"Before we bake," I said. "Do you think we could make a monster leaf pile?"
Sarah jumped out of the truck on her side and left the door open for me.
"Why not?"
Jane and Gary started towards the house, but Tom lingered, gathering rakes from the shed, and helped us make the pile all the faster.
As we worked, I noticed it was cooler out, but still not cold enough to have to bundle up. I took a deep breath and kept raking until the job was complete.
Because we had all worked hard, we decided it was only fair for us to jump in at once. And the pile was big enough to grant our wish. At the count of three, we leapt forward and plowed through the heart of the pile. Leaves exploded around us. They danced in the air and rained over us. I darted up from underneath as if in water and laughed hard from the exciting feeling I felt in my belly.
"You look like a dead tree!" I called to Tom who was plastered with leaves as they stuck to his clothing and hair.
"And what about yourself? I suppose you think you're a rose from a neatly kept garden." He flicked a leaf from his shoulder.
"Yes, I do," I announced.
"And you're right."
I looked at him and he smiled. Was he flirting?
I turned toward Sarah. "Want to play hide and seek? We didn't get to last time."
"Sure. Tom will you be the seeker?"
"Sure, just make sure danger prone doesn't trap herself in another snake quarry," he joked.
I stuck my tongue out at him before he buried his face in a tree and started counting.
We quickly split ways and raced for a hiding place. This time, I stayed far away from anything that a snake would live in and found a place behind a large rock inside a mangled bush. When the counting stopped, I held my breath and waited silently. But after several minutes of not being found, my eyes wondered, and I saw something shiny on the ground a couple of feet away from me.
Forgetting that I was hiding, I came out and picked it up. But it was only a shard of glass. I began to pitch it, but the shine on the glass dug into my memories and pulled one of them back up.
I could see my stepfather. He was drunk, after he had been drinking all night. And in his drunken state, he was always meaner, always crueler. And his anger always raging. I was on the floor. I was in my bedroom. He was throwing things at me. Bottles. Glass bottles. His empty beer bottles. They shattered, snapped, exploded against the walls. Before I knew it, I was trapped in the middle of broken shards. They surrounded me. And I was cut, callously bleeding from my forearm.
The flashback scared me. More than scared. It went deep, attaching itself to my bones. I cried, hard, and instant. The pain, as it had been at the time of the memory, filled me back up. But a sudden voice brought me back to reality. It was Tom's.
"Oh brother. What happened this time?" He was joking, I knew by how he said it. But he saw my tears.
"LeAnna, what happened?" His voice firmed with concern.
I didn't answer. It was like the memories had flooded into my throat, preventing me from speaking.
He spotted the shard in my hand. "Did you get hurt?"
I still didn't answer.
He grabbed my shoulders. "LeAnna, I don't like feeling worried about you. Talk to me."
"Leave me alone," I hissed.
"No." His voice was hard.
I fell to my knees and cried. That's when he scooped me up and started walking.
"Is she okay? What happened?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know. I'm taking her inside." He brought me to a couch and called for Jane.
"Darling, do you need to go home?" She asked, concerned.
"No, I'll be fine." I spent a couple of minutes focusing on breathing, trying to calm down. "I'm really sorry."
She handed me a cup of tea she had made and sat beside me. It smelled like peppermints. "Would you like to talk about what's bothering you?"
I searched the coffee table as I thought about the memory.
"We were playing hide and seek, and I saw a piece of glass. At first, it wasn't a big deal. But it triggered a flashback in my mind." I pointed toward a scar on my arm and explained how it had happened.
Jane wrapped her arms around me. "The most important thing is that you are safe now."
I thanked her and wiped the tears from my cheeks. She handed me a tissue from the side table near her.
"Now how about you and Sarah bake those cookies that she keeps talking about."
I smiled and stood.
Chapter 12
The Profession
"Only five simple ingredients," Sarah rang, sitting out the butter and egg carton from the refrigerator. She opened the cabinet above the black marble island and snatched the tiny bottle of vanilla. The sugar and peanut butter were in their huge walk-in pantry.
First, she mixed the butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla in a bowl. Then, she spooned in the peanut butter. Before putting them in the oven, she took a fork and made crisscross lines over the dough balls.
"Moma taught me how to make these when I was little. I've been making them ever since."
I smiled, secretly wishing I had been raised like her. I imagined a life with a mother teaching me recipes and spending my time in a big beautiful kitchen wearing an apron and baking sweets.
While the cookies baked, we read some of my new book. And when the timer dinged, we took them out and placed each cookie on a cooking rack.
She halved one that was still hot and gave me it to try.
The cookie was soft and creamy in my mouth. "Wonderful!"
"Your turn," she said, pointing towards the ingredients on the counter.
"Okay. I can't promise you that they will turn out as good as yours. But I'll try. Stand by me
