The sweet, spicy, fragrance of baking apples wafts through the house slowly. If you’ve ever dipped a covered paintbrush in water, you’ll understand. The aroma swirls slowly through the air, at first barely to be seen, but growing, penetrating every obsolete corner until the house is bursting with the warm, cinnamon fragrance.

This is the hardest period. The period of waiting. The seconds tick by, too slowly for my sister and I to bear. We can’t resist running to the oven to check on the pie every five minutes. Don’t you think this is enough? We say. Do you think it might burn? The apples are bubbling, is that okay? God forbid anything happens that will take our apple pie away from us.

The cacophonous beeping of the oven is music to our ears. As we open the oven, the rich, sweet smell of pie explodes in our nostrils, with the hot oven air. Unable to wait for mom, we carry the pie out ourselves, hands covered in fluffy mitts, with as much precision and care as a surgeon. We can’t have anything going wrong at this stage, can we? But cutting it out is a job for mom. We satisfy ourselves by staring at it, and fleetingly touching the chaotic lattice of lightly baked, golden crust covering the apples. Finally, mom arrives, our own divine intervention.

As she cuts through the hot, dense layers, smoke spirals out, rising high, but our eyes don’t flick away from the pie. Two pieces are cut for my sister and me, under our eagle eyes. Only after we approve that the two pieces are unequivocally of the same size do we hold out cups out. Mom lifts the slice out on a knife, the apples browned, jelly-like, juicy, the crust wobbling a little. The slices don’t hold and they fall apart a little, but for my sister and myself, it’s all about the taste. Mom transfers them into our waiting bowls without dropping even a crumb. Some skills seem to be acquired only on reaching motherhood.

We each occupy a corner of the house, alone, delicacy in hand at last. . As I dig my spoon into the apple pie, it breaks the pie crust, but cuts smoothly into the apples. All at once, I can’t wait any more, put the spoon into my mouth. As I bite, flavours and textures burst out, exploding like fireworks in the night sky.
The crust is crispy and flaky, contrasting wonderfully with the soft, gooey apples. Cinnamon, nutmeg, add layers of zest and zing. It is an orchestra with different instruments playing different layers of a lively song, where all the sounds come together to produce a harmonious melody.
Warmth spreads through my body like a wave of comfort washing over me. It transports me into a place of cool breezes that raise goose bumps along my arm, of apples growing plump in the orchard, of leaves of every colour floating through the air.

I dig my spoon in, impatient for more. Flavours dance in my mouth, mingling with each other, but yet each one distinct. By the time I realize it, my slice is finished, every crumb licked off my cup.