Golden light streamed in through the window and shined on Elena’s face. Stirred from sleep, she blinked her bleary, blank eyes and noted the empty space on the bed next to them. Expected, Peter was an early riser. They yawned, sat up and set their bare feet on the chilly wooden floor. Another day. Hm, what day was it again? It was so hard to keep track these days. Twenty years of much of the same, gardening, reading, baking. It makes you lose track, stop counting.
He couldn’t help but feel like today was important though, oh well.
Peter was in the kitchen, frying one of that morning’s eggs, one of the lizards sitting on his shoulder. Janet? Terry? They couldn’t ever tell them apart. Elena walked to his side and pressed a kiss to his brow, Peter smiled warmly and returned the gesture.
“Good morning, Elena.” He said, saying her name like it was as sweet as honey.
“Morning, dearest.” They murmured, placing a full kettle of water on the stove for tea. “Hm, you don’t happen to know what day it is, do you?” It was a little embarrassing to have to ask, but he knew by now that Peter wouldn’t dare to judge him.
“It’s the first day of the year.” He said gently.
It took a moment to realize that meant more than just the town putting on a festival.
“Oh stars, oh stars it’s our anniversary!” She wrung her hands. “I completely forgot, I’m so sorry, darling, I didn’t get you anything.”
Peter laughed. “It’s okay, I forgot too, I only remembered because Era sent us a card. We really need to get a calendar.”
“Well we have to do something, don’t we?” Elena started to pace, “I mean we’ve been married…what?”
“Twenty-three years.”
“Yes! That’s a big number, we should at least go out for dinner or organize a picnic or…” He thought for a moment. “I know! We should bake a cake!”
Peter looked puzzled. “A…cake?”
“Yes! Together, you and me. We can use the berries from the forest, or mix tea into the batter, whatever we want.” They took his hands in theirs, smiling brightly.
Peter blushed. “I- well I’ve never baked a cake before, I usually let you do that.”
“I can show you, come on, grab the eggs, we’ll start with something simple.”
Peter shrugged and took the basket of eggs off the windowsill while Elena took two bowls from the cupboard and set them on the table. Delicately, he took an egg and cradled it in his hand.
“We’re going to need egg whites to make the icing, which means we need to separate out the yolks first.” They instructed, “Here, watch what I do.”
She tapped the egg on the surface of the table and split it neatly down the middle. Carefully, she moved the contents of the egg between the two halves until the clear albumen dropped down into the bowl. They poured the yolk into the other bowl, round and orange as the harvest moon.
Peter watched with wide eyes. They handed him another egg.
“Now you try,” He said.
Peter looked unsure, but he tried his best to mirror them. Unfortunately, his first attempt ended in a mess and a broken yolk.
He looked down at his hands that dripped with egg innards, a sorry expression on his face. “I told you I wasn’t going to be good.” He admitted.
“Nonsense.” Elena said, “It just takes practice.” They placed a new bowl on the table and a new egg in his hand. “Try again, go slower, be gentler. Egg yolks are fragile.”
There were a couple more tries, and just as many ruined eggs, but eventually, another perfect yolk joined Elena’s in the other bowl. Peter looked up at her, his eyes sparkling.
“Wonderful, I knew you’d get the hang of it.” She squeezed his shoulder and took down a larger bowl. “Now do that four more times. I’ll get the batter ready.”
It was perhaps the messiest the kitchen had ever gotten. Peter was clumsy and unpracticed and knocked over the bag of sugar more than once, and they both got flour on their clothes and bits of batter and icing in their hair. They were, however, having enough fun that the wreck was a feature, not an inconvenience. They laughed and leaned close and fed each other raspberries. At the end of it, their cake looked sloppy, yes, but it was one of the best things Elena had ever tasted, simply because they made it together.
Elena swept a pile of flour out the door and sighed, wiping the sweat from his brow. Peter nudged past them to pour out the bucket of dishwater.
Then they both looked out at the stars, and at the town on the other end of the rolling hills. That glowed brightly in the night as everyone else in Prevarus celebrated the birth of the new sun. An annual sight that never got less beautiful.
“I think we should do this every year.” Peter said quietly.
Elena pulled their husband of now twenty-three years closer and kissed the top of his head, whispering to him over the singing of the stars.
“I’d like that.”
