The last slice

In my dream I’m staring at the last piece of my mother’s blueberry cheesecake, which is just one reach away. I’m sitting in the middle of a long dining table as my younger sister sat right across from me. Her curled hair tips reaching her shoulders, bounces as she speaks. I wonder how old she is, as I watch her laugh at something someone said. The holiday song playing in the background was muffling every other sound around me. I see my sister eye the cheesecake slice the way I've been the whole time. For a brief second our eyes meet and we smile at each other, a silent declaration of war. 

I watch as a beautiful middle aged woman reach for the slice before any of us did, her tender eyes rest on me for some time before she proceed to cut the triangle into two equal slices, one for me and the other, for my sister. I feel familiar warmth from within as I say, “Thanks mom”.

I wake up to the smell of berries and cake. 

“Daddy the blueberry cookies are ready,” my daughter says as she runs around my chair excitedly. She is a handful for just a six year-old. I ask her to go get me one cookie, but she says that we aren’t allowed to eat them yet.

“They’re for your grandparents sweetheart,” my wife, Lara says as she walks out of the kitchen with a transparent airtight container, caging the cookies. My four year-old son trails behind her like a lost puppy, as he tries to match his steps with the marble tiles.

"Do we not get any mommy?" I say flashing a playful smile at Lara as I watch her close her eyes dramatically. 

"Yes mommy. Just one cookie. Please?" My daughter joins, my son is still lost in walking circles around the living room. 

Lara sighs as she takes only one cookie out from the box. I remind her that there are four of us, but she continues to ignore me as she closes the lid carefully, with the single cookie in her hand. She breaks it into four pieces and hands our daughter one piece.

The little one looks content as she kisses her cheek, "Thanks mommy". 

"Go get your things. We are going to see your daddy's parents," Lara says. I want to ask her whether we really have to go there, but I already know her answer. 

Lara's parents had died from a car crash at a very young age, and mine at the hospital's labour room. The both of us had found solitude in each other when we met in college. For her who grew up with her late grandparents, today's visit is important. 

Lara calls out to our son, asking him to come and eat his cookie piece. He says that he needs to wash his hands, again. "Sweetie, you washed them twice just before. Come and eat this," Lara looks at me as she narrows her eyes. "You talk to him," she mouths. 

"I have to wash mine too," I say standing up. Lara sighs as she eats her piece. I can feel her stare down my back, but I know that she knows, that I'm trying. 

Trying to get over my obsession. It's something I can't help with. I wash my hands, dry them and wash them again. Either they are too dirty or not clean enough. Lara says that I have to convince myself that they are clean, but it doesn't work. My psychiatrist says that I have to get over my past trauma, alongside taking the prescribed medication, but I can't. 

Apparently my son's obsessional compulsive disorder is just a mirror of mine. He's simply imitating me and if we need to get him to get over his germophobia, I have to get over mine. So Lara and I are hopelessly stuck. 

The human skin has a surface area of one point nine square meters and there are around one point five trillion bacterias residing over it. The skin over one hand covers one percent of the total body surface area, that is zero point zero one nine square meters. Thus each hand has around fifteen billion bacterias. If that's not a lot of germs, I don't know what is. 

The cookie piece's hard edges and soft blueberries are barely enough to satisfy my evening hunger, but I don't fuss about it as I grab my coat. 

My eldest, helps her brother with his shoes as he complains about his hands being dirty. "Sweetie I have wet wipes if you need, so let's go," Lara says as we walk to our car.

The drive turns silent soon enough as the motion sets in, pulling the kids and Lara into a deep slumber. It starts to drizzle lightly and as the raindrops hit the windshield, a wave of nausea pulls me into the memories of a particular evening. 

That day, I had thought the raindrops were a blessing, as I waited for hours in the hospital waiting area. My mother was battling to give birth to my baby sister with my father by her side. All I could do was stare at the racing raindrops on the window beside my chair as I waited outside the labour room. I had pulled out a chocolate from my pocket, which melted on my fingers as I tried to separate its wrapper. The labour room doors opened on cue and a couple of medical staff were running here and there. The rest was a blur. I remember my father hugging me tight as my mother laid on the bed motionless. My baby sister in the crib by my mother's side looked blue, bluer than the smurfs. I had reached out to touch my mother's beautiful face, but my fingers had chocolate all over them. So I couldn't touch her for the last time, afraid I'd dirty her face. The only thing I could do was to fix her bed sheets, hoping she'd look less cold than she already did. I had later learned that it was amniotic fluid embolism. Not even the best technology could've saved her once it had occurred. 

