I let the rainwater sit to room temperature and poured the yeast granules carefully after tearing the package open and slightly cutting my finger. Then, while filling the measuring cup with a half-cup of water, it fell out of my hand and broke on the kitchen tile floor. The water spread quickly and it set off a course of pain once I accidentally cut my finger on a jagged piece of glass. The pain prolonged the cooking process and continued for several hours in intervals both excruciating and sound.

The kneading was tough as the dough was stickier than normal. I wondered if the yeast granules were as fresh as possible, maybe not. When I kept my bandaged index finger standing straight up, above the sticky mass, I found the other nine fingers were able to grasp it, just as well as all ten. The dough kneaded easily with a sprinkling of flour and seemed to expand the moment it hit the greased bowls. Later, when they were finished, I took the two sandwich bread loaves out of the oven and placed them in the kitchen window on the stainless steel ledge. The bread smelled deliciously and filled the whole house with warmth and its sentimentality reminded me of my Russian village I had daydreamed about all morning.

The best part of making the bread was the attention to detail, I thought. This bread will make a great meal to last in my memory a very long time. I wrapped the two loaves in individual kitchen towels readying them for the breadbox. For a moment, I held them in my arms and looked down at the handsome and perfectly heart-shaped crowns. Without realizing, I studied its every inch. On the side, it ribbed like a fabric with a hint of left over flour stuck to the sides. The flour baked into the side’s resembled muscles and veins. Everything considered and judged, by me, and I decided, that the two loaves were perfect.

This day had more in store than just enjoying the kitchen. I still had time left, before the twins got home, to go to the gym for time kickboxing on the heavy bag.
“Taking the day off Katherine?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah, car’s in the shop,” I responded.
“Brakes again?”
“No the axel, Gabriel parked his bike under the car and I backed over it…again.”
“Well it’s better than the time the boys unscrewed the doors off of your VW bug, or the time you backed over the dog, or the time the boys let the emergency brake out and the car rolled down the driveway and….”
“Charlie,” I interrupted, “Just hold the bag.”

I took the long walk home from the gym, instead of the short way. I thought about what to serve along with the bread. The smell of drying cement after the morning rain invaded my imagination as I walked. I saw the chicken’s standing on the thatched roof of my Russian house and spent time remembering how much I loved being alone, daydreaming. The light rain called for soups with hearty butter beans and lentils. I hurried home to begin a long simmering soup to serve beside the beautiful bread.

“It’s so hard to admit this…” I whispered, as I walked, to no one around. “As a Mother, when I see them, when I care to, because mostly I refused to. I try so hard, everyday, to figure out a way to send a message to my twin boys that they will hear,” I continued alone. “One that would make them respond with more love and respect for others,” I finished the sentences with a finger pointing out the will of my words.

I heard the Rabbi’s learned voice, strong and willful.
“Send them a plain message Katherine. Say, I love you Castillo and Gabriel and send it to them from right here in California, all the way up to Alaska, where they will be sitting quietly and politely.”
“Quietly and politely, they are behaving Rabbi?”
“Send it on a beautiful red firefly. A bright little figurine that squiggles-wiggles and turns upside-down and right-side-up, determined to get the tiny message of love to the boys.” He finished.

That I could imagine the contradiction of the tiny firefly, smiling happily as a lark, straining the last few wiggles to get the message to the twins perfectly. Then finally handing the prized message over to Castillo and Gabriel, and that they would probably smash the firefly in mid-air, between ogre hands, flat as a potato cake, before the firefly could deliver the message. Wiping the fiery remains on trousers, I would later find, and surmise that the love note did not make it. That I could imagine this contradiction was reality.

Was it too much to ask that I romance wounded soldiers that need my guiding hands to heal them? Or to stand in the bright moist mornings and speak with confidence about the things I know? My time of radiance always squandered by the time I get home to find the front door ajar and a parade of backpacks, leaves, dirt, shoes, papers from the school needing my signature, carelessly mangled and lying on the front doorstep amongst everything else from the weeks before.

There they sat, Castillo and Gabriel, my two realities. The living room bone chilling cold, watching the television. “The Jerry Springer Show” blaring like a car horn which brings our ears to new heights, the dog in the house. “I thought you guys had detention after school today,” I said while walking down the hallway, leading to the kitchen, to get the dog out of the house. “I’m making a special dinner tonight,” I would have said if it were possible. It was impossible to find the words. I had to stop and ingest the sight. Realize the sight. Catch my breath and let out the tales that seemed like never more.

Awaiting me in the kitchen, the sight my two boys – my God sent sons – the two heads I own and birthed, had left me streamed by my eyes like a good, cold, hard slap. The twins had eaten the bread. The kitchen looked like a public park where breadcrumbs sprinkled the area for passing birds to enjoy. They snacked on it using peanut butter and tearing the heel and crown with no regard for the journey or the labor behind the savory softness.

I slipped a scant heel to the dog and gathered up the parts that remained like the crust. Some of it landed in the trash, half eaten. The one salvageable piece, had finger holes poked in the sides that looked like tiny boroughs where ants or termites lived. The hardest sight in all of the sadness was that they had managed to destroy both loaves.

I crossed my arms tightly and stood there stone silent ready to burst into an angry flame of anger. My time alone in my Russian village, for one day, one hour, one moment became the truth: it was all I had. Once again, I heard my Rabbi’s voice, “It just is Katherine, nothing else, it just is.”

The kitchen floor reflected a familiar brown tone, my knees cracked, as I bent down picking up the many pieces. It suddenly went silent in my head, when I threw the crooked crusts into the trash. I felt as alone as the last period, on the last page, of a very good novel. The sun raged its known hints of a continuation of life coming through the uncovered square windows. The television in the living room chanting, “Jerry…Jerry…Jerry,” nothing else, it just was. Deep inside, I felt like the failed firefly.