Cherry Pie

Taylor walked through the familiar door, not bothering to knock. It always had been, and always would be, home to him. The one place that would welcome him with loving arms no matter what the rest of the world thought of him. That, and, his mother already knew he was coming.

The scent of cinnamon and freshly brewed coffee invaded his nostrils, and he beamed with comfort. It even <I>smelled</I> like home. He could hear his mother milling around in the kitchen and he knew, without seeing her, exactly what she was doing. She had heard him come in, so she quickly went about pouring him a hot cup of coffee. Her hair long and braided down the back, her eyes warm and gleaming with anticipation for his arrival. She was trying to make everything perfect. Little did she know, by just being there, everything was already perfect.

He grated his fingers through his hair and shook all of the loose snow from his coat before shrugging it off, along with his scarf, and throwing them over the arm of the chair in the living room as he passed through on his way to the kitchen. Just as he’d imagined, his mother was sitting at the kitchen table, her worn, aged hands securely wrapped around a coffee cup baring a Christmas scene, complete with a Christmas tree and lots of snow. Her warm eyes greeted his wordlessly as she motioned him to sit down across from her at the small table. It was then that he noticed the matching coffee cup, holding his seat at the table across from his mother. He smiled gratefully, taking a seat.

“Oh,” Diana exclaimed, her eyes lighting up as she stood up quickly and made her way to the fridge. “I almost forgot.” Taylor watched his mother, bent over, leaning into the fridge. He could hear her pushing things around before coming back out with a plate covered in tinfoil. After pulling the shiny paper off of it, she presented him with the largest piece of cherry pie that he’d seen in years. His mouth watered in anticipation as she grabbed a fork from the drawer nearest to the sink, and handed each of them to him proudly.

“You saved me a piece?” He asked, giddily pushing his fork through the dessert for his first bite without any hesitation. “How did you keep it from the kids?” He wanted to know before shoveling the fork into his mouth. A little piece of heaven, he’d always called it. His mother’s cherry pie could beat no other.

“It was your father who had the hardest time staying out of it,” she smiled, her eyes glowing.

“Mmm,” Taylor grunted, showing his approval. He nodded happily as he swallowed. “The best thing about Thanksgiving is your cherry pie,” he said, swallowing his first bite.

Diana smiled, accepting his compliment.

“And Christmas,” he continued. “And Sunday afternoons, and…you should start a pie shop. And bake nothing but cherry pies,” he suggested, a smile playing across his lips as he slowly scooped up another bite of cherry pie and forked it into his mouth.

“Oh,” she said, dismissing his compliment with a wave of her hand through the air, her eyes twinkling with delight. “Now you’re just exaggerating.”

Taylor shook his head seriously. “I wouldn’t joke about something as serious as this pie,” he said behind a smirk.

“Well you know,” she stated softly, “if you stick around for Christmas, I’ll make a whole new one, just for you.”

Taylor smiled around the food in his mouth. He swallowed before speaking. “We’ll be around for Christmas. This year it’s Thanksgiving with the Bryants, Christmas with the Hansons.”

“So, how <I>was</I> your Thanksgiving?” Diana inquired. Her eyes twinkled with curiosity.

Taylor shook his head with a smirk and rolled his eyes, but the look on his face showed laughter. “Insane,” he summed it up in one word. He took a sip of the coffee his mother had prepared for him, chasing the cherry pie. “You think our holidays are chaotic? Uncle Stew was designated as the turkey cooker, but he showed up with out it. So our options were go <I>buy</I> a turkey on Thanksgiving and cook it all before everyone started showing up, or go without turkey.” He paused, grappling with the humor of the memory.

“That’s just…”

“Unacceptable,” Taylor finished for her, nodding his head. “They ended up sending Uncle Stew and I out to find a turkey. And we actually got lucky and found one that was already prepared…all we had to do was re-heat it. Then Grandma Ellie decides that she’s going to stop setting the table, and help with the mashed potatoes. So, she sets a stack of glass plates on the stove and grabs the pan that had the potatoes. She mashes them and puts them back on the stove to put salt and pepper in them, and all of a sudden we hear this huge crash.”

