**Part 3**
I peeled the Ziploc open.
I expected a smell that would tell me my life was about to change. Something chemical, something wrong.
Instead, there was almost nothing. A faint, dry, nutty warmth. Like the pantry at my grandmother’s house on a summer afternoon.
I lifted the bag closer to my nose and breathed in properly.
My eyebrows drew together. I looked at my husband, then at Eleanor, who now had both hands over her face.
I peeled the Ziploc open.
“This,” I said, and my voice had gone strange and thin, “this smells like…”
I couldn’t finish. I dipped a fingertip in, touched it to my tongue, and stared at the ceiling as my whole panicked morning quietly rearranged itself around one very confused, very floury conclusion.
“It’s flour,” I said out loud, my nose still in the bag. “It’s just… flour!”
Eleanor uncovered her face.
“Oh, Claire! I’m so sorry!”
I dipped a fingertip in.
My MIL started talking fast, the words tumbling out. E-14 was einkorn from a little mill in Vermont! R-07 was a rye starter she’d been feeding for decades! B-22 was a buckwheat blend she was trying for the first time!
“The notebook is my feeding schedule,” Eleanor whispered. “The map is the mills I wanted to visit while we were staying nearby.”
“And the humming?” I asked weakly.
“I talk to them. The starters. They’re like little pets.”
My MIL started talking fast.
Thomas made a strangled sound behind me, half-laugh, half-exhale.
“But why hide it?” I asked.
Eleanor’s eyes filled.
“Because Harold teases me! Sweetly, endlessly. And I love him for it at home. But I couldn’t bear it echoing through your house for six whole months. So I kept the door shut. I washed our sheets so you wouldn’t see the flour dust.”
Harold’s face crumpled a little.
“But why hide it?”
“Ellie, I thought you knew I was just being silly. I thought Claire would’ve loved it.”
“I would have,” I said. “I really would have.”
I started laughing then, the kind of laugh that turned into crying and back into laughter. Thomas pulled his mother into a hug.
“The banana bread,” Eleanor sniffled. “It’s from the R-07. A thank-you.”
“I thought Claire would’ve loved it.”
We carried every bag out to her car together. I tucked the notebook into her purse as if it were treasure.
“Sunday,” I said. “Come back Sunday. We’ll bake.”
“Every Sunday?”
“Every single Sunday.”
Later, Thomas and I stood at the kitchen counter, tearing warm bread with our fingers, the guest room quiet behind us.
On the windowsill, a small jar of R-07 was already bubbling.
THE END
