Page 76 of Calamity Rayne Knocked Up

“Wow, do you smell that?” my mother asked and Elara scrunched her little nose to sniff the air noisily. The crisp, inviting scent of the apples overtook the earthy aroma of fall.

“Watch your step, Mom.” The ground was littered with scattered apples, but once they were on the ground they usually started to rot.

“They’re a lot taller than I realized,” my mom said, echoing my thoughts.

I looked around and chewed my lip. “Do you think there’s a ladder out here?”

“Rayne, you’re not climbing a ladder in your condition.”

“Mom, I’m pregnant, not made of glass.”

“If Hale sees you up on a ladder, he won’t be happy.”

“Well, Hale’s not here, is he?” I scanned the lines of trees. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t see a ladder.”

Elara picked up an apple and threw it, then ran down the path.

“Find the apples, Peanut!” Maybe she could do the work since I was already tired. “We have to fill the bag, but only the good ones.”

Once Elara understood the objective, the bag quickly filled. I sorted out the rotten ones and only kept the ones that weren’t bruised.

My mom took the bag when it got heavy. By the time we returned to the main house the men were sloshed. They were still in the parlor, but football played on the television in the den.

“Is this all that guys do on holidays, drink and make noise?” I didn’t know what men did on Thanksgiving because my dad was never around, but I did have higher expectations than the reality.

“They’re just having fun, Ray.”

The kitchen was ripe with savory smells. Hugo diced carrots while Marta stirred a large pot of something spicy on the stove. I cleared a space on the old wooden farm table to work. Elara kneeled on a chair and watched as we peeled and cut the apples, eating slices as we went.

Marta located all the ingredients, and mymom made the cinnamon caramel filling on the stove. I helped Elara dump the dry ingredients into a big bowl to make the dough.

“Niña, you need an apron,” Marta chided when a dust cloud of flour puffed in my face.

I laughed. “That’s okay. It’s only flour.” I held Elara’s hand over an egg and showed her how to crack it against the bowl.

She looked at her hand in horror when a bit of the yoke got on her fingers. I picked the shells out of the batter while she flung the slime off her hand.

“Rayne, there are no eggs in Gran’s recipe.”

“Of course there’s eggs. You used to let me crack them when I was little, Mom.”

“That was for the bread pudding, not the pie.”

“Shit.” I looked down at the broken yoke seeping into the combination of ingredients.

“Shit,” Elara repeated, holding out her hand for me to clean.

I wiped her palm with a tea towel. “Hey, don’t say that word.”

She frowned at the white powder now on her palm. “Shit!”

“Great. Can someone please bring me a spoon?”

Marta handed me a ladle to scoop out the egg.

“There you are.” Hale appeared in the kitchen then did a double take. “You’re baking?”

“We’re making a pie.”

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