Life after her leaving us was very different that I had almost forgotten what it was like to have her around. She often visited me in my dreams to put me to sleep as I had cried or fed me as I fell asleep on an empty four- person's table. I often caress her soft face in my sleep, once again only to wake up to an empty house. My father was barely around, and most of the days he came home drunk. Neither one of us could handle the loss. My father lost his wife and daughter, while I lost both my parents and my little sister. Life had always been unfair, but I had learnt the lesson the hard way.

I turn my car into the familiar driveway and park behind another car that was occupying the spot in front of my childhood house. As I enter through the front double doors after my wife and kids, an unfamiliar warmth welcomes us. I try to remember the last time the house smelled like a home, with different aromas gracing the air.

"You came," my father's voice is barely audible as he walks towards us. His gait is slow and unstable. 'He's old,' I couldn't help, but think. Lara kisses him lightly on the cheeks as I stand next to him, awkwardly. He lightly pats my back and I nod. He introduces us to the unfamiliar faces seated in the living room. His new daughter, her husband and their two five year old twin daughters. My children immediately starts playing with the twins as if they've known each other a lifetime. 

"Your mother's in the kitchen," my father says after hesitating before using the word mother. Lara hands me the box of cookies and asks me to keep it in the kitchen. Like my six year old, I obey her command. 

"We brought blueberry cookies," I say as a fair lady greets me from next to the pantry. She looks better in person than the photo my father had sent, taken before their wedding a few months ago. I had refused to attend the occasion using a fake excuse and Lara had called me a petty person. I just couldn't understand why my father would want to marry someone at his age. 

My father's new wife engulfs me into a warm hug out of nowhere, "Welcome home!" she says and tells me how I am taller than she had imagined me to be. She starts to talk enthusiastically about all the snacks that she had prepared for us, and how her daughter and I have a lot of common food allergies. "So I had cooked some things that I thought you might like," she says opening the plastic container that I had kept beside her. 

"Looks delicious," she says bringing the blueberry cookies closer to her nose. 

"Lara and the kids made them," I say.

"Your father had told me how your mother would make blueberry cheesecakes for you on holidays," she says casually as she asks me to follow her into the dining room. I hold my breath unconsciously as a miniwonderland greets me, from on top of a long dining table. The old four chaired table which used to be at the centre, had been replaced by a table with enough chairs for everyone in the new family. 

She shows me the blueberry cheesecake that sat in the middle of the table. "I don't know whether it'll taste the same, but I tried to make one."

I stare at her face not sure what to say. She seemes to have sensed my appreciation as she smiles and pats my back.

"Thank you," I finaly manage through my dry lips, my voice, hoarse.

She offers to get me a glass of water, but I tell her that I'd get it myself. 

"She's a nice woman," my father joins me in the kitchen as I drank my second glass.

"I know," I say and he seems to be surprised at my words. The both of us stand silently in the kitchen for a few minutes without exchanging any words, with a new found understanding.

Not long after, everyone occupies the dining table. The television in the living room is on in full volume, playing children's songs. My son wants to sit next to his grandfather and my daughter next to her grandmother, the twins follow them suit. Lara and I sat in the middle of the table next to each other and for once we didn't have to worry whether the kids were eating enough. 

The blueberry cheesecake disappeares from the table entirely along with most of the other food items. I like how the berries melt in my mouth against the soft cheesecake. Though it isn't exactly like my mother's, it is still better than all the cheesecakes I had tasted in shops. Since Lara had kept us from eating anything before arriving, I had a hard time keeping track of what I ate as I let the hunger get the best of me.

I stuff a mushroom pie slice down my food pipe without bothering to chew it much. The pie is extra soft and apparently it is my new relatives' tradition to always make it on special occasions. They had said that it is a symbol of love and the mushrooms had been cut into heart shaped pieces before it was used as the pie's topping. 

'I could get used to eating mushroom pies,' I think as I help myself with another piece and another. I had noticed that the pie was receiving extra attention only from me and the young woman seated across from me. By law, she is now my younger sister. We had barely exchanged any words before dinner, but she seemed courteous and friendly.

Her straight hair reached her shoulders and it sways as she speaks. Our eyes met as we eyed the last mushroom pie slice before looking at each other. I did a small gesture asking her to take it. She giggles as she waves her hand in the air and silently signals for me to go ahead. 

I hear a chuckle as my father's new wife reaches for the slice and cuts it into equal halves with her knife. She then asks the both of us to take our share. 

I could feel Lara's stare on me. She knows that I can't eat things that have been served by someone else's fork and knife, with their saliva possibly on it. I know that any minute she'd speak and find an excuse to save me, like she had always done whenever I found myself in such a situation. 

"Actually he-," Lara began from next to me, but I grab her hand from under the table. 

"Thanks mother," I say and it feels like it had been an eternity since I had last used the word, mother. It really did have a nice ring to it.

My mother laughs and I can tell that she's happy. 

The last slice of the mushroom pie did taste different. 

It tastes like love.