’s finally a road map to a destination I didn’t know existed. Like someone sees more in me and, by that simple trust, I see it too.

“Mrs. Beurton?” I call after her.

“Ursula, please.”

I nod to the game. “Do you want me to set the board back to the way it was?”

“You remember that?”

“Yes.” I shrug and feel myself warm. “Sometimes I notice details. They stick. It feels like a parlor trick more than anything else. But I can put it back.”

She nods. “Please. I’ll pull out the shortbread and you reset Nina’s game. Thank you.”