It's Just Cake

He smelled the rum before he saw the cake.

That was how trouble started. Not with a decision or a weak moment, just a smell getting into the room ahead of a person.

Walter was sitting by the fish tank with a large-print book open in his lap. He had been on the same page for twenty minutes.

Tuesday at Briar Glen meant chair yoga at ten, tomato soup at noon, and bingo at two-thirty unless somebody had died. Nobody had died that morning, as far as Walter knew, so bingo was still on.

Then the doors opened.

Butter. Sugar. Walnuts.

And rum.

Walter looked down at his book.

Thirty-two years, four months, eleven days.

He did not say the number out loud. There was a time when he would. Now it just showed up in his head. Exact. Annoying.

A woman came in wearing a raincoat and carrying a cake. She had balloons too, yellow ones, bobbing around on their strings. She stopped at the nurses’ desk and smiled like she had practiced it.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m here for Evelyn Porter. It’s her birthday.”

The nurse looked up from a chart. “Of course. Happy birthday to Evelyn.”

“I brought her rum cake.” The woman lifted the carrier a little. “It’s her recipe. Well, my attempt at her recipe.”

Walter turned a page. There. He had turned a page. That was something.

The nurse looked at the cake. “Is there alcohol in it?”

The woman laughed.

“Not really. I mean, yes, technically. But it bakes off, right?”

There it was.

It bakes off.

People loved that phrase.

The nurse made the face like she wanted to be nice and follow rules at the same time. “Let me check the dietary notes.”

“Oh, sure,” the woman said. “Of course. It’s for everyone, really. Mom used to make it every Christmas. I thought it might be nice for the residents.”

The residents.

Walter hated that word. It made them sound temporary.

Across the room, Evelyn Porter sat under the window in a mauve cardigan, asleep.

Her daughter looked at her and the smile changed. Not gone, just tired.

Walter knew Evelyn, sort of. Everyone at Briar Glen knew everyone sort of. She had been there eight months. Some days she was sharp. Some days she folded napkins for a dinner party that was not happening. Once she called Walter “Frank” and told him the garage door was open. He had told her he would take care of it.

The daughter walked over to her.

“Mom?”

Evelyn did not wake.

“Mom, it’s Claire.” She crouched beside the wheelchair and tied the balloons to the armrest. “Happy birthday.”

Evelyn opened her eyes. Pale eyes. Watery. Suspicious.

“I made your cake,” Claire said. “Your rum cake.”

Evelyn looked at the balloons.

“The one with the walnuts,” Claire said. “You remember, the one you made every Christmas Eve.

Evelyn blinked.

Claire smiled harder. “I brought enough for everybody.”

Walter closed the book.

He should leave. That was the smart thing to do. Just get up, walk to his room, and turn on the television.

But the cake was already in the room.

The smell was in the room now. Leaving would not change that. Leaving would just make him feel chased.

The nurse came back with paper plates and a plastic knife.

“Small pieces,” she said. “And we’ll avoid anyone with restrictions.”

Claire nodded.

“Of course.”

She took the cake out from under the dome.

It was a Bundt cake. High, golden, ridged all the way around. Glaze shone in the grooves. Walnuts stuck to the top. The center hole was dark and damp.

People started noticing.

“Is it somebody’s birthday?”

“Cake?”

“What kind?”

“Rum cake,” said Mr. Alvarez, “Now that’s a cake.”

Somebody laughed.

“At our age,” Mrs. Berman said, “what’s the harm?”

Walter stood up.

His knees did not like that. He meant to walk away. Really, he did. But he found himself going closer instead.

Claire was cutting the cake. The plastic knife dragged and bent. Crumbs clung to it. When she lifted the first slice, the smell came up warm.

Not like a bar. This smelled like kitchens. Christmas. Women talking over running water. Nuts chopped too fine. Coffee perking somewhere. Respectable things.

That was the trouble with it.

“Would you like a piece?” Claire asked him.

Walter looked at her.

She had tired eyes. Daughter eyes.

“No, thank you,” he said.

“You’re sure? It’s my mother’s recipe.”

He could have said sugar. That would have ended it. People understood sugar.

