Pie

She only made pie when she was upset. Creating something as delicate as crust kept her meditative about her problems. Crust can’t be over handled, can’t be worked over, won’t spring back from mistreatment. It retracts from abuse, becomes tough and browbeaten. Crust misused gets its revenge later.

The fillings didn’t matter. Fillings depended on the season more than the upset. Fillings didn’t require meditation, or a reminder to treat oneself gently in order to avoid being bruised and tough and inedible. She would make me pick piles of berries for freezing in summer. We would lay them out on a sheet pan to freeze first, so that they would stay perfect and whole the entire winter until they were mixed with sugar and baked in between flaky crusts.

She never made pumpkin pies because the end result never really warranted the effort that went into it. Winter was for bringing out the berries to remind us of sunshine that had drifted away behind the clouds and refused to come out from under the darkness for more than a few hours a day. In deepest winter, when we sought the comfort of the couch and the cats as they burrowed under the blankets to sleep curled up under our knees, we ate the heavy pies–peanut butter and chocolate, pecan, vanilla custard.

Looking back, I realize we ate pie pretty much every week typically, and sometimes every day. Not just sweet pies, savory as well. Once she discovered meat pies went beyond chicken pot pie, there were months where everything we ate came in a flaky crust. I’d watch her hands grate frozen butter into a mound of flour, adding in a bit of water, gently form and pat and tell her it was time to go see someone. She would gently smile and sprinkle more flour on the dough before she would bring out the rolling pin I bought to replace the one that broke against the door. Never answered me, never acknowledged that maybe this version of therapy wasn’t working anymore. That was the season we found out about her father. A year later, I went with her to clean out his apartment. It was shocking to see how many pies she had fit into his tiny freezer. He didn’t have a stove in his place because they all got their meals in the cafeteria. They would sit at tables, much like we did in junior high. And, proving no one ever really ages beyond 13, they would squabble about boyfriends and girlfriends and who got a bigger piece of cake. He didn’t squabble, I would guess. He’d lost interest in food months before.

I came home one day and the house smelled different. The scent of baking flour and butter was missing. The air was colder somehow, even though it was one of those summery spring days when you think that finally the rains have stopped and the blue skies will hover for a good six weeks before the rains start again. The kitchen was still, and the rolling pin was missing from its perch on the counter. I checked the freezer, and there were ten half pies there, neatly divided and thickly wrapped in plastic wrap. Small post its were taped to the top of each one, with baking instructions. Hard to bake half a pie. The filling spills out and it gets everywhere. The upper crust doesn’t stay lifted. A half a pie is a sad pie.