'Miss Havisham makes a flourless chocolate cake' by Kathy Prokhovnik

A new recipe gusted in with the grit of autumn leaves and browned petals. A new spell to summon him. Reluctant and eager, she measures out almond meal in that house of cobwebbed memory, where hope gathers in folds upon the floor. 

Maybe. If she had been less measured. Let his hands fold around hers, let him pour into the open bowl of her love.

She melts butter and chocolate, stirring it soft and gleaming, luscious.

She will never know luscious, although her heart melts. She knows bitter. Regret settles dusty on every fly-spotted vase, every tarnished tray.

She cracks each egg with a butter knife, mixes its viscous yellow and white into sugar.

Her own eggs, deep inside, rattle and call. Unused.

Eggs beat to pale and creamy, despite the salt of her tears. She mixes in almond meal, adds the cooled butter and chocolate. Pours the batter into a buttered tin, slides it into the oven. The crumbling husk of her wedding cake oversees.

She sits in her chair. Around her, the cliff house rocks with the wind. Encrusted chandeliers no longer tinkle on blustery days.

The smell from the oven alerts her. She cools the cake and cuts it, thick brown crumbs falling to the plate. She places pieces on gold-rimmed plates, sets them out on the table, a silver fork beside. 

Now he appears, his presence more life-like than hers. Radiant. She lets her eyes fill again, this time with sweet, dripping memory. She gorges on his smile, on those days long past. And stops. Chokes back a final goodbye.

She clears a space in the grime of a window and looks out to sea, to the endless grey sea, chopped with waves. The smell of baking recedes, its comfort now more wistful than treacherous.

 

---

Kathy Prokhovnik writes fiction (long form, short stories, microfiction) and nonfiction. Her podcast series, ‘Seeking Sydney’, is produced with Spineless Wonders publishing. She is currently finalising her second novel, Safety in the Home.