[i]It’ll be alright. I won’t yell at you. I won’t hit you. It’ll be okay if you make a mistake.[/i]

The promises hang heavy in his chest. He didn’t always know the shape of them. He has always known the weight of them. They burn to the touch, now. He ought to air them out. Speak them. Soft words, kind words, words he spent years learning how dearly he hungered for them, and now he has a chance to say them. To her. 

Instead, he says,

“A good choice. Croissants are difficult to make, but much of the preparation is taken up by waiting. Plenty of time to go over our process before each step.”

And later, he says,

“Now we knead the dough, like this:” He only has one free hand to knead with; the other has to stay firmly locked onto his crutch. He works slowly, slowly enough for her to watch his technique, and listen to any further pointers. She’ll have to knead the rest herself. He only has one free hand to work with. “This develops the gluten in the dough, which holds baked goods together. Different doughs need different amounts of kneading; for croissants, we’ll want the dough to remain a little lumpy. Let me know if it feels like the dough is warming up. We’ll put it back in the cooler if we need to.”

When the time is right, he says,

“Once that square of butter is cold again, we’ll begin the lamination process. It’s a technique where we fold butter or some other fat in-between layers of dough, roll the dough back out, and repeat. Just like folding a piece of paper over itself. When we’re done, we’ll have over eighty layers of alternating dough and butter, just from three rounds of folding and rolling.”

“This is also why we’ve been keeping our ingredients so cold; we want the butter to stay solid, and melt as little as possible. Once we cook it, the butter turns into a vapor, the dough layers puff out while keeping the fat and flavor trapped, and that’s how croissants get all their flaky layers.”

[i]It’ll be alright. I won’t yell at you. I won’t hit you. It’ll be okay if you make a mistake.[/i]

He never says them.

He never stops saying them.

[i]You are experienced. You are capable. You belong in this kitchen. You deserve to eat too.[/i]

These are not the promises he’s learned. 

But that was never the point, was it?