“Chocolate,” I tell him. “The pudding one.”

“Chocolate it is,” he says, just as the oven timer goes off on my end. He must hear it, because he says, “Does this mean P&P Bake is getting an update today?”

“If I manage not to burn these blondies like I did with last week’s cake.”

“So Sorry Blondies?” my dad asks. He’s not a big worrier—he’s one of those parents who is more into listening than prying—but even he knows these particular blondies have notorious origins.

The way my parents’ divorce happened was … anticlimactic. They sat us down one day over dinner and told us it was mutual. That they loved each other, but thought they were better off as friends. And as stunned as Paige and I were, it didn’t really rock anyone’s worlds. We were still in Nashville. We all still lived in the same place. My dad just started sleeping in the guest room, and that was that.

Or at least, it was for a few months. It was around that time that Big League Burger was getting too big for them to manage alone. The options were to sell parts of the franchise, or fully take the reins of the whole thing. My dad waffled—his heart was always in the original location, not the others that followed—but my mom didn’t hesitate. She loved every part of it, big and small, and didn’t want someone outside of the family in charge. If he didn’t want to take those reins, she would. And she’d head to New York and open the corporate office there to do it.

Even though our dad was in full support of the idea, it was around then, I think, that Paige conflated everything that happened with BLB with the divorce and started blaming Mom. And for a little while, when Paige wanted me to be on her side about that, I wondered if I should too. After all, she seemed to be the one in motion, instigating the change.

But it wasn’t her so much as it was BLB itself. I think it honestly shocked my dad, how fast we grew. Mom embraced it, pushing outward to the wind, and Dad seemed to cave in on it, becoming more and more invested in the goings-on of our original locations, as if he could just put up blinders and pretend the world ended right there.

So really, it’s not fair to blame one of them. I think, in the end, it punctuated something they knew all along, but the day-to-day of our old lives always shielded them from. Mom is someone who likes adventure, and taking chances, and asking questions. Dad is someone who is perfectly content with what he has and where he is, and doesn’t especially love change. And Big League Burger was nothing if not changing.

And so were we. Mom asked me to come to New York with her, and I couldn’t imagine saying no. I was always her mini-me, always nipping at her heels. She made it sound like an adventure—and maybe it would have been, if Paige hadn’t decided at the last minute that she was coming too.

Enter the So Sorry Blondies. It was a few weeks after we’d moved here, and the first of Paige’s many blowups with Mom, accusing her of all kinds of things—saying she didn’t love Dad at all, that she’d ruined everything, yelling loud enough that it’s a miracle our neighbors’ ears didn’t bleed. Once it was over, Mom left to run in the park, and Paige left to go to the grocery store down the street, and I stayed in the too-big, too-unfamiliar apartment, wrestling with the strange feeling I had to take sides and not knowing which side to take.

Once she’d calmed down, Paige employed my help in making the So Sorry Blondies. We even Skyped in Dad, who didn’t have very strong dessert opinions, other than to make sure the edges were crispy. Mom accepted them with a conciliatory smile, and that night, we all ate them for dinner. It was one of those bright spots that punctuated a grim year; a weird little pocket in the timestream I remember with an equal amount of affection and regret. It hurts to remember, but sometimes I have to, or I’ll forget the way we used to be all together. Like the blondies themselves—the bitter and the sweet.

All this is to say, I know these blondies aren’t magic. It’s not going to make some bridge between me and Jack for all the water to go under. But I can’t think of anything else I can do.

“They’re for—a classmate,” I tell him, just barely stopping myself from saying they’re for a boy.

Mom’s key turns in the door.

“A classmate, huh?” my dad asks. I can hear the relief in his voice. The last thing either of us wants is another family feud. “What kind of teenage drama merits the full blondie?”

Mom waves as she comes in, dropping her briefcase on one of the kitchen stools and offering me a weary smile as she pulls off her sunglasses.

“It’s Dad,” I tell her.

She perks up. “Ask him how the new menu has been doing.” Even though we’re sprouting new locations every other week, she still loves to hear Dad’s day-to-day at the original spot.

“Tell her it’s going well,” says Dad, hearing her from the other end. “The Twitter, though—well, I’m at the front of the line, so I gotta order now. I’ll call you both back in a jif.”

“Chocolate pudding,” I remind him.

“On it, hon. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I hang up and see my mom looking at the So Sorry Blondies, a wistful expression on her face. It makes my throat ache, like the space in the room where Paige should be has never been quite as big.

“Everything okay, Pep?”