The problem with the pies

I make the pies in the family. My grandmother never officially appointed me with this duty. My mother never formally stepped down. But since my mom has taken on nearly every other dish, tending to the turkey and carefully planning sides to please each person at the table, I am the one entrusted with the pie tins my grandma smoothed rounds of her own homemade crust into each holiday season.

As Thanksgiving approaches, baking the pies feels like an enormous task. I count them out -- apple for my dad and me, brownie for my boy, pecan for my other grandmother, one more for fun or sharing. Carving out the hours to peel apples and knead dough and slice decorative leaves in the top crust all take time.

I think the tasks of making the pies pull at me because I know it will all be accompanied by the voice of my grandmother in my head, flour-doused memories of her in my heart and hours counted out on my fingers of how much time I will have with my son in the holiday visitation back-and-forth. There's a lot there in the kitchen while the fruit softens, the butter melts and it all bubbles up at the edges of a soft, golden brown top. 

Once I get into my mother's kitchen with my apron on and too many people's hands in the way and too little counter space to roll and slice and cool it all, the daunting part of making pies slips away. I always feel right where I need to be. 

I would love to make an entire Thanksgiving dinner on my own, host each course from salads to pie slices. But I feel like I am contributing something important as soon as I pull back the checked dishtowels protecting the apple, the brownie, the pecan and the wildcard pie. That part matters.

This year, we celebrated Fakesgiving two days early since my boy was off to his dad's for the real holiday. Once upon a time, this was a glitch in the whole weekend and I mourned his absence on the actual day. But this year, I felt happy to stretch the holiday out, to savor time with him and my parents and still have a long weekend with my love.

Taking away E's chair for part of the holiday wasn't at all the biggest shift for us this year. It was adding one in for the Not Boyfriend.

I've celebrated Thanksgiving with him in the past, but this time, he would pulling up to my family's table and traditions. He's a gifted pastry chef and so I asked him tenderly to help me with my part -- the pies.

Of course, he agreed. And when I got sick and felt woozy just standing at the apple corer, he took over, nimbly turning a bag of apples into two beautiful pies. He latticed the top of one, maneuvered from tin to tin in the kitchen quickly and efficiently. 

Lil E and I did what we could. But most of the work, by illness and expertise, fell to the Not Boyfriend. I jumped in when he pulled out a paring knife for creating decorative vents in one crust, but mostly, I stood awkwardly in his kitchen and out of my element.

This work I have done for most of my life suddenly was empty of the love. I couldn't muster the energy for it, but I also couldn't shake off the voice and the memories and the emotional parts of what make me love making pies so much. When it was all over and I packed up the finished products into the pie carrier that still has a label with my grandmother's name on it, I felt incomplete. 

In my attempt to include the Not Boyfriend, I also hadn't really asked him if he wanted this to be his part either. He told me later, he'd already made dozens of pies that day and had dozens more to prepare the next day. I'd simply asked him to do more work even though I thought I was asking for him to be a part of this labor of my own love.

Fakesgiving came and ended with the pies. We each had a piece and mine was tart and sweet and flaky and good. And then we packed up the extras for my dad's mother and for a friend who was celebrating a birthday on Thanksgiving while also caring for her baby girl in the NICU.

A few days later, the Not Boyfriend fretted to me that the pie for our friend and the ones on the table weren't good enough. The dough hadn't been defrosted properly and was overworked. Some was overdone. He'd been exhausted. He asked if we should make more pies to make up for it. 

Of course, we didn't need to replace the pies. But I wondered if what was really missing from them had nothing at all to do with the ingredients or the temperature of the oven. For me, the pies were pieced together just fine. But they were lacking that care that I needed to pack in, and the tradition I wanted to curl up out of the curly-q vents in the top crust.

Later that day, I noticed a message from my friend on my Facebook wall. She thanked me in all caps for the best pie she'd ever eaten. 

I read that sentence three or four times, each time expecting a response to come. But no words came. Instead, I turned my phone toward the Not Boyfriend, slid it across the table in his direction. 

"Read this," I said, waiting quietly while he did.

"Sometimes, I guess what doesn't feel like enough to us is just perfect to someone else. Maybe we need to remember that."

He nodded. Nothing more was said. But plenty was in my head.

I thought a lot more about my grandmother, a deep and aching kind of thinking that I have done a lot of over the last year. I don't know why she surfaces so often for me, as vividly as she does these days since we lost her mind so long before her body vanished. I thought of her hands, deftly making folds in the crust. And her laugh, rising up over the heat of the kitchen.

Lil E's place cards, portraits of the Not Boyfriend, my dad and mom, me and the kiddo

I thought of my mom, carrying on her own traditions in her own space. And of my friend, who needed the sweet feel of comfort with each bite, who I so wished could celebrate for a moment in the midst of all her pain and grief and worry.

I thought of the Not Boyfriend, who is right before me, working so hard and at an amazing speed, carving a place for himself in our lives and family. 

And I did not forget myself, what I got this holiday and what I was missing.

Next year, I thought in the silence, I will make the pies myself.

With that, I felt resolve. And also thanks. 

It doesn't really matter what the pies taste like. That wasn't the problem at all. It matters how we make them. It is the intention and the care and the people we deliver them to that count most. 

Sure -- It's also a little bit about the flaky crust and the detailed top and the apples, mixed both tart and sweet. But mostly, it is about the hands that cradle the fork that take the bite and then smile and say thank you for preparing this food, made just for them. Made just for that moment.