Spaghetti

My Mama used to watch cooking shows like rachael ray and martha stewart with me when I was little. They always made the most elegant meals. Chicken dijon with asparagus and plated with a green sauce that I can't recall the name of now.

Spaghetti was a frequent meal at our house, we didn't always have money for meatballs. We always waited to eat until my Dad came home from work.

He worked for that railroad company, the one that shut down after the big scandal, oh I can't remember the name of it. Anyways, he worked for them back then. He came home exhausted every night, I watched as workers slowly walked back to their houses on our block. I would get all excited when he got close to our front walk, he’d skip up the steps, pick me up in  a big hug and hug Mama too. 

I knew the routine, we sat down at the table as soon as Dad got home. I stood on a step stool as he helped me wash my hands and he washed his. Tonight was a Friday, which meant that mom only had one house to clean and had finished cleaning the stooperson’s house around three-thirty. She  had walked home from school with me and we talked about my day at school and what we could make for dinner. 

Dad could cash his Friday paycheck Saturday morning so Saturday was grocery day and Friday was leftover night. 

Tonight mom had made cheesy rolls, chicken with salt and pepper rub and she had heated up some frozen corn on the stove. Everything smelled amazing and I was reaching for the roll on my plate when mama told me to say the prayer. My Dad chuckled a little when I peeked open one eye while I was saying the prayer.

“Thank you for this day God, and this food, I pray that you protect my Dad and Mama, and that I get to go see gramma and grandad soon. Amen.” I grabbed my roll and started eating before my parents could mutter an Amen. 

*

I stopped working for the railroad at age 47, when the Scandal took down the company. Well it was more of an accident than a Scandal. I fell between the tracks we was working on and someone had forgotten to put a broadcast on the radio about the track bein closed. The distant sound of a train whistle told us they was comin in our direction, so a few guys was helpin pull me up. I got out of the way real quick but my watch was left on the track, the train was barrelling our way and ran over it real quick. My grandfather’s watch, gone. 

It was the only valuable thing I owned, I even had to sell my great grandmother’s china to catch us up on our mortgage last June while I was between jobs. After work I told Mona what had happened while Rain was sleepin. 

Mona argued, “Harold, you have to sue them, they can’t get away with this, that was a family heirloom!”

I could only respond, “ Mona keep your voice down, the girls asleep for goodness sakes. I know. I know we should sue but we have to consider what it could mean for us afterwards.”

“What do you mean afterwards?!”

“Well I’ve been thinking, if we sue they’ll fire me, we’ll get some money to live offa’ but then what? No one will want to hire me because they’ll be scared we’ll sue them too!”

“ I just...Harold…” She was crying by now and I hated seeing her cry.

“Shhhh…. It’ll be alright Mona. I promise.”

I thought it over for another day or two while still going about my usual business, and I figured that I should bring it up again with Mona. 

“Mona”

“Yes Harold,” she said as she looked into my eyes. 

“I think we need to think over this lawsuit again.”

“Well I already told you I think it’s a good idea, we sold our other valuables already and it meant something to us.”

“I’m just making sure that your feelings haven’t changed because I think we should go after ‘em”

“What made you change your mind?”

“The railroad I work for is a big company and they can afford to replace my watch with a nicer one, heck they could afford a brand new  train stop right outside our door if we hadda’ strong enough case against ‘em.”

That was the last time we really discussed it before the trial. I had gotten a friend of mine to take our case pro bono, and when the trial came he was ready. He tried an out of court settlement that I couldn’t be there for because I was working, he said it hadn’t gone well though. So The trial  was our only hope. He was asking $5,500, quite a lot of cash back in the day. Eventually it was ruled that we would get the full amount, and when I told Mona that night she was ecstatic! 

Since I couldn’t work for the railroad anymore I started spending time with Rain, our daughter, and Mona when she wasn’t out cleaning houses. I eventually went back to work as a trader at The Rusty Nail, our local trading market but I missed traveling with the rail crew to other jobs. 

Melroy, the owner of The Rusty Nail, asked if I would go with him on a trade route through bandit country. I accepted his offer because it meant overtime pay, and also because I would get to travel. 

I told Mona about the job that night and kissed her and Rain farewell that morning before I departed for the journey.

*

The last time I saw my Dad was the morning he was going to a trading post in bandit country. He had been told he was trading with the townspeople, Melroy had wanted to trade with the bandits instead. Or so we were told when they brought back their bodies. Mama had him buried in a plot at the cemetery near the far corner, where the plot’s were the cheapest. We couldn’t afford a ceremony, Mama wouldn’t have wanted me to see him that way anyways. Just her and I stood there as they lowered his casket into the ground and we left a few wildflowers on top of the plot once it had been filled in. We said a prayer over him and left the cemetery. 

Mama cried and cried that day. She had been crying after I went to bed every night since she had found out about his death, when she thought I couldn’t hear her. She cried on the walk home in front of me now though, she gave me a hug when we got home and told me she loved me but that she needed to be alone for a little while if I’d be okay with that. I told her I could leave her alone for a while. She fell asleep crying and I started making dinner. I’d never been allowed to cook on my own but I'd seen mama do it tons of times so I was confident I could do it. This was just like Friday’s, pick between whatever staple foods we had and make a meal.

I made spaghetti with homemade frozen pasta sauce and frozen corn. 

I woke up Mama when the food was done and she could smell the familiar scent in the air. 

“Mama, I made you dinner,” I said in the sweetest voice.

“Oh Rain, thank you sweetie.”

Her voice had sounded so calm and washed out, but I was just happy to have been able to do something for the person I loved most, the only person I had left.