Day Five: Five Golden Rings: Branding.
Sally Ruth Tracy was many things.
Airforce Medic. Wife. Mother. Grandmother. Farmer.
But there was one thing that she was not.
Cook.
Never stopped her trying though.
He husband had borne her burnt offerings manfully. He was just happy that she was there.
Her son hadn't known any other way until he'd moved out of the farmhouse and on to college. (Where he had promptly overdosed on sweet stuff and spent a day in what he called 'a sugar coma'.)
After her Grant and Jeff's Lucy died in the avalanche, and after Jeff had recognised he needed her, that his sons needed her, Sally Tracy found herself once more a mother, this time to her Grandsons.
She still couldn't cook, though.
Her grandsons were philosophical about the change of diet because of all the benefits having their Grandma around. Scott and John did as much cooking as possible, but they all got used to meatloaf surprise and cookies that tasted like foot amongst other offerings.
Jeff was not the only Tracy to overindulge on their first day living away from home.
But the worst ever time Sally had experienced about being a terrible cook came the day that she decided to expand her cooking repertoire.
Sally had dug out her old pans. These beautiful and well-used cast iron pans were made by Wapak Hollow Wear company and were a family heirloom, passed down from one Hooper generation to another. Her favourite skillet had a beautiful embossed centre of a Native American Chief.
She picked out a tin of pineapple, got down the flour and set about baking. Turning on the oven and making pineapple upside down cake.
Sally didn't burn the sugar. Honest.
She placed the skillet in the oven and set about making a coffee for herself. Then switched on the tv and settled to watch.
Later Sally would deny it, but she did fall asleep.
She woke up to smoke and the alarm ringing. A choice word slipped out that she'd have clipped the boys around the ear for saying, and she rushed into the kitchen as the front door opened.
Virgil ushered Gordon and Alan into the house, all of them totally unfazed by the alarm sounding and the smoke coming from the kitchen. Gordon and Alan rushed up to their room to change while Virgil went to dump his homework in the living room.
A scream, a crash and a word the worst he'd ever heard stopped him in his tracks and then he was running into the kitchen.
The cast iron pan was smoking on the floor, whatever had been cooking strewn around it. But his Grandma was by the sink, hands under running water and it didn't take a John-level genius to work out what had happened.
'Grandma? Are you ok?'
'Oh, Virgil! I'm fine, love.'
'No, no you're not. Let me help you.'
Sally sighed and smiled at her grandson. She'd taught him well. He gently took her hands and led her to the table. He grabbed a large bowl and filled it with iced water and carried it over to the table. She put her hands in while Virgil went to grab the first aid kit.
One hand was only a little hurt, the one she'd used to pull the pan out of the oven. But in her panic from waking up and the alarm sounding, she'd only picked one cloth up and had forgotten how heavy the skillet was.
Yanking the pan out of the oven and it was immediately obvious that she couldn't hold it, and the automatic reaction was to try to catch the pan with her free hand.
Her free hand that didn't have any protection on.
Her free hand that was currently blistering and swollen but would soon have the imprint of a Native American Chief on the palm.
'Oh, Grandma! It looks like you've branded yourself. That's nasty.'
'It's ok, Virgil, it's only a second-degree burn. Wrap it in cling film, get your brothers and drive me to the clinic. Gordon can call John and Scott on the way.'
'Ok, Grandma.'
Alan and Gordon were both horrified and intrigued. Scott promised to pick John up and meet them there, and call their father, although Jeff wasn't in the country he'd most definitely want to know. He also called the local clinic so that they would be prepared.
The clinic were definitely prepared and whisked Sally away while the boys waited outside. Scott and John weren't too far behind them, and the five waited for news, Scott sitting with his arm around Alan in an almost identical pose to Virgil and Gordon.
It was over an hour wait until their Grandma reappeared, hand dressed and bandaged. Alan's bottom lip quivered, but Scott squeezed his arm and stopped his tears before they could begin.
Sally taught Virgil how to change the dressings and how to debride the wound when needed, and it didn't take long for her hand to heal. The branding lasted a few weeks, and within the year there was only the faintest trace of the wound.
Sally sat in the storage room, the box open before her was full of her old pans, and the sauté dish was sat in her lap. Seeing Virgil treat Alan's burns earlier had brought the memory back.
Even now there was the faintest lines still on her palm, and despite the pain it had been at the time, Sally couldn't regret the teaching opportunity it had presented.