But sugar wasn’t the trouble.

“I don’t eat rum cake,” he said.

Claire’s face changed. Just a little.

“Oh,” she said. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

He hated that. Her apology. His part in making her apologize.

“It’s fine,” he said.

It was not fine, but people said that.

Claire turned and served Mrs. Berman.

Walter stayed by the table.

Evelyn had been wheeled closer. Someone had put a paper plate on her lap. A small slice of cake sat on it, leaning a little.

Claire knelt beside her again.

“Here, Mom. Taste.”

Evelyn stared at the cake.

“You made this every year,” Claire said. “You remember?”

Evelyn picked at a walnut with one fingernail.

Claire leaned closer. “It’s your recipe.”

Evelyn lifted the slice. Her fingers shook. She brought it almost to her mouth and then stopped. She sniffed it.

For one second, maybe two, her face came back. Not all of it. Enough. Walter saw somebody who had once run a kitchen and did not suffer fools. Somebody who knew exactly when a cake was done and exactly who had been drinking from the bottle.

Then Evelyn lowered the slice.

“Too wet,” she said.

Claire laughed. It came out wrong.

“What?”

“Too wet.”

“It’s supposed to be moist.”

Evelyn looked away, bored already. “She ruined it.”

There was a little silence. Not full silence. This place never got full silent. There was always a TV somewhere, a cart squeaking, someone coughing.

Claire held the plastic knife in one hand.

“I followed the card,” she said.

Nobody had asked.

Walter went back to his chair by the fish tank.

On the little table beside it, somebody had left a slice of cake on a napkin.

Maybe Mrs. Berman had put it there and forgotten. Maybe an aide had meant to bring it to someone else. Maybe God had a mean streak.

The cake sat six inches from his elbow.

The glaze had soaked down into the crumbs. Walnuts shone on top.

Walter sat down carefully.

He looked at the fish.

Thirty-two years, four months, eleven days.

He had not wanted a drink that morning. That was the stupid part. He had woken up under the same white ceiling, put on the same brown cardigan, swallowed his pills from the same little paper cup, and wanted nothing more dangerous than decent coffee.

Then a woman in a green raincoat walked in with a cake and now he was twenty-nine again.

Twenty-nine and charming.

Twenty-nine and a liar.

Twenty-nine and telling Ruth he would be home by supper when he knew he would not be.

Ruth had been dead twelve years. She missed all this. The walker, the hip, the bathroom rail, the nurses who called him “hon.” Lucky woman.

She used to make fruitcake every December. Terrible fruitcake. Dense as a doorstop. She wrapped it in cheesecloth and soaked it with brandy. Walter made jokes about it every year and ate three slices every year.

After he got sober, she stopped making it.

He told her she didn’t have to stop.

She said she knew.

That was marriage. Two people lying gently over coffee.

The rum cake beside him smelled warm, though it could not still be warm.

It was only cake.

Not a drink.

The alcohol baked off.

Not all of it, said the boring voice in his head. The counselor voice. The pamphlet voice.

Enough of it, said the other voice. The better voice. You’re old. You’re not driving anywhere. You’re not going to rob a bank. It’s a piece of cake. Eat the cake.

He imagined picking it up. Not even the whole slice. Just a bite. The damp sugar on his tongue. The rum at the back of the throat. Not drunkenness. He knew better than that. Recognition. That was worse.

He wanted it.

God help him, he wanted it.

Not because he wanted to get drunk. He did not want to get drunk. He wanted to eat the damn cake and have it not mean anything.

He wanted nobody to know.

He wanted everybody to know and say he could.

He wanted to be trusted. He wanted to be stopped. He wanted Ruth to be there to make a face and take the plate away.

Across the room, Claire was cleaning crumbs off the cake carrier with a napkin. Evelyn slept again, her slice untouched on her lap.

Walter looked at the cake beside him.

He stood up too fast and got a white flash in his hip. Had to grab the chair. Very dignified. A brave old warrior, nearly killed by standing.

He picked up the slice.

It was heavier than it looked.

He carried the cake to the trash can by the nurses’ station. His hand hovered over it.

He waited for some good clean feeling. Some little trumpet of victory.

