Who's for Dinner

Mama whispered in muted tones that sounded like a lullaby in my ears. She patted my head and dragged the long nails of her fingers through my hair every so often. I loved it when she followed the trail of my brown hair down from my scalp to my back. I enjoyed the clicking sound the baby pink nails made when they rubbed together. 

“It seems wrong,” she said in her soft murmur. “Cruel.”

Papa either knew my drooped head and spaghetti-limp arms were a rouse, or he didn’t care about waking me. He heaved a great sigh and spoke in his regular booming voice. “Sometimes I worry you’re too soft, Kel.”

Mama’s hand briefly left my hair, and I imagined her putting it to her cherry-red lips as she shushed Papa. “Don’t wake her.”

I felt his eyes taking me in, waiting for my eyelids to flutter or for my breathing to change. Not a chance. 

It was Papa’s job to keep the porch swing in motion, so Mama could rest her feet under her knees and I could fane sleep. He did a poor job. I wanted to groan as the comforting back-and-forth motion once again ebbed to a stop. How difficult was it for Papa to push his feet against the floor? Perhaps it was his shoes, I thought. They looked too big and heavy for any human being. I imagined him winning the hard leather boots from a great white Yeti while out camping. I nearly giggled at the image but remembered that I wanted to be asleep. If I was convincing enough, Papa would have to carry me to my bed once the sun had fallen behind the mountains.

“I just think there’s a better, more humane solution,” said Mama. “He came to us for help after all.”

Papa grunted, the sound coming from low within his belly. “And he’s far overstayed his welcome.

“If the poor fellow must leave, can’t you take him somewhere nice?”

“For heaven’s sake, Kel, he’s an unwelcome squatter. You want me searching all over town to find a place where he can live in luxury?”

Mama didn’t reply. I knew precisely who they were talking about—my Uncle Kip. He arrived two weeks ago with a dirty brown suitcase and hasn’t left since. I agreed with Papa. Once Uncle Kip left, I’d have my playroom back. It was very difficult to set up my Barbies correctly with his great big air mattress in the way. 

“There has to be a better way than killing him,” whispered Mama.

My eyes startled open. What an uncomfortable word. A word I wasn’t even allowed to utter. Whenever me and my brother played cops and robbers with our wooden guns, any phrase akin to “I’m gonna kill ya, you dirty thief” was met with a harsh look from Mama and a request to not be so gruesome. 

Now here was Mama saying the gruesome word while discussing her own brother. It made no sense to me. I focused on the sound of the chickens as they grazed at the food scattered around their coop. Their familiar squawks, along with the louder crows of the rooster, told me I was not in some horrible, confusing dream. 

Papa’s gaze held fixed on Mama. He hadn’t seen wide-open eyes. I closed them and schooled my features back into that of a sleeping girl, far too exhausted to walk herself to bed.

“We’ve got no use for him, Kel. More than that, think of all the food we’ve given him these past few days. You’ve fattened him up nicely. Seems the least the guy could do is provide us with a hearty meal, after all we’ve done for him.”

“I couldn’t stomach eating him.”

They wanted to eat Uncle Kip? My eyes tried to pop open once again, but I kept them screwed tightly closed. Uncle Kip was a nuisance, to be sure, but that didn’t mean he deserved to die. He especially didn’t deserve to be turned into dinner.

Perhaps Papa really did meet a wild yeti while out camping last weekend. Maybe the beast fed him human flesh and now Papa hungered for more. 

“Can’t you just kick him out and let him fend for himself?” Mama asked. 

“He’d likely come right back. Or the wolves that chased him here will snag him up once he’s outside our fence. You think being torn apart is a better fate for him?”

Uncle Kip told me he owed money to some bad wolves, but I knew he was talking about mean men, not actual wolves. I imagined these bad men waiting outside our barbed wire fence, biding their time until my poor uncle showed himself. Could what they’d do to him truly be worse than being eaten?

Mama sighed, the sound she often made when she couldn’t talk Papa out of something. 

“Very well. Just please make sure he doesn’t suffer.”

My heart thumped a violent rhyme in my chest. Maybe I should stand up and confront them, demand that they not hurt my poor, bothersome uncle who, granted, did smell like onions most of the time. I couldn’t distinguish what kept me from such an act of bravery. Maybe I simply wasn’t brave, but a coward. I hated the thought, but I was only seven, after all. Real bravery wasn’t something you got until you were at least ten, or so my brother has told me. 

Papa stretched his arm around Mama. I felt his fingers brushing my back. “I promise.”

…

A few days later, after I had gone several hours without seeing poor Uncle Kip, I surmised it was the night he would be served for dinner. I prepared by eating extra pudding cups when Mama wasn’t looking. I wanted to fill up on anything else before dinner, so the horrible, yet delicious, smell wafting from the kitchen wouldn’t tempt me. 

As we sat down around our oval dining table, I contemplated warning my brother about the tainted dinner. But he’d cut the hair off of my favorite Barbie that morning, so keeping my mouth shut seemed a fitting payback. 

Mama looked pale as Papa placed the colossal silver platter on the table covered by a tin dome. I couldn’t believe all of Uncle Kip fit under there. 

I sat straight in my chair, overcome with morbid curiosity. 

Just as Papa moved to take the lid off the dish, the chair next to me scraped against the floor. I looked up and there was Uncle Kip, very much alive. My mouth gaped open as I stared at him. 

“Smells good,” he said in his scratchy voice. “What’s for dinner?”

Papa smiled as he lifted the lid to reveal a perfectly roasted bird.

“It’s a chicken,” I said with deep relief.

Mama sniffled. “It’s a rooster, actually.”