Ashcake

I. Crater

n. Depression or cavity on the surface of the earth or other heavenly body marking the orifice of a volcano

My mom's whole generation bakes ashcake because they were taught destruction only came for others.

Prehistoric silt blots their breath. They absorb the lotion of volcanic wind.

More than the rest, Mom caresses the dough the way the earth punctuates its ages. In loving decimations.

In the dusted morning light, haze creeping across the sun, the island's most revered baker is a force, tuned to something I cannot feel.

Obie grips the counter, his knuckles waves against rocks. Tries to make eye contact, but hers are on her hands, always shifting.

"Come on, brother dear. Get your hands dirty." She motions him closer.

His voice tidal. "Not today."

The dough clings to the cracks in our skin, grey and steepled and rocky. I stir in sugar, flour, cocoa. Just enough ash to taste it.

She says, "You mean, you don't know how," and grabs a hunk of Kahlua Kilauea from my bowl, rolls it in her palms.

Against the volcano, smoke pours from my uncle's shoulders. His face is lit with sky, textured with ocean breeze, almost identical to Mom's but more fluid, less cragged. "No. I mean I can't. Taking the survey team in an hour."

The store smells of ash, chocolate, smoke.

The wind blows from the peak of the volcano; the pinnacle stabs the sky while the light chalks, haloed by gritted smoke, hardened, kneaded wisps.

"Those guys need to get out of that observatory more often." Mom shapes the dough into a tiny mountain. Carves a crater into the summit.

"Dana, why don't you come? Should be done before school."

When I was little, Mom would never let him take me into open water. So we'd stay at the dock, staring through the depths, making up sea monsters. He'd say, I've seen them, D, how come you don't believe me? It's a whole big world down there.

Mom strides, curls her hand over my shoulder in a surge, powdered sugar and ash tumbling over my shirt. Curls dangling over her face and neck in clouds and strays of smoke. "There's no way they'll find anything."

The ancient eruption, the...