Sourdough
by Shauna Checkley
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 4 |
part 2
After supper, they all went their separate ways. Gordie went to the living room to watch the hockey game on TV while Petra played Candy Crush. Jasmyn filled her coffee cup and continued to wander about aimlessly, restlessly, entering a room and gazing about and then exiting as quickly. Should I try going online again? Nah, too risky. My luck they’d walk in and catch me red-handed. But maybe I could just try...
Jasmyn lived for the thrill, the danger of it, that all-encompassing excitement that her life seemed to lack otherwise. She craved that as much as she craved Reid. Yes, that’s what I’ll do, she decided. While everyone’s preoccupied, I’ll take advantage of this moment in time, this pocket of freedom. I’ll use it before it’s spoiled or comes to an end. Before it shifts into some other here and now.
She knew how quickly things changed about her. She had learned this from the Philosophy and Political Science classes that she had taken. The yin and the yang rising freely, unfettered, a Hegelian formula of thesis, antithesis, synthesis in a rollicking interplay she could barely fathom. She knew how life mutated, morphed. Changed. Spoiled. In these forces of life, these shadows of reality, all was the flux of Heraclitus. Yes, yes, that’s what I’ll do, she decided. But I’d better hurry... Besides, it’s almost seven o’clock. He’s soon to be there! Feeling unbridled longing, she rushed to the computer room.
Sitting in the Chaplain’s office, Reid noticed the time. Should FaceTime soon. Pastor Rob had already left. But he felt guilt creeping in like a strangling vine and so opted not to. She’s got a family, after all. And then he tried to shut out the family that he had wiped from the face of the earth. It was all too much for him. He had to take several deep breaths.
He also felt enormous guilt over lying to Pastor Rob about Jasmyn. Such a good man, salt of the earth, like yeast rising. How could I have told him that she is a girlfriend and not a married woman? What was I even thinking? But once more he opted to push all from his mind. As always.
Then he continued to read in both consolation and fascination. Tonight, he was reading the New Testament under Pastor Rob’s tutelage. The words of Jesus came to him like those of a living, vital personality who breathed life and hope into him, a spirit that spoke. “The eye is the lamp of the body.” Reid felt himself enliven and awaken as he reread those words.
Sounds like Rumi, too, he thought; he had begun to expand his readings somewhat. It just felt so good to think it, read it, say it aloud, even if he had to fear what Colton, his cellmate, would say. He closed his eyes and meditated on those words. He didn’t need to read so much now, at least not when he stumbled on a passage that spoke to him, that filled him with light and life and joy and hope, that gave him a glimpse of the freedom and the good that he so longed for.
Should he go on FaceTime? For a moment, Reid considered it. He was lonely, with few contacts inside or out, Jasmyn being one of the few steady figures in his life and a relatively sane one at that, a woman with a child, the mother figure he had always wanted, craved for even. She. Pretty she.
But no. Reid decided against it. He just wanted peace. That sense of calm and goodness that he was experiencing right then.
Reid returned to his Bible passage. One that he found intriguing, life-altering in fact, and he ignored the notion of contacting Jasmyn. Just gotta keep focused on staying well, healing myself, he thought, this having been his strategy for some time.
He had tried to explain his wishes to Jasmyn before, and to Colton, too, but none of them understood, no one except the prison Chaplain, Pastor Rob, whom he met with once a week. Nobody. I won’t bother trying to explain to Jasmyn again, Reid decided. I’ve tried. She just doesn’t get it. That’s all. I give up on doing that. But I won’t give up on recovery; that’s for sure.
Reid began to read when he returned to his cell. He would continue to do so until lights out, until the words began to detach from increasingly heavy eyes, become blurry mutations of themselves. And Ridgemont prison would become magically transformed into a dream wonderland.
* * *
Crap... Reid’s not there, Jasmyn thought. Probably reading one of his dumb books. But then she knew that there was not much else for him to do, so he might as well pass his time reading. Why not? It wasn’t worth getting stabbed over the TV. That’s for sure.
Still feeling disappointment over the events of the day, Jasmyn rose and went into the kitchen. The sourdough. The mother. I have neglected it as of late, so caught up I’ve been with everything else. I sure hope the stock hasn’t spoiled, changed...
