There is a need rising with the sun this morning. Like the sunrise it is hidden in the dreary pattering rain. It is the lightest understanding of day without the glistening and the blue reflected sky. It is a need to be together and work as humans do toward the reason for the day.

The rain comes in stronger showers with the northwest wind driving it in gusts against the windows like an ocean gale. The only evidence of morning is the narrow glimmer of daylight through the storm revealing itself in spite of the gray hued clouds pregnant with moisture. The electric coffee pot snorts and squirts dark brown water into the glass decanter like a fussy steam engine. With the aroma of coffee and morning in the air I think about baking bread on the cook stove with Zoe.

However, Zoe is not pleased with my firm knock at her locked bedroom door. She is seldom pleased or delighted anymore. She is seventeen and held up into herself. Her world exists apart from mine. Her life is not defined by baking bread, or by waking before eleven a.m. on a tempestuous Sunday.

I ask if she would like to join me in baking bread today. Just one loaf, three or four hours of time spent together producing something that can be easily purchased at the store or a fancy bakery. She surprises me by saying yes while still rubbing sleep from her eyes.

After she has adorned herself in sweat pants and a tee shirt we begin the process. We start by selecting a recipe from the well-used, worn, red cookbook. It is from my mother - before I had Zoe. It is a basic book with pictures and hints on table manners. It is from a time in my life I would like to share, but I hold my tongue. Today is not my story alone. It will be a day for our story.

We choose an easy bread. Something for a beginning; a French baguette. I find the ingredients in various locations in the kitchen and we arrange the flour, salt, water, measuring cups, yeast and sugar on the blue Formica countertop. It takes awhile to find all that we will need for the recipe but we dutifully follow the directions to assemble all ingredients as if we were cooking with a Julia Child.

The most difficult part is getting the yeast right. I do not lecture but I do read the recipe aloud. Zoe takes it up in her strong young woman voice. With authority she tests the warm water from the hot faucet with her fingers. She asks me if it is the right temperature yet. I try the water too. It is right and I nod. Inside I am thrilled. We are working together. She has not tuned me out and seems genuinely interested.

I note the shape of her hand as she places the powdered yeast and mixes it in the warm water from the clear glass measuring cup. Her hands, so chubby as a child, are now slender, forceful and graceful. Everything is in proportion and unblemished. Contrarily, mine are aging with elephant-like skin. The bluish veins are showing through like a map of my life and where I have been. I put my smaller wrinkled hand next to hers and she looks at me with a smile on her lips. Does she wonder if her hand will one day look like mine?

Zoe adds yeast to the dry ingredients while I again read the directions aloud. She is concentrating and her desire for perfection has set in. She wants it to be right, and I want it to be so for her. She is engrossed in the doing with her own picture of what she and I will produce.

Zoe hears the word 'knead' and looks at me puzzled. I flour the cutting board and plop the gooey mixture onto the sprinkled white flour. I powder my hands and begin to roll and push and pull the dough in some ancient woman-rhythm. "Like clay," I tell her, "you try."

Zoe flours her own hands and takes over. At first she is awkward with the spongy mass, but soon finds a workable technique. She begins to hum. Then we both begin to sing. Real songs at first; off key and tentative. Then louder like singers at a Broadway musical, making up words about baking bread on a rainy Sunday.

The kneaded dough is placed into the mustard yellow stoneware bowl to rise. I cover it with a blue plaid dish cloth and place it in the tiny space between the wood stove and the living room wall. I wonder if Zoe remembers this part of her early childhood - the fresh smells of rising bread mixing with wood smoke. I have done this over the years so often by myself. Just another chore at times, but today it has meaning.

When I return to the kitchen I find that Zoe is engrossed in the red Betty Crocker cookbook, reading recipes on the food stained pages. She looks up and murmurs, "I never thought about being a cook or a chef. It would be kind of cool to make some of this stuff and get paid for it too."

She then shares pictures of beautifully decorated theme cakes with me, laughing at the thought of making something so fine. Smiling, I agree. I hold back the contention that rises up in my voice. The lectures on hard, foot wearying kitchen work and little money or recognition. How would I really know anyway? I always seem to have a speech available for any given topic these days.