jana raze she made us another batch of peach squares. there are eighteen of them this time. or at least there were before we ate four of them last night after dinner. she's working part-time at winners. the customers scream at her when she tells them they can't take more than ten items into the changing rooms. she's just doing her job. she didn't make the rules. they ask to speak to her manager. they threaten her. they call her things she's glad she doesn't understand. she hates her job. her husband works nights as a driver for krispy kreme donuts. he bought her a coffee but forgot to ask for sugar and a stir stick. the zombie working behind the counter scanned the cash register for a button that would let him charge a dollar or two for something that was already paid for. when he couldn't find anything, he let the packet of white dust and the tiny plastic post go for free. he wasn't happy about it. jana said this was the second batch of squares she made. her first try fell apart when her oven lost its mind and burned everything it held. she kept apologizing and saying these squares weren't as good as the ones she made last month. she said she wants to come back in a few weeks so she can give us something better. her husband smiled. "she always wants everything to be perfect," he said. but that isn't it. food_is_love for her. she doesn't want to rush things. she's in it for keeps. whatever went wrong in her kitchen, the marks it made on her artistry are invisible to me. the squares are a little smaller this time. that just means i get to have two in one sitting. "delicious" isn't a good enough word for what they are. i wasn't born early enough to remember any of the food jennie and mary made. all i have are stories. and those stories can almost transport me to a time i was too young to be awake for. but there's always been a blind_spot there. those women put their whole hearts into everything they made. if i could taste just one dumpling or one braided apple pastry that sat on mary's window_sill to cool when i was in diapers, it would be like having both of them back. just for a little while. jana's peach squares fill that empty space with pictures. she's unlocked memories that were never mine to begin with. because she's just like those ghosts i love so much. my dad sent her an instrumental song i recorded on christmas_eve. it was a way of saying thank you. it's one of the only pieces of music i've been able to write in the last year. it made her cry. she said her mother used to play piano when she was a little girl, and hearing that song brought her back to life for a few minutes. so maybe i've given her something too. 220628 what's it to you? who go blather from