The Kifle Frequency
(Three generations of neurodivergent communication)
Her crepe-paper hands move precisely. Pinch, roll, shape, sprinkle—a radio repeater transmitting dough to kifle. Sugar clings to my eyes; each blink scrapes. Cookies choke everything but standing room from the sweltering Airstream. Her signal terminates in expectation. She shifts just enough for my gangly everything to slide into her spot, never meeting her gaze. Pinch, roll, shape, sprinkle—
“More nuts.”
Rhythm broken, bumbling, I fill my fist with walnuts. A roadmap of knobby imprints forms then fades from my palm as they plop.
Grandmother nods. “You don’t cheat people.”
We’d driven two towns over for the walnuts—46% off by her calculations. My pimpled face contorted at the effort on the drive home.
“They’re expensive but vital,” she shot back as her glance darted between the road and the stern Virgin on her dashboard—never at me.
The first two kifle sheets hit the oven racks with a twang—we wince in sync. Jump in harmony at my dad’s heavy-handed knock.
“We’re not done. I told you ten.” Her tone emerging from the forge, tempered.
“Come on Ma, you two have been at it for—” pausing just long enough to scan his watch. “Thirteen hours and twenty-two minutes. Has to be more than enough for Bob’s family.”
“Doesn’t change that we’re not done. And it’s not just them, the Devoraks will be there for dinner, so they get a box. One for Julie’s friend who liked them last time, one for… What’s the guy that lives next door?”
”Why the fu—” His transmission a wire snipped by her glare. “No one sane knows their brother’s neighbor’s name.” His words loiter outside as he forces his frame through the oval doorway.
Eight kinds of cookies conquer every surface. A haze of our battle spices—cinnamon and star anise—assaults him. Flushed, gasping, he presses fingertips to his temples—turning down the volume. Scans for any space that might hold him, finally settling on the armchair. A plate of meringues lurches as he hoists it from the seat. Wriggling into its spot, he lowers the plate, almost setting it on the floor.
“UNACCEPTABLE!” booms from her tiny frame as she, with a single impossible motion, both unloads and reloads the oven.
He swoops the plate back up and onto his lap, snatching a Reader’s Digest from the magazine rack—more shield than diversion. “Give her a break. Seven grandkids and every year you stick her with this,” gesturing.
”She has to learn. Nine minutes, those will be done. Only the linzer left. Dough’s already made. She can go after.”
His atonal hum signals both annoyance and acceptance. Arms askew, he flips through pages making sure not to disturb the meringues.
“Girl, bottom drawer, red box. The green-handled circle and the thimble.”
Mouth jammed with something sweet, warm and stolen, I obey.
The drawer sticks, the box rips a bit more, the cookie cutter and thimble feel light—feel cheap in my hands. Behind me she pounds in Morse, rolling pin working cold, stiff dough. Then silence. Coglike I rotate. Our hands move in the same current, but our eyes stay loyal to the task. Looking up would break the frequency. She rolls, I cut.
The thimble doesn’t cut; it bludgeons. Squishing bits out the sides—inefficient, uneven—unlike her.
“Why use this if it’s not made for cutting?” I blurt, tallying. Two, three, four tools within reach that would do a better job.
“Tradition.” Her tone matter-of-fact but pinging on the last syllable. She stops rolling. “This”—thwacking the rolling pin on the counter—”and that thimble. All I have of my mother.”
Starts rolling again. Stops. “She split from my father when I was ten.” Her hands squeeze the pin, knuckles bulging. “He’d always liked my little sister.”
Silence. I keep squashing exactly in the centers of the linzer tops—windows for the jam to peek through.
“So he took her. My brother was just a baby. Mother took him.” The rolling pin spins in her hands, disconnected from purpose. “My uncle needed someone to tend to the house, their newborn, so I went. I loved that baby, but beyond his, there was no love for me there.” Vulnerable. Foreign.
The thimble tumbles from my clumsy grip. My fingertips tingle electric—pulsing, uncertain. I know my hands should be doing something. Tiny drops carving flour canals down her cheeks.
“It’s not like you never saw them again. You got together for holidays.” Dad clarifies, eyes locked on an article, but still cradling the plate. He pulls himself inward, hot oven air expanding into the space he surrendered.
Frozen, her tears pool into prisms, bending the light until then and now superimpose. My hands twitch, trying to separate signal from noise—eventually reaching out, wanting to help her strange softness hold shape. She recoils—the tears dislodge, pattering on Formica. Our eyes weld—searing, deliberate. I had misread her warning signal as a distress beacon. Now her look transmits clear: Usefulness is the only safe frequency for girls like us.
On the ride home the car feels vast. Maybe because I was finally out of that tin can. Maybe we were just smaller. Dad rocks the FM tuner dial between his fingers, trying to lock on something—anything—to fill the space. All he finds are sermons swimming in static.
Some signals travel great distance before being received. Thirty years later, my kitchen stays cool no matter how long the oven runs. Room to move but the rhythm’s still cramped. Pinch, roll, shape—my hands are becoming hers. Only five kinds this year, and 19% fewer recipients—only names I’m sure of. My fist fills tight with walnuts. Sprinkle—I read the indents, telling my own fortune as nuts dribble on already fat kifle. Midway, static circling for generations falls to silence. I pull back, letting the extra nuts fall back into the bowl. I pop something warm and sweet into my mouth, light catching crepe-paper wrinkles glossed by oleo. Palms smooth except for dots and dashes of powdered sugar.
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About the Author
Alex is friends with songs and dogs. They write from a neurodivergent perspective and live in Arizona—gardening with more optimism than sense. Their work has appeared in Solarpunk Magazine.