--- R O C H E L L E   R A T N E R

A very stoned teenage boy enters shortly after the
bakery opens. He walks through their storage area to
the tiny bathroom made smaller because some
ingredients are piled up there. The workers barely
look up: two packages active dry yeast, a quarter
cup of milk, a half cup of shortening, three eggs, four
cups of sifted flour, one teaspoon of cold water, half
a cup of warm water, half a cup of raisins or
currants, a little less than half a cup of sugar. The
morning bible study stragglers come in, order coffee,
cappuccino, iced tea, tart cherry scones, plum coffee
cake, bear claws, raspberry muffins. They join hands
and bow their heads. They open their bibles to the
day’s reading. The boy, naked, walks out of the
bathroom, dazed, holding onto the counter. Those in
the study group raise their voices slightly. They hear
the door’s bell jingle as he leaves, walks a few steps,
and sits on the curb. The baker cuts the risen dough
into rounds along the bottom of a glass, sets them
on the baking sheet, brushes the tops with egg
white. With a serrated knife she cuts a crosses into
the tops. They say a mother whose son went off to
sea promised him a hot cross bun each Good Friday,
and when he never came back she went right on
baking them.