The Long Meal

Dev opened the sealed container with the reverence reserved for relics. The cardamom pods lay nested in foam padding, their pale green shells still holding the ghost of monsoon air from a world that felt more like myth than memory. He counted out eight pods, then added a ninth. The container felt lighter than air in his palm. This would be the last time.

The galley hummed around him, life support breathing its mechanical rhythm while he heated oil in the largest pot. The station's artificial gravity pulled the oil flat and still, nothing like the way it would have moved in the gentle chaos of his grandmother's kitchen on Earth. He crushed the cardamom between his palms, the pods crackling, releasing the sharp sweetness that somehow survived recycled air and closed systems.

Four hours and thirty-seven minutes until docking. He had calculated it so many times the numbers lived in his muscle memory, the way his hands now moved through spice combinations without conscious thought. Cinnamon bark, real bark from trees that had felt rain, went into the oil. The smell rose up and caught in his throat.

The protein came from the station's synthesizers, but Dev worked it with his hands anyway, adding salt and turmeric until it took on the golden color he remembered. His fingers pressed into the yielding surface, each indent a small prayer. Zoe used to lean against the counter beside him, sixteen and impatient, asking why they couldn't just use the food printer like everyone else.

"Because this is how we remember and honor those before us," Dev had said, watching her roll her eyes at another one of Dad's lectures. "Food holds memories."

"Memories don't fill applications to the Academy," she'd shot back, but her hands had reached for the dough anyway despite herself.

The onions came next, chopped until his eyes watered. At least some things stayed the same, even light-years from home. He let them cook slowly, watching them surrender their sharpness to heat and time. The way all things did, eventually.

Rodriguez appeared in the galley doorway, coffee mug in hand and grease stains decorating his jumpsuit.

"Jesus, Dev. Smells incredible in here." He moved to the coffee station, inhaling deeply. "Special occasion?"

"Zoe's ship docks in four hours."

Rodriguez paused, the coffee dispenser humming between them. "Your daughter, right? How long has she been gone this time?"

The question hung in the recycled air. Dev added the protein to the pot, listening to it sizzle against the metal. "Ten years for me. Just under a year for her."

He felt Rodriguez chew on it behind him. The pause stretched too long. Dev caught his own reflection in the pot's surface: gray threading through his beard now, lines carved deep around his eyes.

"That's..." Rodriguez cleared his throat. "Time dilation's a bitch."

"Yes."

Rodriguez retreated with his coffee, leaving behind only the ghost of machine oil and awkward sympathy. Dev understood. Time dilation was theory to most people, clean equations on screens. The reality was messier. A sixteen-year-old daughter who'd won her spot on the youngest survey crew ever assembled, rolling her eyes at his tears. "God, Dad, it's just a year. I'll be back before you know it."

That same daughter, still sixteen, returning to find a father who'd aged a decade waiting for her.

Dev added water to the pot, then the tomatoes he had been hoarding, their acid bright against the warming spices. The stew would need three hours to reach the depth of flavor he remembered, layers building on each other like sediment. Like time.

He stirred and tasted, adjusted salt, added a pinch of asafoetida that had taken three months of trading to acquire. The station's chronometer showed four hours and fourteen minutes until docking. Enough time, if everything went perfectly.

But perfection was a luxury he couldn't afford anymore. The last time Zoe had visited, three years into his ten, she'd already started forgetting. Small things. The way he always added mint at the end. How they used to compete to see who could chop onions faster without crying.

"You look older," she'd said, not unkindly, just observing.

The memories lived in Dev's hands, in the automatic way he moved through his grandmother's recipe. But Zoe's memories lived on different ships now, shaped by different gravities, different people. Different time. She was still sixteen, still that brilliant, impatient girl who'd left for the stars. But he was someone else now. Someone she might not recognize. Besides, a year was a long time for a sixteen year old.

Steam rose from the pot, carrying five generations of tradition through corridors that had never felt rain. Dev breathed it in, let it fill his lungs the way it used to fill the kitchen in their old apartment, back when she'd complain about the smell getting in her hair before dates.

Three hours and forty-six minutes.

He turned the heat down to its lowest setting and began to wait.

The stew simmered. Its surface broke with slow bubbles. Dev cleaned his workspace, the cloth catching on hands that had grown rougher, more weathered. He wiped down surfaces that were already spotless, checked the chronometer. Three hours and thirty-one minutes.

He had enough cardamom for maybe two more meals like this. When the quartermaster had seen his last requisition form, he'd actually laughed. "Whole spices? Do you know what that cargo space costs?" Dev had traded a month of dessert rations instead.

The last time he had requested cumin and coriander, the quartermaster had suggested flavor packets. "Same nutritional value, fraction of the storage space." But flavor packets couldn't teach a teenage daughter that some things were worth the extra effort, worth the wait.

Dev checked the stew. The protein had surrendered its structure, become something new. The tomatoes had dissolved into memory. He tasted, added a pinch of garam masala he had ground himself from the last of his whole spices. The mortar and pestle had worn smooth under his hands. Perfect. The way his grandmother would have made it.

Two hours and fifty-three minutes.

The station's intercom crackled. "Kitchen, this is Control. We've got the Perseverance on long-range sensors. ETA unchanged."

