I stopped peeling apples.
Lila laughed. “You’re doing great.”
At one point, she got quiet, rolling crust with that look she gets when she is feeling something too big to say right away.
I asked, “What’s going on in that head?”
She kept working. “Do you ever worry people feel invisible?”
I stopped peeling apples. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “Everybody says kids need attention, and they do. But old people do too. Sometimes I think people stop looking at them like they’re still themselves.”
The whole car smelled like butter and cinnamon.
I looked at her for a second.
Then I said, “Yeah. I think that happens.”
She nodded. “I don’t want that to happen around me.”
When we finally loaded the pies into Mrs. Vera’s hatchback, the whole car smelled like butter and cinnamon.
At the nursing home, the woman at the front desk blinked and said, “Good Lord.”
Lila smiled. “We brought dessert.”
Then the smell hit.
“All of this?”
Lila nodded. “If that’s okay.”
“Honey,” she said, “okay is not the word.”
They took us into the common room. Some residents were playing cards. Some were watching television without really watching it.
Then the smell hit.
Heads turned.
I watched her kneel, ask names, and listen.
One man in a navy cardigan stood up and said, “Is that apple?”
Lila said, “Yes, sir.”
He put a hand over his mouth. “My wife used to bake apple.”
A tiny woman near the window said, “I smelled cinnamon before I saw you.”
Lila set the first pie down and started cutting slices.
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