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Fiction

“Dodge boys…we’re the Dodge boys!” Adeline wakes to the same annoyingly cheerful car jingle playing on the radio every morning at 7am. Why can’t her mother ever listen to a different station? Classic rock? Reggae? Hell, she’d even settle for smooth jazz at this point. She drags herself out of her warm bed, throws on a sweatshirt, slides into her beat-up Birkenstocks and trudges down the hallway toward the kitchen. As she enters, the overhead, fluorescent light casts a blinding glare in her half-opened eyes. Once fully awake, she surveys the scene. Her mother is sitting at the table with a cup of steaming hot coffee and the daily newspaper spread out in front of her. She points Adeline to this morning’s breakfast: congealed scrambled eggs and burned bacon sitting limply on the stove in a cast-iron skillet. Her stomach turns. She is never hungry in the morning. She’s particularly never hungry for her mother’s breakfasts. She trudges over to the coffee pot and pours herself a cup, knowing full well that she’ll take just one sip of the acrid fluid and dump the rest down the sink. How ironic, she thinks to herself, her mother is a gourmet cook, yet she cannot for the life of her make an edible breakfast and a decent cup of coffee.

Her mother is not a morning person. She is quiet and moody. She is also quick-tempered. Adeline knows better than to interrupt her intense concentration on the morning paper. Yet just once, she wishes her mother would greet her with a smile, make the slightest effort to converse.

To Adeline, her mother is an enigma. She knows she is a lonely woman. Even after giving birth to five children, four of whom are grown and gone, her mother’s loneliness is palpable. Adeline’s father is mostly absent. He is a hard-working, family man. His business has him leaving the house before dawn and returning home when the sun is beginning to set. He is also a man of routines. Dinner at 5:30, the news at 6, an hour buried in the latest biography or political thriller and then bed by 7:30. He is not young. Ten years older than her mother, Adeline often wonders how her father keeps up his pace. After the dishes are done, Adeline watches her mother retire to the den to watch TV. It’s not long before she observes her mother’s eyelids getting heavy as she fights the urge to succumb to sleep, but she always does. “Go to bed, Mom,” Adeline will say gently. Her mother will rouse herself for the next few minutes before repeating the cycle again, until she finally gives in and heads to bed, but not before admonishing Adeline with a warning not to stay up too late.

Cooking is her mother’s passion. It is in the kitchen that she can exercise her creativity and reap the accolades. It's there that she whips up her Italian specialties – spaghetti and lobster Fra diavolo, veal cutlets parmigiana, chicken and escarole soup. She makes preparing these dishes look effortless, and she loves nothing more than to serve them to friends and family who “ooh” and “ahh” over her culinary talents. Adeline has observed that her mother is happiest when sitting around the dining table and watching people eat her food. As though with every bite they are validating her existence. Allowing her to be seen. Making her feel like she is enough.

Adeline is aware that the kitchen has become her mother’s lifeline. That without it, she would simply disappear within herself.

When Adeline leaves for school, her mother barely acknowledges her departure. When she returns home, she enters the kitchen to find her mother holding court with four of her girlfriends at the kitchen table. They have just consumed a lunch of French Niçoise salad, garlic pita bread and strawberry mousse. Adeline is eager to tell her mother her news – after a long, hard effort, she has just been elected president of the student council. Breathlessly, Adeline enters the kitchen and spills the news to her mother. Adeline waits for her reaction, but there is none. Her mother simply smiles weakly at Adeline and then turns her attention back to her friends. They resume their high-pitched, spirited conversation. Adeline looks at her mother, then at her friends, and then back at her mother. She feels an ache in her heart. She backs out of the kitchen and heads to her bedroom where she throws herself on her bed facedown and cries silently into her pillow. Hours have passed. Maybe more. She knows because of the way the light is coming through her bedroom curtains. She realizes she is hungry. She walks into the kitchen. It is quiet, save for the light over the sink. There is no trace of her mother or her lunch party. Adeline opens the refrigerator and begins foraging for leftovers. She frantically begins emptying the refrigerator in search of remnants from the day's lunch party. But all she finds are condiments, some eggs, a bag of shredded cheese, two sticks of butter and some condiments. There is nothing else left save for a half-open bag of pasta.

Adeline stands in the light of the refrigerator. Her stomach emits a low rumble. “How could she?” Adeline thinks to herself. She slams the refrigerator door. She turns off the sink light and walks slowly to the kitchen table and sits down. She lowers her head and rests it gently on her arms. She hears the clock over the table ticking. Maybe an hour goes by. Maybe more. She knows that it is long past her father’s bedtime. From the den she hears the drone of the TV. Adeline rises and heads toward the sound. She stands in the doorway and stares at her mother, sound asleep on the couch. Her soft snoring fills the room. Adeline turns around and walks back to the kitchen. She turns on the lights and reaches for her mother’s recipe box. She flips through the recipe cards until she finally finds the one she is looking for. It is frayed at the edges and smeared with oily fingerprints from years of use. She opens the cabinet and grabs her mother’s cast-iron pan, turns on the stove and carefully adjusts the flame.

Then, she cooks.

END

October 02, 2024 17:04

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1 comment

Lily Finch
02:18 Oct 11, 2024

Hi Cristine, I got your name through the critique circle. I like the premise behind your story, which is written in the third person. But you wrote it like you are telling us a story rather than immersing us in your story. For example: “Dodge boys…we’re the Dodge boys!” Adeline wakes to the same cheerful car jingle playing on the radio every morning at 7am. Why can’t her mother ever listen to a different station? Classic rock? Reggae? Hell, she’d even settle for smooth jazz at this point. The part above is good. She drags herself out o...

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