Jasmyn recalled the lesson at Sunday school last week. It was how the Israelites were not allowed sourdough or anything leavened in their homes for seven days during that first Passover. As she handed out scented markers to the class, including Petra, Jasmyn listened with a sideways interest. Sourdough, she thought, there you go...
Opening the lid of the big roaster, she examined the contents inside. Still good, she judged. I’ll have to make some more biscuits, pancakes and stuff soon. Then she decided: Why not now? It’s still early. I have time enough tonight, she thought, and nothing to get up for early tomorrow, anyhow. A good free clear period that I can make use of.
An economy of the domestic had overtaken her as of late. She didn’t like to waste her time or energy any more than she tolerated kitchen spills or cleaning accidents. Her efforts doled out in tablespoons, measuring cups. Coffee spoons. Yes, I’ll do it. She washed her hands and commenced baking.
Jasmyn loved it. Always had. Baking was her hobby. Though not so into the other domestic arts, she did enjoy this one. Right from the time she first rolled out cookies with her mom, a little pre-schooler doing the obligatory mother-daughter cookie thing. Even to Christmas, when she was in Grade Two and she got the much-coveted Easy Bake oven.
Now a girl relic in this age of tech toys as even Petra, a real girly girl could hardly tear herself from her Play Station at times. Yes, Jasmyn remembered the big colourful box that the coveted toy came in. The one with a side panel that showed smiling, little girls hard at work over bountiful silver baking tins. She recalled her excitement and that very group of little friends she would invite over and bake with. Such a delight, even if the cookies turned out hard and black, she remembered.
Those were the days, Jasmyn thought, wistfully. She wondered how over thirty-five years could have passed since then? Think of it. As it always seemed to her that she would never grow up or grow old even, that all would remain as changeless as the static, little farming community in which she lived. But it had changed indeed. One shift after another like ever so mild tremors that knocked her out of her original life circumstances, that good, happy space in time.
Her early years had been pleasant enough. She recalled endless trips to the rink and the grocery store. She had the sense that all was as safe and secure as the teddy bears on the wallpaper in her bedroom. The ones with gray button-like eyes that stared blankly down at her when she snuggled in her denim patchwork quilt bed with her calico cat, Lucy.
But then Daddy was killed in a freak farming accident. And her mother proceeded to go through a string of men til she settled on one with gaps between his teeth and who was not keen on either the bald-ass prairies or children, and so Momma went to live with him in Nanaimo. Jasmyn was left in the care of her grandmother. She would grow up there.
Though she would go stay with her mother during summer holidays or whatever, it was never quite the same as it had been in the happy farmhouse. Her mother was a working woman now. She had a job at the phone company and always seemed busy, preoccupied, even strained.
There was a distance in her voice and touch, like a faraway light that was faltering, going out. She was a shadow of her former self. Eventually, she found other friends and interests and though not estranged she seemed cool and aloof to Jasmyn, nevertheless.
Jasmyn had been saddened by these losses. For her world, had soured, spoiled. Though at the time she seemed to adapt quite well, she always thought of her life before the grand rupture: life on the farm, then a life afterwards. It was a schism that never quite seemed to settle comfortably and heal in her consciousness, a hurtful touchstone that never went away, that cruel yardstick. Just like the break-in man. Still, she pushed it down like dough. For life molds you in soft and hard shapes, it’s what she came to realize. She internalized it as the ebb and flow of existence.
But Jasmyn carried on. What else could she do? Fortunately, Grandma was good to her, extra-doting even. Grandma continued to hold her like a baby when Jasmyn was a big, bulky girl past the stage of being held like a small child. “She’s spoiling that child,” was the verdict of others around her, a damning edict that carried considerable weight in a rural community where judgments were swift and severe, as violent or even as unpredictable as the weather. “Spoiling that damned kid... Go figure... Probably trying to make up for that no-good mother of hers that abandoned the kid.”
* * *
Shaping the sourdough into fist-sized biscuits, Jasmyn continued to arrange them on the pan and all the time wondered if she had the necessary foodstuffs to complement them. Do we have butter? Check. Syrup? Check. Jam? I’ll have to double-check that one; they go through peanut butter and jam around here like nobody’s business. But I’ll check the fridge and the cupboards when I’m done.
“What’cha doing?” Petra asked, as she skipped into the kitchen.
“Making sourdough biscuits. Wanna help me? You can make the next pan if you’d like,” Jasmyn said.