"Copy, Control." Dev's voice came out rougher than he'd expected. Too many years of talking to himself in this kitchen.

He began setting the table in the small dining alcove off the galley. Two place settings, though he knew Zoe would probably want to eat with her crew first, catch up with people who shared her timeline, her references, her now. Still sixteen. Still invincible. Still young in all the ways he'd stopped being.

One hour and forty-seven minutes.

Dev ladled a small portion into a bowl and tasted it again. The flavors had married, deepened. This was how time was supposed to work. Building. Creating something more complex than what came before. Not this. Not a father aging past his daughter, becoming a stranger she visited between missions.

The chronometer chimed the hour. One hour and seventeen minutes.

Dev began preparing the rice, each grain precious as pearls. He washed it until the water ran clear, his hands slower than they used to be, joints complaining from a decade of station living. He added the rice to boiling water with a stick of cinnamon and two bay leaves. The pot lid rattled gently, a percussion he knew by heart.

Thirty-seven minutes.

The rice finished, each grain distinct. Dev turned off the heat under the stew, let it rest while he changed from his work clothes. The mirror in his quarters showed him the truth: ten years written in gray hair, in the slope of his shoulders, in the way his favorite shirt hung loose. He looked like his own father now. Zoe would notice. She noticed everything.

Fifteen minutes.

The intercom crackled again. "All personnel, the Perseverance has docked at Bay Seven. Repeat, docking complete."

Dev's hands found the counter's edge, gripped until the blood left his fingertips. He walked back to the galley, ladled the stew into two bowls, spooned rice alongside. The presentation mattered. It had always mattered.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside. Young voices, laughing. The percussion of youth. Dev smoothed his shirt and waited.

Zoe appeared in the doorway like a temporal anomaly, proof that time wasn't fair. Still sixteen. Her hair still in that messy bun she'd worn to launch, her stance still carrying that teenager's certainty that the universe was hers to explore. Only her eyes had changed, carrying distances he couldn't fathom.

"Dad." The word came with a smile that faltered for just a moment. "God, you weren't kidding about the time thing."

"Hello, sweetheart."

She crossed to him, hesitated, then hugged him quickly. Her arms were stronger than he remembered, trained by months of ship work. "Sorry I'm late. Decontamination, then the Captain wanted to debrief." She pulled back, studying his face. "You really do look like Grandpa now."

"He looked young for his age." Dev gestured toward the table. "Hungry?"

Zoe moved closer, breathing deep. "That smells..." She paused, searching. "Familiar? What is it?"

The words lodged in Dev's chest like splinters. "Jalfrezi. We used to make it together. Before you left."

She studied the bowls with the intensity she'd once reserved for star charts. "Right. I remember you cooking a lot." She smiled, trying to bridge the gap. "Ship food kind of murders your palate. This smells like actual food."

They sat. Zoe picked up her spoon and took a bite, her face transforming.

"Holy shit." She caught herself. "Sorry. But Dad, this is incredible. What are these flavors?"

"Language," Dev said automatically, and they both froze. How many times had he said that when she was growing up? But she wasn't growing up anymore. She was sixteen. She would always be sixteen in his life, returning to find him older each time, until one day...

"Sorry," she said again, softer. "These green things?"

"Cardamom pods." Dev watched her face, searching for the girl who used to steal them from his spice box, cracking them between her teeth. "From Earth."

"They're amazing. Like Christmas and lightning had a baby." She took another bite, slower. "I feel like I should remember this better. We cooked together?"

"Every Sunday. You complained the whole time."

"Sounds like me." She laughed, but it was hollow. "God, this is weird, isn't it? You're sitting there with ten years of Sundays I don't have."

They ate in silence. When Zoe gestured, her movements carried new confidence, the assured grace of someone who'd navigated the stars and come back. Still sixteen in body, but her soul had traveled further than he could imagine.

"This really is incredible," she said finally, setting down her spoon with practiced care. "Thanks for going to all this trouble."

"It was no trouble."

She stood, stretched. The motion was pure teenager, arms pulling up, back arching. Dev's heart clenched at the familiarity of it. "I should probably adjust to station time. Catch some sleep. The time lag is brutal."

"Of course." Dev began clearing the bowls. "How long is your shore leave?"

"Three days. Four if I push it." She paused at the doorway, and for a moment she was just Zoe again, his daughter, uncertain. "Would you... I mean, I know it's probably weird for you. But could you maybe teach me to make something? The crew would lose their minds if I actually cooked real food."

Dev looked at her. This brilliant girl who would never age, who would return from each journey to find him grayer, slower, further from the father she barely remembered.

"I'd like that," he said. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

After she left, Dev finished cleaning. He sealed the leftover stew, labeled it with the date in both their timelines. Ten years for him. Not even one for her.

He picked it up, felt the nothing it contained. Tomorrow he would teach her to bloom spices in oil. He would tell her about five generations of women and men who stirred pots and waited. He would give her what recipes he could, knowing that one day she would return to find him gone, with only the memory of spices to guide her home.

The container's lid clicked shut with a sound like a heart skipping. Dev put it away and began planning tomorrow's meal, his weathered hands already remembering the weight of what came next.