“The plates,” Diana laughed, knowingly. Taylor nodded.

“They…exploded. There were shards of glass in the mashed potatoes. And it was almost time to eat, so we couldn’t make new potatoes.”

Diana covered her mouth, trying to keep from laughing at the amusement in her son’s eyes.

“So, again, Uncle Stew and I are sent to the store to pick up some instant potatoes, while they clean up the glass, and attempt to salvage the rest of the meal. We get back with the potatoes, they cook them, and we all sit down and get ready to eat and realize…the turkey is still in the oven. In the chaos of the broken glass and re-cooking the potatoes, we’d completely forgotten about it.”

“Instant potatoes and burned turkey,” Diana laughed.

“Burned, <I>dry</I>, turkey,” Taylor corrected her, his index finger pointed in her direction. He smiled as he put another forkful of pie into his mouth and slowly began chewing, savoring every flavor.

“And then there were the kids,” Taylor said with a sigh. “They would have been perfectly good had everyone not felt the need to fawn over them, and then fill them up with sugar.”

Diana shook her head, knowing all too well the affects of sweet children on adults, and the affects of sweet sugar on children. “I remember Aunt Patty always doing that with you kids. Every time I turned my back she was giving you sugar. And by 9:00, I couldn’t get any of you to calm down.”

Taylor nodded and the two were silent for a few moments. “So yea…things were a little chaotic. And then we didn’t get in until a few hours ago.”

“Is everyone at home sleeping?” She prodded, referring to Natalie and the kids.

Taylor nodded. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“So you said,” she smiled appreciatively. Taylor had called her around 4:30, stating that they’d made it home safely. He said he was taking a drive because he couldn’t sleep, and asked if he could come over. Of course, no was not an option. Diana was always an early riser. She said she got the most accomplished when everyone was still sleeping. She kept herself focused that way. She and Taylor had shared many early mornings together, talking until the sun came up, and then sneaking back to bed.

“So how was Thanksgiving around here?” Taylor wanted to know, devouring the last bite of his little piece of heaven also known as his mother’s homemade cherry pie.

“You know, crazy as usual. The dramatics, the hysterics, the enormous amount of food.” Taylor grinned, remembering fondly all of his Thanksgiving memories. “This year it snowed though, so we were able to send all the kids out to play in it for a while.”

“Life saver,” Taylor chuckled, picking up the last few crumbs of his pie by smashing them with the pad of his finger. He stuck it in his mouth, grating them off with his teeth. Taylor looked over his mother’s shoulder, out the kitchen window into the backyard. The sun was starting to peak it’s way up over the hills and he sighed, full of pie, full of contentment. “The sun is starting to come up,” he stated.

“You should probably be getting back home to your family,” Diana suggested, taking his plate and taking it to the sink for him.

“Probably,” he agreed, but made no attempt to move as his mother sat back down across from him. He leaned back in his chair lazily and crossed his arms over his stomach.

“You need to be home when that baby of yours wakes up.” Taylor nodded, a grin spreading across his face. His daughter had recently started going through her separation issues. If she didn’t see Daddy within five minutes of waking up, all hell was going to break loose. And nothing could calm her except the soothing voice of her Daddy.

As Taylor stood up, preparing to leave, his mom stood up with him. She pulled him into a hug and he kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks for the coffee and pie,” he murmured next to her ear.

“Honey, if all I have to do is bake a pie to get you over here more often, I’d bake pies every day.”

Taylor laughed as he pulled away from the embrace. He smiled at his mother, happy and content. “You act like you never see me,” he said as she held his hands at her sides.

“Not enough, Taylor. Not enough.”

“We’ll all come over tomorrow,” he promised. “To make up for missing Thanksgiving.”

“Okay,” she agreed, letting go of her hands. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Taylor pulled her in for one more quick hug and one more assured, ‘I love you,’ before grabbing his coat from the couch in the living room and heading out the door. Diana followed him as far as the front door and watched as he made his way to his car.

She looked upward, noticing that snow flakes were still falling from the sky. “Be careful,” she hollered as he opened his car door. “It’s still snowing, and the roads are probably slick.”

“I will,” he said, laughter in his eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”