Salty Tears

Salty Tears

Mrs. Amelia Farraday’s cuisine was the talk of the town, or at least she often imagined it to be. She had of course been cooking and baking for tea parties since Mr. Higgins, the pink stuffed pig and Miss Antionette, the bear with the floral dress, had been her most polite and behaved guests twenty-four years ago.

Now she was hosting people of importance and more class than she could even pretend to have, despite attending university for an English degree and collecting elegant tea cups. Tomorrow’s supper was approaching fast and at the top of the guest list was the president of the company her husband was quickly advancing in, along with his wife and children, some of their colleagues, and of course, her mother-in-law, because why not?

The president’s wife was a strict vegetarian, which she didn’t know exactly what that meant, but after a long, late night mission in bed of trekking to strange places of the internet, Amelia decided that she would have to avoid all use of eggs, onions, and garlic, just to be safe. In fact, she would avoid cheese, milk and butter altogether! Why risk starving the president’s wife!?

She accepted the challenge optimistically, and spent another hour past her already late bedtime, conjuring up the perfect meal for the posh stranger invasion. She fell asleep dreaming of the praise she’d receive over her husband’s homemade wine and her elegantly, thoughtfully, prepared feast.

She didn’t expect everyone and their brother to be at the Whole Foods that next morning. Sleep deprived and regretting her distracted scrolling through dancing cat videos and dozen of hair styling shorts, she staggered through the isles, checking her list at least ten different times, trying to make sure she had everything she needed.

It wasn’t until she was driving back home, dreaming of the feast, when at a red light she realized she had forgotten the first item she wrote in capital letters on the top of her purple floral note paper: SALT.

“How could I forget we were out of salt!?” she screamed, catching the attention of an old woman in the car next to her, who stared at her in bewildered shock through their partially open windows. The Whole Foods sprawling box of organic concoctions was miles behind her now. Fortunately, Walmart was but a traffic light away. She sighed and gave the old woman a thumbs up. Crisis averted!

When she returned home, she decided to get twenty-winks, or what other people called a nap. She had all afternoon to prepare, what could be the harm in a little day break?

~*~*~*~

“Amelia, where’s the dinner? Everyone will be here in a hour!” She awoke to her husband calling her name and their black, fluffy Newfoundland licking her face.

“What!?” she shrieked, grabbing her heart, sure she was just having a nightmare. She reached for her phone to see she had almost set the alarm, but not quite. Her dreams of what were supposed to be, reflected back to her as numbers that were long past.

“Do you need some help?” He looked at her pitifully.

She wasn’t sure what she was saying, words like, “I’m not even dressed, I won’t have time! I need you need to slice the tofu! Oh God, what about the beans!? Get the cans out of the basement!” Words were flying from her mouth and her shaking feet and hands flew into their clean white kitchen, grabbing pots, pans and knives and everything out of the refrigerator with no sense of logic or reason.

“We can just order—“ her husband dared to offer.

“Didn’t you tell them, I was cooking!?” Tears were in her eyes.

“Well, it will be a funny story—“

“We’ll have soup!” she suddenly exclaimed with a flash of inspiration. She laughed a bit manically, and threw the five pound bag of organic carrots at her husband. He got to chopping, until she realized, no good soup was served without bread.

She threw millet flour, psyllium husks, apple cider vinegar, baking soda and baking powder into a bowl and mixed it with a fierce concentration. She crumpled the wax paper like an author who despised their writing and spread it out into the loaf pans. The oven couldn’t heat fast enough.

Cans of beans, chunks of tofu, and a collection of chopped vegetables were thrown into a giant pot of boiling water.

The dog came into the kitchen and she grabbed the broom, mercilessly chasing it and it’s long, clumps of shedding fur away from her perfect, last minute plan.

“Get the hors d'oeuvres ready!” she hollered at her husband, who had become nothing but another piece of kitchen machinery, set to follow her every command.

“You could say please,” he muttered.

“We only have thirty minutes and look at me! I’m still in my pajamas!” He laughed at her. She glowered and chopped through green beans with a frightening speed. No fingers could be cut off, it would waste too much time. Slivers of almonds were tossed into a pan to sauté along with the unevenly cut beans. Her own precious cashew coffee creamer was poured into the skillet. She of course, planned to make her own almond cream, but there was no time. One must improvise!

Before she could even stop to wonder how, the clock warned them that they had fifteen minutes until the hour of truth arrived. Of course, the guests were likely to show up early…

“I hope your friends aren’t punctual!” she exclaimed.

“Of course they are. That’s the key to success,” her husband said. He added, “Or maybe it’s just having a husband who’s the world’s fastest vegetable chopper!”

She didn’t dare tell him how she had been holding her tongue to keep from exclaiming how slow he moved and incorrectly he held the knife. She knew she was doomed without him.

Finally, with five minutes left, she breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was coming together after all! She could go get changed as the soup boiled nicely and her husband finished cutting the fruit. They’d put out the fancy crackers and she’d whip up a cheesy cashew spread made with nutritional yeast flakes in no time. She’d take the store bought hummus she planned to have for lunch that week, put it in a white china bowl and everything would look great.

