"Oh, he did all the work."

"Did he tell you what I said when he brought it to me that night?"

"Yeah." I start to recite what I remember Jonas telling me his brother had said. "My brother liked the donut. He said that the woman who helped you is..."

When I hesitate, Zack completes my sentence. "The woman who taught you how to frost a donut has got to be one of society's finest."

I can feel heat rising from my face, like it does when I open an oven door to take out a nicely-browned cake. Society's finest? Society's finest?

Zack softly says, "I know about your accident. Jonas said that-"

"That I have awful scars?" I realize that everything I've told Jonas over these last months has probably been shared with his brother over coffee with lots of sugar.

"No." Zack looks uncomfortable. "He didn't say anything about any scars."

The next thing I know I am showing my arms to Zack. I even lift my shirt a little so that he can see the deep scar on my abdomen. Bet you've never had anyone show you her scars before, I think as I look up at him. That will shock up your life a bit. I bet you'll never speak to me with eyes shining and a smile again. I sigh. I don't care. And I'm not even sure why I don't care.

"Actually," Zack says calmly, in his typical manner, "Jonas said you are a Vivaldi fan."

"He did?" So, nothing about my accident, nothing about my scars? "Well, I am." I feel foolish now for showing the Tigris and Euphrates to Zack. And especially for lifting my shirt and exposing the wound along my stomach. In church!

"I guess I should go," he says.

Yeah, right, go. Don't mind me. I'm just a little weird. A darkness has spread over me and I can't find my way out. I suppose that, in Zack's book, I am no longer one of society's finest. I resume my coffeepot washing. Why was I suddenly so eager to show him the scars that I otherwise keep hidden even from my own eyes? I lift a soapy hand to my forehead to check for a fever.

"Deena?"

I give a slight nod.

"The kids like you."

I am too tired to argue.

"They just have a little bit of difficulty with new people sometimes..." His voice meanders away like a winding mountain road. However, his next sentence is firm. "Your scars aren't going to make them like you any less."

Where is he going with this?

"In fact, most of them have their own set of scars. Physically or figuratively speaking."

I nod again. I hope he won't give me a speech about these poor children. Because the way I see it, maybe if they shaped up, their lives wouldn't be so hard.

I silently berate myself for even thinking that.

You better let somebody love you, before it's too late. I add more Palmolive to the sink water, hoping that the force of squirting the liquid from the bottle will push aside the words to one of Jonas's favorite songs.

"Everyone here is damaged." Zack's words hit me sharply because they are words I can take as my own. Damaged. That's me. He continues, "But that's not our main focus."

"What is your main focus?" I ask, only because I am irritated. I was in a good mood right after the bake sale, but now he bothers me. I want to know what he is really made of. I want to pick at him to find out he isn't all he appears to be. Yet, most of all, at this moment, I want to keep him here, talking to me.

"Love's the main focus," he says.

"Love?" Well, that's about as vast and hard to come by as world peace. Love isn't like a gift you can wrap up and place under the Christmas tree.

"Everybody needs love."

Well, as the kids would say, duh duh.

"Even those who don't know how to give it."

Uh oh. Is he going to make a comment about my inability to show love to my fellow man? Because if he does I won't be able to deny it. Gripping the edge of the sink, I wait.

"Like Darren."

Darren does know how to show love, I think. He shows it to Zack. To the rest of us he just acts like we aren't worthy. He's selective and he's chosen Zack. And Zack, of course, thinks he's a terrific kid. His client. Social worker and patient. What a team. The two of them, leaving the rest of us out of their behavioral management plan. Softly I say, "Yeah."

"Darren was burned as a child." Zack's voice is very soft and emotional.

"Burned? What do you mean?"

Zack's solemn expression lets me know that this is not going to be an easy story. "When he was little, his mom got mad whenever he cried. Darren cried a lot. When he did, his mom would burn the bottoms of his feet on the kitchen stove."

I feel my lunch rising to my throat. "They didn't let her get away with it, did they?"

"She's been in and out of jail. There was a restraining order against her, and now she is supposed to call before she expects to see Darren."

My head swirls and I take little breaths.

"Darren has a hard time with authority. He'll come around, though. He will."

I may not last until he does.

"You have to give these kids a bunch of chances."

I don't like his tone because it makes me feel like I am the one with the problem. And, the truth is, I have so many. I'm just glad that Zack hasn't read my journal.

He heads to the fridge, opens the door, and pours some cold water from a plastic container into a glass. "Would you like some water?"

Why does he have to be so... nice? I wish he'd just go. Leave me alone in the kitchen to wash the dishes. To ponder on how good a friend his brother is to me. To wonder why Jonas is so easy to be with, while Zack only brings out the insecurities I hold inside. "No, thanks."

He stands closer to me. My heart begins to feel like bread dough being kneaded with tiny warm caresses. I watch as he takes another sip. His eyelashes flicker. "Sometimes the very people who want to be loved the most don't know how to ask for love."

"And why is that?" I concentrate on scrubbing the lid of the pot. I don't dare look him in the eyes.

"They've been hurt." He places the empty glass on the counter.

His know-it-all tone makes me wish he'd just leave me alone. He's crossed the line, and the thing is, I'm certain that was his intention. Go, I want to shout. Go! My eyes fill with hot tears and that scares me.

Zack starts to dry a spoon. I had no idea there was a spoon in need of drying.

I feel my nose start to drip into the steamy sink of hot water. I sniff, once, twice. With a soapy finger, I wipe my nose.

"Are you-?"

Quickly, I toss out, "I'm fine."

I can feel his eyes on me, boring into my soul. I thought I was ironclad and am not quite sure how he managed to find a gap.

The room feels warm. Maybe the air-conditioner, along with my humility and compassion, has stopped working.

