Her face lit up.
“I knew it. You are saving my life.”
“What happened?”
“I’m making a cake for Saturday. My hand mixer is useless.”
Then she glanced past me toward the kitchen.
“The cream-colored one?”
My stomach tightened immediately.
“Yes.”
That mixer was different.
It was an old KitchenAid.
Heavy.
Cream-colored.
A few scratches near the base.
One tiny chip in the enamel where my father had dropped a metal measuring cup against it sometime in the nineties.
My mother bought it in 1989.
She used it almost every Sunday.
Bread dough.
Birthday cakes.
Christmas cookies.
Frosting.
Whipped cream.
When she got older and could no longer stand for long periods, she would sit at the kitchen table while I used it.
After she died, my sister and I divided most of her kitchen things.
I chose the mixer.
Not because it was valuable.
Because when that motor started, I could almost hear my mother moving around her kitchen again.
That probably sounds ridiculous to anyone who has never loved an ordinary object because of the person attached to it.
