God of Cooking

Bread is not beautiful.

Probably many people won’t disagree with that statement because bread is just bread. It can taste delicious, but it can’t be beautiful. Of course, as for a cake with all kinds of decorations, it may look beautiful, but in general, nobody will say bread is beautiful.

But bread was beautiful to Lisa. It was not just the kind of fancy cake with decorations. Rye bread without special seasonings or decoration, baguettes just baked, or even the dough that was not yet baked but swelling in a circle was beautiful in Lisa’s eyes.

She lived her whole life, thinking the dust inside the bakery was as pretty as snow. And she had never thought that her whole life was shabby. Her life was as beautiful as Jack’s. In other words, it was valuable.

“Valuable…”

At the Santa Monica Beach parking lot.

Lisa was sitting still in her car. It was not a neighborhood where it rained often, but lots of rain collected on the car windows on that day. They weren’t typical big raindrops. Each of them, which seemed to be raindrops crushed finely like powder, was messing with the car windows like flour.

Nonetheless, she could see the sea. She could look outside. Even if those raindrops covered the car windows, it looked as if the far-off sea was approaching her at any moment.

“I just envy it. It looks like ink, not raindrops, spilled over my life. I can’t see anything straight.”

Lisa muttered in lament. She stared blankly at the sea for a long time. She was choked with tears. It wasn’t that she got carried away with the sea waves fluttering firmly despite the scattering raindrops. It was not because she felt sorry for herself trying to hide her life collapsing inside the car.

She just felt empty just like these raindrops beautifully stuck to each other drying up once it was daytime. Just like the sea where so many people roamed around became quiet when it was raining. It would be noisy with people again. She felt like everything shining in front of her was just meaningless. And she felt it was like her life.

She wanted to be the sea, not rain. She hated the type of life like rain just deserted on the ground carelessly, crushed by rocks, emptying into a dirty sewer before flowing to a place that no one remembered. She wished she could always stand there firmly in her place, as always, like the sea.

Suddenly somebody’s face came to her mind. She almost instinctively turned the car key to start the engine. The raindrops on the car windows began to soak somewhere because of the sudden wind blowing over somewhere.

By the time she drove back to her house, there were more water droplets falling on the tips of branches than raindrops falling from the sky. She rushed into the house with an anxious expression, like someone who was very hungry. She tried to turn the door key wrong three times before she finally managed to open the door. When she stepped inside, Ella jumped up while sitting on the sofa in the living room.

“Mom!”

“Ella…”

“Where have you been? I’m so bored with Grandpa.”

Lisa quietly smiled at her and replied, “A quiet place.”

“You are so mean. You were there alone again?”

While she was pouting, Ella pulled Lisa’s arm and sat on the sofa. Then she started telling her mom in detail about what she went through at the elementary school today. Lisa stroked her hair with a quiet smile. In fact, she wasn’t focusing on her daughter’s story. She just liked it this time, namely some sort of warmth and coziness.

But there was some voice shouting inside her that she shouldn’t feel so comfortable. Her inner voice told her she should not stay complacent, and that she needed to be prepared.

So Lisa asked questions she didn’t want to ask, revealing feelings that she didn’t want to express.

“What would you do if I’m gone?”

“Mom, you won’t be gone.”

“Well, I may go on a business travel”

“I’ll follow you!”

“Even if it’s a place where you can’t follow me…?”

Ella frowned at her words. She couldn’t understand why her mom asked such a question. She just could not understand the situation itself.

Ella eventually repeated what she just said.

“I’ll follow you anyway.”

When she said that stubbornly, Lisa couldn’t say anything more because it was meaningless to ask. Instead, she asked, looking somewhere with a smile, “I wonder what Ella will grow to be later.”

“Baker!”

“Baker? You said last time you wanted to be a model, right?”

“I’m going to be a model and a baker.”

“The baker’s job is tough. Why do you insist on being a baker?”

Ella started rolling her eyeballs, hesitating to answer. It was not clear whether she found it hard to answer, or she didn’t know the reason.