Zack dries the same spoon over and over. "Deena?"

"What?"

"There is nothing wrong with admitting you're hurt."

"I am fine," I repeat, emphasizing each word.

He's silent for a moment, then he moves and I think he's going to leave the kitchen. But he only opens a drawer and places the spoon inside. He starts to dry a knife.

To play the devil's advocate I say, "So, do you admit you're hurting?" There! I feel like a kid who has pulled a prank the teacher can't catch.

His reply is spoken from his heart, and his honesty surprises me. "I'm getting better. After she died, I didn't want to live at first."

I nod a few times. Oh yes, I do know just how you felt.

"Jonas was strong for me."

"Jonas is gold."

And then I realize Zack has those same golden characteristics. He's so gentle, so patient, so kind. His tenderness is ripping up my insides as though he were slicing each part of my anger and bitterness with that knife he has in his hands.

I want him to put the knife down and let me fall against his chest, let the barrier collapse between us. I stare at the suds, feel my hands grow wrinkled like prunes. He is going to leave. He's looking for a way out of the kitchen. He'll exit my life after making me wish for things I cannot have.

I wait.

Instead of leaving, he says, "Is that coffeepot clean yet?"

"What? Uh... why?"

"So I can dry it."

This time I let myself view his face, his smile, those two dimples wasted on a man. I grin, or try to. When I rinse the pot that has never had such a good bath in its life and hand it to him, he says, "You are not so different from the rest of us."

Suddenly Lucas seems very far away, like a fog you drive through, and when the sun comes out, beaming and hot, you forget what the fog looked like, or how it felt to be surrounded by the mist. All you can feel is the warmth of the sun, and the sun is the only place you want to be.

I'm not sure which is more remarkable-that Zack is drying dishes next to me or that I don't mind that my sleeves are pulled up so that parts of my scars are visible and that what caused them doesn't seem so horrendous anymore.

When I smile at Zack this time, his eyes hold familiarity, like he knows what is going on in my mind and heart right now. Like I am not alone; he has traveled this winding, steep, narrow path, as well.

And in fact he is still trekking on it. Determined to get through, without losing himself. Without losing me.

twenty-nine.

I've burned my fingers in the oven many times-by accident, of course. When Chef B or any other employee at the restaurant heard my yelp, the ice pack kept in the freezer for just such an occasion was handed my way. "Be the more careful," Chef B would say as he watched me wince with pain. "You must to use the hot pads. See? I buy new ones last Tuesday."

I cannot imagine what it would feel like to have my feet burned on a hot stove. There are things in life I want to thrust into the Do Not Open drawer, and after doing so, conveniently forget that such a drawer exists.

I can't push the haunting truth of what happened to Darren out of my mind.

I see him clearly in my thoughts tonight as I clean the upstairs bathroom. Darren slouched over his notebook, drawing things he never lets me see, refusing to participate. Does he draw happy pictures? I know that the poster he created for the bake sale had a fancy border and lettering that was curvy and bold. He used red, purple, and green and even drew a picture of a slice of cherry pie and a large carrot cake in one of the corners.

He's a child, I think as I scrub the sink. Bad things have happened to him-things no child should have to face. He's been seriously damaged. The scars on his feet are only the tip of the iceberg of what he's really suffered.

Exhaustion covers me, and I yearn to sleep. Instead, I spray Windex on the mirror and wipe off the streaks with a paper towel. What kind of person would burn a child's feet? I ball up the towel and throw it into the copper-colored waste can. I see Felicia with her vibrant orange hair and push down the nausea filling my throat.

I slip into bed, grateful for the soft sheets. But my mind is full and sleep doesn't come for a long while. Eventually, I get up, sit outside on the deck; against the wooohooo wooohooo of the owl, I write about Darren in my journal until, at last, I can welcome sleep. of the owl, I write about Darren in my journal until, at last, I can welcome sleep.

"If only Zack didn't affect me like he does," I whisper to the mirror in the loft bedroom as I prepare to head over to The Center for my Wednesday afternoon class. I brush my hair, put on lip gloss, and hope I can convince at least part of me that Zack doesn't mean anything to me. I want to push him away. If he were a recipe, I'd cut him out of the book. My reluctant-fearful side wants to drape a quilt over my head and run as far from Bryson City as Beijing, China.

Monday I avoided him as much as I could get away with. I didn't want to make it obvious to the children; if they started to notice my lack of conversation with Zack, they'd be sure to question it. I simply didn't engage in any talk with him except to say, "Hi" upon seeing him and to answer his question with a polite, "Yeah, my class went well today." I smiled as often as I could; a good smile covers a multitude of insecurities. Mom taught me that.

At the end of my class yesterday, when I was listening to Bubba tell me about how he and Rhonda had a picnic on the Parkway, my eyes locked with Zack's. Zack was helping Lisa put away some dishes and he looked over at me with a smile I can't get out of my mind. Somehow I don't think his action had anything to do with Lisa, or Bubba's detailed account of the large size of the hamburgers he and Rhonda ate for lunch.

Jeannie always says that there are times when a smile seems like more than just a friendly expression. "You know, when he smiles and you feel like the sky just bursts with fireworks," she told me.

I'm probably reading too much into this. But then, why do I try to avoid him as much as I can? Fear of what he is starting to mean to me? The lyrics to another one of Jonas's favorite pipe-checking songs runs circles in my mind. There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes. There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes. Well, as long as I can keep Zack from knowing how he's beginning to take root in my heart, I'll be all right. Well, as long as I can keep Zack from knowing how he's beginning to take root in my heart, I'll be all right.

My cell phone plays Vivaldi into my thoughts.

"Hello?" says a woman's voice.

"Yes, hello?" I don't recognize this person.

"Is this Deena Livingston?"

"It is."

"Then I want to order two cakes."