Amidst The Stars

A Birthday Cake

  Their mother left on the first of July.

  It was Leon's eighth birthday, and when Vicente woke up early to surprise him, he found their parents' bedroom empty. Their father was out for work, but he couldn't think of any other reason for his mother's absence except that she'd left for good. Her side of the bedroom, usually adorned with photos and books, had been cleared. It was like she'd never been there at all.

  The past two weeks had consisted of the gradual return of conflicts. Their parents had used words like "custody" and "visitation", none of which he'd understood. But what he had found out was that their mother had planned on taking Leon and Ling with her when she left. She'd changed her mind at the last minute, and Vicente was grateful for that — his younger siblings were irritating at times, but there was no way he could live without them.

  He was careful not to wake Leon up as he changed, brushed his teeth and went to the kitchen. There was a thick folder on the kitchen counter.

  It took Vicente a while to realise what the contents of the folder were. Every piece of paper, some of them stained with different sauces, some of them stapled together, was covered in their mother's handwriting. 

  It seemed that not all of her had left.

  They were recipes, all of them in a mix of simplified and traditional Chinese. He pulled out the first piece of paper, trying to read their mother's untidy scrawl. It took a while (he hated to admit it, but his Chinese was growing rusty), but he managed to decipher that it was a recipe for a chocolate sponge cake.

  According to the recipe, it wouldn't take longer than an hour to make. Since it was only seven in the morning, Vicente was sure he could finish it in time to serve for breakfast when his siblings woke up. He hauled a chair from the kitchen table to stand on and reach the cupboard and began to pull out the ingredients he'd need.

  It was a simple recipe, thankfully not as complicated as the dishes their mother had made for dinner before, or the elaborate desserts she'd whipped up on special occasions. He sifted flour, measured out a teaspoon of cocoa powder and separated egg yolks from egg whites, and thought of when he was tiny, cooking with their mother and Yao. Back then, the nights weren't filled with shouting. Things were simpler. There'd be no going back to those times, no matter how much he wanted to.

  The electric mixer was heavy in his hands as he placed it into the bowl of egg whites, and Vicente nearly dropped it when he switched it on. He had to stand on his tiptoes to watch the egg whites slowly froth up, turning paler and frothier, until a whole minute passed and they'd turned as white and fluffy as clouds. With difficulty, he switched the mixer off and set it down, then folded his mixture of dry ingredients into the egg whites.

  After a while of mixing, the mixture in the bowl began to look like an actual cake batter. Vicente had been expecting himself to mess up at some point and end up with a gloopy mess in the bowl that would be impossible to bake. He left it there and dug in the drawers for parchment paper.

  The edges of the paper were slightly ripped from when he'd pulled too hard, but it still fit alright in the cake pan. He pinched the parchment paper to keep it from folding away from the pan and reached for the bowl of batter again.

  In went the batter. Vicente spilt a tiny bit of batter on the countertop, and a few drops more when he set the bowl down. He reached for the oven mitts and looked at the oven, suddenly coming to the realisation that he'd forgotten to preheat the oven. He set it quickly, then put the oven mitts on, hoping that the mistake couldn't cost him Leon's birthday cake.

  In went the cake. The clock read 7:35. That meant that it would be done by around 8:05. He looked at the dirty bowls, spoons and mixer on the kitchen counter and reluctantly began to wash up. Vicente went through the electric mixer and the set of measuring spoons, placed them back into the cupboard and rinsed the bowl. He'd finish cleaning that once the cake was done.

  Fifteen minutes of dilly-dallying later, the scent of chocolate began to fill the kitchen. Hopefully, the cake would taste as good as it smelled. Vicente cleaned up the mixing bowl, dried it off with the grimy dish towel (I'll have to put that in the laundry basket later, he told himself) and shoved it back into the closet. From the counter, he took a toothpick to prick the cake with.

  It came out clean. He put his oven mitts back on and pulled the cake out, then set it on the kitchen counter to cool down. The sponge cake was a rich, dark brown, resembling the photos their mother had included in the recipe. Though he couldn't find any candles to put on it, it still looked every inch like a delicious birthday cake.

  Vicente went back to the bedroom, where Leon was already awake and changed, writing something in a notebook. He looked up, snapping the notebook shut and tossing it behind his back like he hadn't even touched it. The notebook knocked the lamp off the bedside table the same time Leon said, "you're already awake?"

  "Yes, and happy birthday," he said. "Now come out, I made something."

  "What thing?"

  "It's a surprise," Vicente replied.

  "Have Yao and Ling seen it?"

  He shook his head. "I'll get them, then we can all go to the kitchen for breakfast." He felt like smiling, but that would definitely give something away.

  Yao was fast asleep, but Ling was messing around on his cell phone, having somehow guessed the password. She looked up as Vicente walked in. "Morning."

  "What are you doing with Brother's phone?" Was the first thing he could think of saying.

  "Planting trees!" Ling showed him the screen. "His phone has this game where you can make a forest."

  "Oh. Er." He blinked. "Do you remember what day it is today?"

  "Leon's birthday?" She tilted her head, saying, "and he's now... eight?"

  "Yes, Leon's eight," Vicente said. "And I made him a birthday cake. Come out to eat it."

  Ling jumped off her bed, leaving Yao's phone on her bedsheets and walking out of the bedroom. "Cake for breakfast?"

  "Wait, we're having cake?" Leon popped his head out of his room and stared at the two of them. "Did we buy one?"

  "You'll never know if you don't come out."

  Once they reached the kitchen, Vicente gestured proudly at the sponge cake still in the pan. "I made you a cake. Happy birthday."

  His brother peered at the pan and laughed. "The cake has a hole in it!"

  "What?"

  "Jia Long's right!" Ling pointed at the cake. "Look, it has a hole."

  The cake, it turned out, had sunk while it cooled, leaving a miserable-looking crater right in the middle of the cake. Vicente poked it and it collapsed a little more. He forced himself to get a knife and slowly pry the cake out of the pan and onto a plate, then cut it into five equal portions. "I think it'll still taste all right, even with the hole."

  His siblings each took a slice. The cake had ended up a little dense instead of being light and airy like he'd hoped, but it wasn't too bad.

  "It's good," Leon said with his mouth full. Next to him, Ling nodded her agreement.

  The slices of cake disappeared quickly, leaving only a small pile of crumbs on the table that none of them wanted to clean up. Vicente found a piece of clingfilm to cover up the cake tin and its remaining two slices, and left his siblings to their own devices. He went back to his room with his mother's folder.

  He pulled out recipe after recipe, placing them side by side on his bed like an extra bedspread. Vicente recognised the recipe for handmade wontons that he'd helped with back in Hong Kong, then the one for almond cookies that Yao had memorised for New Year's Eve. He found recipes for some new dishes, too — recipes for Portuguese-styled egg tarts, walnut cookies, steamed red bean pudding and custard buns.

  After making Leon's birthday cake, and now that he was staring down at the enormous stack of recipes he could try, Vicente felt a rush of excitement through him. He'd try out every single one of them, even if it took him a hundred years. Afterwards, he might be just as good a baker as Yao was a cook.