The Coincidence of Coconut Cake

by Amy E. Reichert

I think careful cooking is love, don’t you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who’s close to you is about as nice a valentine as you can give. —JULIA CHILD

Best to keep it friendly and light, like a frothy meringue for dessert—enough sweet to end the meal on a happy note, without the substance to make you feel stuffed.

As long as we were together, we could overcome anything. The meanest tasks became pleasurable because we would find the humor together. When one got angry, the other would defuse; when one got lost, the other found the map. We balanced. When we dance, all is at peace. No worries, no insurmountable obstacles. We can handle anything together.

“Yes, Fred and Ginger. Otto and I are like Fred and Ginger. Alone, we were good. But together—perfection.”

He had spent his schooling days yearning for what these lucky people had been born to—a life that was enough.

“Yes, she’s not crazy. She has never done anything crazy.” “Until now. That’s how the really crazy ones work. You go along, everything’s all smiles and sunshine, then bam! You’re tied up in a gas station bathroom being fed Cheez Whiz through a funnel.”

HA!

“Barf . . . if you got any sappier it’d smell like a Pine-Sol commercial in here.”

We are born, we live, if we are lucky we love, then we die. That is the way, not something to mourn. Only mourn those who haven’t lived, who haven’t found love. They deserve your sadness, not us.”

“When you love someone, Schätzchen, you are never alone.”