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Hi, this is Jill Badonsky with The Muse's Daydream, and this story is called Muffins.
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Most dangerous things begin as accidents, like nuclear fission and bangs.
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And that's how these muffins started.
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Hattie was the kind of woman who always looked like she just finished stacking chairs after a church basement meeting nobody really wanted to attend.
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She lived alone with a spider plant named Bill and cookbooks that promised simple joy but involved complicated grocery lists.
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She wanted to make a batch of blueberry muffins that was just aiming for something gee whiz worthy.
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But she was out of sugar, so she used maple syrup.
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Out of cinnamon, so she used cardamom.
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Out of blueberries, so she used dice peaches.
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And out of patience, so she used extra vanilla.
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They came out looking like regular peach muffins.
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And she carried a couple over to her neighbor Martin, whose last recorded smile was during the Obama administration.
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He took one bite and his shoulders dropped a full inch.
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This is uh nice, he said, like the word was rusty.
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By the third bite, he was confessing his divorce, his fear of flying, and the time he peed his pants during a fire drill in third grade.
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But it was fine, he said, because they blamed the sprinkler system, so no one knew.
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In our town, news is usually limited to they moved the cereal to aisle five.
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So the report that Hattie's muffin had mollified Martin spread fast.
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Soon people started showing up with what they called situations: breakups, midlife crisis, and children who talked like tiny hostage takers.
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Hattie listened and baked.
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Might still work out banana nut muffins.
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He wasn't that great anyway, cranberry orange.
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Get a hobby lemon poppy seed.
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And people ate and something in them relaxed.
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Elise the yoga teacher called Hattie a healing portal, which is the kind of phrase that makes regular people want to run into oncoming traffic.
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The town newsletter ran her picture with the caption, muffins that make you feel better.
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It's just butter and fruit that was made while singing off key, she insisted.
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Folks didn't hear just muffins.
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They heard she couldn't fix me.
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Strangers began knocking and holding empty containers and full expectations.
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And one Sunday, a woman named Gwen arrived and said, My husband left.
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My kids blame me.
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And my mama sends sunsets with Bible passages on them.
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I don't want to feel better.
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I want to feel something else.
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Howdy reached for the flower and then stopped.
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I can't, she said, I'm out of miracles.
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They sat and the sugar sounded quiet.
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What if I made you a muffin that doesn't promise anything?
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Just keeps you company while you feel awful.
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A witness muffin.
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Gwen frowned.
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That's terrible brandy.
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Yep, said Hattie.
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And she baked a plain one.
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No fruit, no frosting, no false cheer.
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And they ate them right there and right out of the oven.
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Do you feel something now?
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Hattie said.
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Well my tongue's burnt, Gwen said.
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But less alone.
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Well that's something, Hattie said.
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And the next day a sign appeared on her door.
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Muffins for sale, happiness not guaranteed, company likely.
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Hattie didn't want to fix no one no more, but she made darn sure nobody in that town had to fall apart alone or on an empty stomach.
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Don't need to fix nothing, but it might taste good.
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This has been a muse's daydream.
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Written, narrated, and imperfectly engineered by Jill Badonsky.
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Check the show notes, there's some interesting things there.
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And thank you for listening.