“Soup isn’t my idea of an impressive meal,” she sighed as she unscrewed the black plastic lid of the giant pink Himalayan salt shaker she had gotten at Walmart. She stared gratefully into her husband’s eyes as she began to explain her original menu for that evening and shook the salt into the soup.

“I had found this recipe for vegan fish patties, they call it phish, with a P-H—“ She stopped mid-sentence as the clear plastic lid with holes for the salt to pour through, fell off completely, splashing right into the soup, and along with it, dumped half the container of salt.

The shaker and her arm floated in the air as she looked to her husband, his mouth agape, as her own hit the floor.

Then her jaw started to quiver, tears spontaneously came to her eyes as she screamed, “THE SOUP!!”

“Wait! Just wait!” He brought his finger to his chin as her shaking hand slowly lowered the instrument of destruction to the counter. Both her hands found their way to the sides of her head, as she ran them through her hair, her mouth still parted in shock.

“Put some rice in the rice cooker!” He suddenly commanded her, grabbing a big metal strainer and a ladle.

She obeyed, too struck to do anything but surrender, and almost told him to hurry and call a local Italian restaurant to save their evening. Though, then she considered that they’d use garlic and onion and she had read that wasn’t a pure vegetarian thing. So perhaps she could make pasta and use the cheesy cashew spread…?

“We’ll have salty vegetable rice!” He smiled at her, and in his smile, she was suddenly struck with a deep recognition. To him, she saw it was as though this meal didn’t matter and wasn’t supposed to be perfect for the boss he was surely eager to impress, but that her happiness and peace of mind meant more than any of it.

His compassion calmed her and her heart was deeply touched, though she still had tears in her eyes for but a moment ago she had sunk to the bottom of an emotional soup, just like the lid of the salt shaker. She sniffed them back, and suggested, feeling like a little child who’s world momentarily collapsed, “What if I use the cheesy cashew spread and make a pasta with it? We could add the salty veggies, tofu and beans to that instead?”

“I think it will be delightful,” he assured her.

She huffed a bit of a laugh, “Good thing I didn’t add salt to the cashew spread.”

“I mean, you still could.” He repressed his laugh as she whacked his arm, playfully.

“Oh, you know, I forgot to add salt to the bread!” she exclaimed.

He told her, “I’m sure no one will notice.”

“I think we should rinse the vegetables off before we add them though,” she mentioned, pulling one from the strainer, putting it in her mouth and blinking a few times as the salty sensations nipped at her tongue. He eyed her curiously as she nodded with wide eyes. “Oh, definitely.”

The dog started barking something crazy— their most reliable alarm clock that didn’t fail to notifying them that the guests had arrived. As she ran upstairs to make herself presentable, worries of salt saturated her mind as much as it had to the disaster broth. She was hardly even paying attention to her meticulously planned outfit that she threw on in haste. Finally, when she looked in the mirror and put on the pearl necklace her husband had bought her when he had started earning more than they ever thought he would, she was struck with the realization of how blessed she was.

In a day full of mistakes, she didn’t have to worry that he husband loved her any less for them. He was there with her, laughing her through them and making the best of it, even though it was his company that would be judging her cooking, and as they judged her, they were sure to judge him. Yet, he hadn’t said a word to make her worry, but did everything he could to keep her calm and happy. A tear fell from her eye, and she brushed it away, laughing as she looked at the dampness on her skin, muttering, “Salty tears…”

After everyone had begun eating, no one was expressing great praises to her, except for a word of thanks from the president’s wife, that all the food was exceptionally vegan. She had at least passed that test.

“Is it a bit salty?” she asked, smiling knowingly at her husband.

“I don’t think so,” one woman exclaimed.

“Tastes fine to me!” the president bellowed.

Her mother-in-law muttered, “You know this much salt is bad for your cholesterol!”

“Well, do I have a story to tell…!” Amelia smiled widely, chuckling as she revealed all her mistakes shamelessly, ending it with a squeeze of her husband’s hand. She told everyone, “It’s when you mess up, you can really learn. I don’t just mean about yourself, but also the true character of those stuck in the muk of your mistakes with you.”

~*~*~*~

Not even a week went by when her husband came home from work and gave her a kiss on the cheek as she rolled out dough to make a new cinnamon bun recipe she was eager to try. He then went to the panty and pulled out from the dark depths of it, the salt from Walmart. The notorious shaker was waiting to be put into a trust worthy container, but Amelia had decided to, ’let it wait and learn its lesson!’. He exalted it by raising it high into the air and proclaiming, “Thanks be to you salt and to my beautiful wife!”

“What are you doing!?” she sputtered out in laughter.

“The president’s wife was so impressed by us and your salty story, that she kept insisting her husband give me a promotion! So guess what?”

Amelia smiled widely, kissing the plastic bottle of salt and then the lips of her endearing husband.

“You taste… salty!” She tilted her head as he laughed.

“I stopped and got some fries,” he admitted.

“You know I’m making dinner!” she exclaimed. Clearly offended, she added, “And dessert! Cinnamon buns with a corn flour crust!”

“Oops!” He smiled, shrugged, and said, “But you weren’t making fries, and I wanted some fries.”

“Well you know—“ she stopped, then started to laugh and kissed him again. “Did you enjoy them?”

“They were kinda soggy, but yeah.”

“Were they salty enough?”