Chapter 7 - The Recipe Box
By Saturday afternoon, the kitchen smelled like melted butter, vanilla, and roasted pecans.
Catherine was sitting comfortably at the kitchen table—not in the heavy medical recliner, but in her regular oak chair—sorting through an old, wooden recipe box filled with index cards written in her mother’s spidery cursive handwriting.
Isaac sat across from her, quietly reviewing an acquisition contract while absently watching her turn the yellowed cards.
Megan was at the counter, attempting to salvage yesterday’s failed biscuit disaster by turning them into a spiced bread pudding, humming softly along to the radio.
“Here it is,” Catherine murmured, pulling out a grease-stained card with frayed edges. She adjusted her reading glasses and squinted at the faded ink.
“What is it, Mom?” Isaac asked, glancing up.
“Your grandfather’s apple cinnamon crumb cake,” she said, her voice bright with sudden enthusiasm. “We haven't made this in ten years. Not since your wedding, Isaac.”
Isaac paused, remembering the massive, multi-tiered pastry from his wedding reception—a wedding that had ended in a quiet, amicable divorce three years later when both of them realized they were married to their respective careers.
“Do we have the ingredients?” Megan asked, wiping her hands on a towel and leaning over the back of Catherine’s chair.
Catherine scanned the card. “Apples, flour, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and farm eggs. Ruth brought home fresh eggs from the Miller farm yesterday.”
“Well,” Megan smiled, looking across the table at Isaac. “Looks like the executive board has to recess. We need an apple peeler.”
Isaac closed his laptop with a soft snap. “I can peel apples.”
Megan blinked in genuine surprise. “You? A billionaire tech mogul who spends his life staring at algorithms?”
“I spent my summers at my grandfather’s orchard in Vermont, Megan,” Isaac said, standing up and rolling up his white shirt sleeves. “I can peel an apple faster than you can audit a balance sheet.”
“Prove it,” Megan challenged, sliding a cutting board and a paring knife across the counter toward him.
For the next two hours, the grand Mercer kitchen—usually as quiet and sterile as a surgical suite—transformed into a chaotic, flour-covered battlefield of domesticity.
Isaac stood at the counter, his expensive sleeves rolled up, methodically peeling crisp green apples with steady, practiced precision, tossing the skins into a metal bowl while arguing with Megan over the correct ratio of cinnamon to brown sugar.
Catherine sat nearby, directing operations like a general overseeing a campaign, occasionally correcting their measurements with sharp, humorous authority.
When the crumb cake finally went into the oven, the timer was set for forty-five minutes.
May you like
The three of them sat around the wooden table, exhausted, covered in a light dusting of flour, drinking cold lemonade while the afternoon sunlight poured through the windows, turning the dust motes in the air to gold.
For the first time since his father’s funeral, Isaac felt like he was actually sitting in a home, rather than an estate.