When Lisa waited patiently, Ella soon began to carefully open her mouth.

“I want to make delicious bread like you, mom.”

“Like mom?”

“Yeah, you’re really cool when you make bread.”

“Don’t you remember you wanted me to stop baking bread and play with you?”

“Well, I don’t want you to be busy making bread, but I like bread, and mom making bread.”

“Oh, I’m touched…”

Lisa wept in tears at the moment. She didn’t smile but showed tears, even though her daughter was embarrassed to see her tears. Since she could not help it, she just hugged Ella tightly.

All mothers were perfect and strong. They know and achieve everything, but they were not. They were pillars for their children to rely on, but they might endure with their children as their pillars.

Lisa just thought for a moment that Ella’s wishes to be a baker made her think she wanted to be raindrops, not the sea, for her daughter. She wanted to be the raindrops that could grow her daughter.

She had lung cancer. And her doctor told her that she only had six months to live.

***

“What did you say a moment ago?”

Rachel’s eyes trembled. As if she heard something absurd, she made an expression as if she wanted to turn away from this reality. Watching her expression, Lisa thought she might have been loved a lot by Rachel.

Lost in childish thoughts like that, Lisa replied in a calm voice, “Cancer. Lung cancer.”

“It doesn’t make sense. How come…”

Rachel muttered ‘how come…’ several times and could not finish her words.

Lisa didn’t dare tell her to calm down because Rachel could not calm down as much as she cared about her. She just quietly watched Rachel’s restlessness.

“How serious is your condition?”

“According to the doctor, I can survive. If I have surgery, I can live a little longer, but it could be a harder time. And the surgery cost is high.”

“As for the surgery expenses, don’t worry. Let me pay for it. So, don’t ever think of not having surgery because of the surgery cost.”

“I’m relieved to hear that. As a matter of fact, I’m not in a situation to try to save my face. That’s why I’ve come to see you because I need your help.”

Lisa smiled at her, which was a smile that Rachel saw after a long time. But Rachel could not smile.

Lisa murmured, “I want to survive.”

With a resolute voice, she said, “I have to survive by all means. I can’t die. I want to see Ella go to college, and when she first drives, I want to watch her from the passenger seat. I want to be happy and sad because of that, and I want to see her get married and have a baby. I want to see them all while I’m alive. I want to see them all right next to Ella while I’m alive.”

“Sure, sure, you should. I’m going to help you, so you can do it.”

At that moment, Rachel tried to ask her one thing, but she didn’t. It was about her survival rate. She didn’t want to leave her with something like the probability of survival. If Lisa overcame it and survived, it would not matter at all how grotesque that survival rate was actually.

As a matter of fact, Rachel and Lisa had always said things people said were impossible. So, Rachel thought her sickness was not much different. She wanted to think so. The two remained silent for a long time. Their silence seemed to make them feel comfortable, but really not.

“Well, I’ve been living while hating you, Rachel. Me and my daddy, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But when I thought about it, it was so funny. Why do we hate you? We can just live the way we do. If Rachel was exhausted and wanted to take a rest, we could have our one way. But we thought our dream was ruined because of you. I thought I let somebody manage my dream.”

“Thank you for telling me so…”

“Don’t be grateful. I’m not saying you did good things to me. I said I just thought so, but I didn’t say I liked what I thought like that.”

Did she become brave because she was faced with death? Rachel looked bitter when she kept speaking out without any hesitation. Lisa moved her lips up and down while staring at Rachel.

But Rachel did not push her because she would say so anyway if she had to.

“I want to talk about what if, but I don’t want to.”

Rachel didn’t even have to ask the ‘what if’ she was talking about.

With Rachel looking at her quietly, Lisa opened her mouth in a trembling voice.

“My father is not feeling well. In the worst case, I won’t have a long time staying with Ella. I really don’t want to say things like this, but I have no choice but to tell you about what if I… So, Rachel, please do me a favor.”

“The ‘what if’ situation you have in mind won’t come.”

“Yes. I know it won’t come. I won’t let it come. But if that really happens, should I not have the luxury to not worry about it?”