Nothing.

Just anger.

A mean, childish anger. Because after thirty-two years, four months, and eleven days, he was still taking orders from dessert.

He dropped the cake in the trash.

“Shame,” said someone behind him.

Walter turned.

Evelyn Porter was awake. Her eyes were on the trash can.

“It was too wet,” Walter said.

She looked at him for a while.

“Then you noticed.”

“I did.”

“Card’s wrong,” she said.

Walter glanced at Claire. She was still at the table, trying to look busy.

“What’s wrong with it?”

Evelyn’s mouth moved. Nothing came out at first. He waited. People didn’t wait enough in that place. They repeated, rephrased, patted hands. Walter waited.

“Glaze after,” she said finally.

“After what?”

“After it cools.” She sounded irritated now. Good. “Poke the holes after it cools. Then glaze. Otherwise it goes soggy.”

Walter laughed.

Claire looked over.

“Your mother says the glaze goes on after it cools,” Walter called.

Claire went still.

Evelyn closed her eyes.

“What did she say?” Claire asked.

Walter repeated it. “Poke the holes after it cools. Otherwise it gets soggy.”

Claire stared at her mother.

“That’s not on the card.”

“Card’s wrong,” Evelyn said, eyes still closed.

Claire put one hand to her mouth.

“Oh my God,” she said. “She did. She always did that. She’d send me to set the table, and when I came back, the holes were already there.” She looked at Walter like he had found something she dropped years ago. “I thought I had it exactly.”

Walter nodded.

Claire looked back at the cake. “Everyone said it was good.”

“People are polite,” Walter said.

A wet little laugh came out of her.

Evelyn opened one eye.

“Needs orange,” she said.

Claire bent down fast. “Orange zest?”

But Evelyn had gone somewhere else. Her eyes were on the balloons now, yellow and silly above her chair.

Claire stood beside Walter. Neither of them said anything for a minute.

“I shouldn’t have brought it,” she said.

Walter did not answer.

“I don’t know what I thought would happen.”

He had several nice things he could say. She loved it. She knows you’re here. It’s the thought that counts.

“You wanted the cake to fix something,” he said

Claire looked at him.

It was probably rude. But Walter was old enough that people sometimes mistook rude for wise. He let them.

After a moment she said, “Yes.”

He nodded toward the cake carrier. “I used to think whiskey could do more than whiskey could do.”

Claire’s eyes dropped.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “About the rum. I didn’t think.”

“No,” Walter said. “People don’t. That’s not a crime.”

“I asked if it baked off.”

He looked at Evelyn asleep under her balloons. He looked at the cake with its missing slices and wet middle. He looked at his own hand, which was steady now, though it had no right to be.

“It never all bakes off,” he said.

“The alcohol?”

Walter shrugged.

“That too.”

At two-thirty, bingo happened. Nobody was dead, so the schedule held. Evelyn won the first round because Marisol helped her mark the card.

Walter went back to his chair.

The room smelled like cake for a long time. The rum stayed underneath, but quieter.

Before Claire left, she came over to him by the fish tank.

“I’m going to try again,” she said.

Walter looked up.

“With the glaze after. And orange.”

“Good.”

“No rum, though.” She looked embarrassed when she said it, but she said it. “Maybe tea for the raisins. Maybe vanilla. I don’t know.”

“Don’t call it rum cake,” Walter said.

Claire looked over at her mother. Evelyn was asleep with a bingo chip in her lap.

“What should I call it?”

Walter thought of Ruth’s fruitcake. Awful stuff. Beloved stuff. He thought of the first Christmas after he stopped drinking, when the house felt wrong. Too quiet.Like everyone was waiting for him to ruin it.

He thought of all the things people changed so they could keep going.

“Call it something else,” he said.

Claire laughed then. Not politely. A real one, small but real.

“I can do that.”

After she left, Walter sat by the fish tank. The automatic doors opened and closed behind her. The green raincoat flashed once and was gone.

The common room was almost quiet. Not quiet. Never quiet. But close enough.

Walter did the math again.

Thirty-two years, four months, eleven days.

Tomorrow he could add another day.

If he got to tomorrow.