“Yeah!” Petra squealed.
Petra always enjoyed forays into the unknown. She hadn’t yet baked sourdough with her mom; just the usual fare, cookies, cupcakes, the occasional squares, especially the butterscotch marshmallow ones which were her absolute favourite. Things like that. But it was her mom who prepared and cared for the sourdough batter, the funny, globby, mixture that she maintained, kept on going for steady, future use.
It was the “mother” referred to by her mom and the neighbor lady that got her started on the whole venture. That kindly Karli Mathers who ended up moving away just as they had all nicely become friends, her mommy’s best friend, even.
Sometimes Petra heard her mom talk to Karli on the phone. Long distance calls that seemingly went on forever, a retelling of everything that went on their respective lives. But not so much anymore. Karli was disappearing like a biscuit being eaten.
But why does Mommy spend so much time in the computer room? Petra wondered. Why isn’t Mommy with me more like she is right now? It seemed to Petra that she was always hearing, “Run along now,” or “Go outside and play,” or “Find something to do,” those familiar orders that steer children away. Yet Petra was grateful just to have her mother’s attention right then. Petra just washed her hands, beamed up at her mom and dismissed all such queries.
“First, you spray the pan, so it doesn’t stick, ” Jasmyn said as she held the pan and let Petra spray it.
Then taking a handful of raw dough, Jasmyn held it up to Petra instructional-like, showing the child. Jasmyn said, “See this is about how much you need. Then you make it into a ball. Then set it down on the pan and give it one good pressing down to flatten it a bit.”
Jasmyn had the child practice several times.
“Good girl,” Jasmyn encouraged.
Together they filled the last remaining pan, and Jasmyn popped it into the oven and began the clean up. Dishes. Wiping the counter. She carefully put the “mother” mixture aside, dormant, latent, ready for its next incarnation into pancakes or loaves of bread. Or into tiny, flat, silver-nugget flapjacks that reminded Jasmyn of communion wafers.
“I’m gonna go have a bath,” Petra said, in a calculating tone.
Jasmyn laughed aloud. “Turkey, you don’t want to help with the clean up is all.”
“But I gotta clean myself up!” the child protested.
“Oh, go ahead, go have your bath.”
Taking the opportunity to escape the drudgery of work, the child quickly disappeared. But Jasmyn soon heard the tub running loudly as she had always instructed Petra to leave the door open for safety’s sake. Good girl: listening better these days.
* * *
As Reid lay in bed sleeping, a wild montage of fact, fiction, and super-fantasy came to him. There were scenes from his own life, wild dream sequences that were as curious as they were powerful. Then fleeting hybrids of half-truth, some of which he seemed to fathom, some of which were spoken aloud to him by various nocturnal, spectral-like, dream players, just as in the old Alastair Sim’s Scrooge film. It was a flashing testament to his unconscious at midnight.
Reid was in his childhood home. His mom under a pile of liquor bottles and roaches, buried alive under that same old, stained, orange plaid couch. The one that travelled with them everywhere it seemed, after one eviction then another, no matter where they ended up.
Then the crash. The crash! Oh, my God, that family wiped out! In the courtroom. Guilty. Vehicular homicide. Multiple counts. Driving recklessly. Driving under the influence. Then resisting the officers. Resisting arrest. Then the dingy realism, murky prison life. Like a cruel surreal painting it seemed, disjointed, ugly images, a collage of nothingness. Broken teeth. Busted dreams. Tattooed bodies. Rotted schemes. All along a boulevard of helplessness to a prison yard of extremes, he wavered, held. Ten years reduced to seven.
Reid’s eyes popped open. Propped up on his elbows, he looked all around. The air of hushed desperation never lifted from the place but hung, clung like some sort of filmy net. There were the usual early morning stirrings, because the jail never slept, only quieted somewhat. Still, he could hear someone screaming in the distance or maybe just loudly talking to himself? Reid wasn’t certain. Colton was still asleep, though. Snoring loudly. Same as ever.
I was just dreaming, Reid thought, slightly relieved. Just dreaming. That’s all. Reid fell back onto the mattress. Maybe I’ll just try and go back to sleep again. But he couldn’t. His thoughts returned to the Lord, like yeast, the bread of life. He felt himself rise from victim to victor. I’ll persevere. I will.
* * *
Copyright © 2025 by Shauna Checkley
