A Fitting Fold

Photo credit: Jim Linwood

---

---

I was scrawnier than the other boys.  Always slumping.  Shy.  Yet Grandmother chose me.

“You’ll do.”

I cut vegetables, mixed batter.  Practiced.

That day, when she would normally take over, she kept knitting.  “I’m busy.  You do it.”

I worked the dough, testing the texture.  “Is this right, Grandmother?”

She didn’t look.  “You tell me.”

I added each vegetable to the pot, simmered the sauce.

Grandmother fanned herself.

Too hot, yes.  I adjusted the fire.

Even the meat.  Sharpening the big knife, the strap kept time with her needles.  Chopped it into ever smaller pieces.  Was it fine enough?  I paused, torn.

Grandmother coughed.

Done, then.  Into the sauce.

Finally, each dough circle was dolloped with meat sauce, pinched into lucky half-moons.  Sloppier than hers.  Crooked.  Embarrassing.

Crouching at the oven, my face hot, I rotated them incessantly.  How did she get them so perfectly brown?

She blew on one, took a bite.

I stopped breathing.

“That’ll do.”  She smiled. “You’ve got the sense for it.  Like your father did.”

Going home, I walked tall.

---

---

Word count: 175.  Written for this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers challenge.  Thanks to Priceless Joy for hosting!  See the original photo prompt below, and click here to read the other stories or to submit your own.

Photo © Maria at Doodles and Scribbles

---

---