Page 6 of Honey Sugar
Ever since I graduated high school last summer, I had time to wake up in the mornings and make fresh batches of hard candy and lollipops for Honey Sugar, the sweet shop my mother owned. It may have been her business baby but I loved Honey Sugar like it was my own brainchild. We were famous for our honey lollipops and hard candy and those were my specialties.
“Ivy, is the syrup ready to be poured?” My mother called to me from the front of the store.
“It is. Can I put a little whiskey in this batch?” I quizzed.
“No, you can’t. You know how I feel about mixing alcohol in with my candies. I only use it in the chocolate liqueur truffles.” I heard her steady footsteps moving toward the kitchen and I took the pot of sugar and honey off the stove to cool before pouring it into molds.
“Please, Mama,” I begged with my sticky hands clasped underneath my chin.
“No, Ivy. That’s enough.” She shook her head at me and pushed back strands of black and silver hair that fell in her face. When she lifted her arm to comb through her long hair with her fingers, I saw a new bruise on her forearm. It was purple and angry. My heart fell to the pit of my stomach.
“You and Daddy get into it again last night?” I asked even though I knew the answer. They got into it every night for one reason or another.
“Ivy,” she warned with her tone.
My nostrils flared and I pulled in deep breaths to calm myself. After years of watching and hearing my father beat my mother, I thought I’d become immune. The way my stomach clenched and my veins burned with lava told me there was no immunity to watching your hero get trampled.
“What, Mama? Am I supposed to keep seeing new bruises and not mentioning it?”
“I’d prefer it. Your father was mad last night. That’s all. Wasn’t anything I haven’t dealt with before.” Mad was code for Daddy was high and went on a rampage.
My muscles stiffened until pain stormed my nervous system in steady thrums. “Mama, I thought you said things would get better after he got that loan.” I tucked my chin to my chest and kept my eyes trained on the honey sugar. Even though Daddy didn’t work in the store, his presence was everywhere. It was sticky, hot napalm that burned my skin no matter where he was in the world.
Today he was at home asleep. Probably still hung over from coke and moonshine. The thought left a sour taste in my mouth.
“The last thing I need from you right now is lip about what happens in grown folks bedrooms at night. Now, stay in a child’s place and let me suffer alone.” She left the kitchen in a huff and I fought back the biting tears begging to storm down my cheeks. I knew my face was flushed and crimson from holding in the hot emotions burning holes in my heart.
I was no stranger to holding things in. It was how I survived without having my life ripped to shreds. It was how I maintained day after day without drinking the poison offered to me by the blackness in my mind. Sometimes that poison seemed delicious. Sometimes I wanted to drink it and shrink away into darkness forever.
I poured sticky hot syrup into lollipop molds and tapped all the bubbles out. Maybe I tapped the molds a little too hard because some of the thick liquid sloshed onto my fingers. I pulled them back quickly and sighed. Nothing like having hot liquid sugar get on your skin. I had to calm my energy down. Nothing would be right until I did.
Why wasn’t I used to the way my mother snapped at me yet?
Why did it still ache down to my core no matter how many times it happened?
I tucked a rogue spiral curl behind my ear and sniffled away invisible tears as I slid the metal tray of lollipops into the chiller. I moved on to the hard candy molds next. I had to work quickly or else the honey sugar syrup would turn solid and I’d be out of luck. There was no reheating the special generations-old mixture we used. I had one shot to get it right and I got it right every time.
I had so many pots of syrup turn to honey cement on me when I was younger that I was a pro at it now. That’s why my mother trusted me with the recipe and the process. I had it down to a science.
When I was done pouring the hard candies I noticed I had a partial pot of syrup leftover. I looked around to make sure my mother wasn’t nearby, then I found a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey I had hidden in the cupboard and poured it into the pot right before it was too late. I poured the alcohol syrup into hard candy molds and left one mold empty so I could tell it apart from the regular candies. That would be my treat for later on. I moved them to the chiller and got to work on the chocolates.
They were already in the fridge and had been overnight. I drizzled half the huge batch caramel then the other half with dark chocolate ganache. I popped them each out of the silicone mold then moved on to the next batch of chocolate candies. Those got white chocolate and peanut butter drizzles.
That’s how I spent my mornings every day. It didn’t bother me one bit though. I loved being in Honey Sugar. It was how I escaped my annoying reality.
By the time we were ready to open, I’d made all the hard candy and lollipops for the day and drizzled all the chocolates. The sweet shop sold much more than hard candy, chocolates and lollipops though. We sold taffy, jawbreakers, bubble gum, gummies, truffles, fruit chews, licorice sticks, candy powder, candied honeysuckles and everything in between. Honey Sugar drew national attention from all over. It was even featured on the Food Network as one of Louisiana’s most charming vintage shops.
You’d think we had money coming out of our ears, right?
Wrong.
While we weren’t drowning in debt, things weren’t easy for us because Daddy had a coke habit that moved faster than the customers in and out of our sweet shop. When I was ten, Daddy decided Honey Sugar needed more income but he wasn’t willing to pay for more ingredients or products. He started selling moonshine under the table and he made a killing. It still wasn’t enough to fill the gaping money hole he created every week when he got eight balls of coke to blow through.
Even though most things Daddy did in Honey Sugar got under my skin, I did like the addition of moonshine. It’s what made me want to add liquor to the candies we made in house daily. I flavored all the moonshine after Daddy made it. I jarred it all up and labeled it too. Some days it felt like I was running Honey Sugar and Daddy’s illegal moonshine operation all by myself.
Mama wanted me to go to college but I couldn’t leave the sweet shop up to her and Daddy. They were dysfunctional, to say the least. All my mother did was ring up customers and provide a smiling face.
“Ivy, can you bring me four strawberry specials?” Whenever my mother asked for a special, it meant get the moonshine from the storage room and meet the customer at the back door. I counted out four mason jars full to the brim with moonshine I’d flavored with strawberries and strawberry honey. I packed the four jars carefully in an old motor oil box and hot glued the flaps down so the box looked unopened. If we got caught running illegal moonshine Honey Sugar would close for good and Mom and Daddy would go to jail.
