When the timer sounded

An original fictional account set during an invented bread-making lesson.

The recipe cards were clipped above the workbench, each stage divided from the next by a bold number of minutes. I found the arrangement reassuring. Once the ingredients had been measured, it seemed that the clock would carry the responsibility for us. Mix for this long, wait for that long, bake until the final bell: the loaf had only to obey.

Leena placed two covered bowls beside each other. Their dough had been mixed at the same time, but one had risen into a smooth dome while the other remained low and tight. She asked which bowl was late. I looked at the timer, although it could tell me only that both had waited for twenty-five minutes. Leena pressed a finger lightly into each surface. One sprang back at once; the other kept a shallow hollow. The bowls had shared a starting time, but they had not arrived together.

For the next batch, Leena let me decide when to begin shaping. I obeyed the alarm without looking into the bowl. The dough resisted my hands and pulled itself back into a lump whenever I stretched it. I blamed the recipe until Leena covered the bowl again and slid it towards the warmer end of the bench. She did not alter the written time. She simply wrote a question mark beside it.

After that, I distrusted every number. I leaned over the bowls, announcing each bubble and crease as if I had discovered a secret signal. Leena listened, then asked what all those signs meant together. A bubble alone did not make the dough ready, and neither did a minute on the timer. She made me notice how the surface moved, how the dough yielded and whether it held the shape of a gentle press.

When the alarm sounded for the final bowl, I let it ring. I checked the dough before reaching for the scraper. It stretched without fighting me, and the hollow made by my finger rose slowly. The recipe card still hung above the bench, but its numbers now looked less like orders and more like useful places to pause and pay attention. I had wanted the clock to make the decision. By the end of the lesson, I understood why it could only remind me that a decision was due.

How does the writer present the narrator's changing view of the recipe timings? Support your answer with references to the passage.