Lentil dinner

“I wonder why my blood is so red.” I said.

“Probably because you eat so many cherries, honey.” Dad said. I could hear his chopping. Ka. ka. ka. ka. Scraaaape. Toss. Ka. ka. ka. ka. Scraaaaape. Toss.

“Then why was Nancy’s blood the same color as mine when she scraped her knee the other day?”

“She is eating cherries in secret.”

We worked silently for a while, waiting to say anything like when you wait for bread to bake.

“Why is peeling carrots so hard?” I cried. I always cut myself peeling. Dad said it was a good thing to learn, but I knew that I would become the queen of unpeeled veggies when I was a grown woman.

“Here, let me lend you a hand.” He paused as he was moving over to my grated mess of a carrot. “Anna, has mom ever let you use a knife?”

I was sucking on my bloody finger. “Nwo.” I said sheepishly.

“What do you say, you want to try it now?”

I had never held a knife. The thought intimidated me. Dad could see it on my face.

“It’s nothing to be afraid of, honey. You need to know how to use one eventually.”

He took me by the waist and plopped me down where he had been chopping carrots. I was growing into the age where the moments of picking me up had stopped being fun and started being slightly irritating, but I knew they wouldn’t last long. Dad’s hair was graying, and his neck was bending forward the way old people’s start doing.

Dad instructed me to pick up the knife. I did so.

“When did you start being right-handed? I thought you were a leftie, just like mom.” Dad frowned.

“We got taught in school dad! The left hand is where the heart is, so it’s more flexible. The right is for menial labor.”

“Be that as it may, you need both hands to be flexible when you’re cutting. Anyway, it doesn’t matter sweetie. Hold the knife the way you want to hold it.”

I switched the knife to my left hand.

“I miss mom.” I said.

“Do you want her to teach you chopping instead?” Dad replied.

“No, but it’s hard to think of chopping things when she’s not home.

“All the more reason to get dinner ready for when she does!”

“Okay…” I reached over and grabbed the celery. Dad watched from the side.

“You will want to peel off the stems so you can chop them. I’ll help.”

We started peeling.

“Dad, do you remember when I got my leg stuck in our cherry tree?”

“You screamed and hollered until the whole neighborhood knew about it. I remember.”

“Why were you napping?”

“Well, it had been a nice warm afternoon, and I had just read my favorite book. I felt a bit drowsy, and knew that a nap was in order. I didn’t know my daughter would get into trouble.” He looked at me meaningfully.

“Why do you and mom nap so much? I almost never nap anymore, I haven’t done it since I was a baby.”

“That’s what happens to old people, sweetie. We nap, because we’re closer to the grave. It’s the way of things.”

“Babies aren’t close to the grave, and they nap! They just got here!”

Dad paused again.

“Here are the stems, sweetie. Hold the knife like this.”

Dad got behind me and held my hands. I focused on following his movements. We cut the celery silently. Ka. Ka. Ka. Ka. Dad motioned with the knife.

“You take the knife like this, and you scrape all the celery into the other hand. Now you can move it all to the bowl over there. Let’s do it together.”

Scraaape. Toss.

“Alright, let me think. Celery peeled and chopped. Leek cut. Carrots cut. Lentils and coconut milk ready. Is there anything else you want in the stew, Anna?” 

“How about tomatoes? It’ll be like the salad you made the other day.”

“I don’t know, your mom never makes this stew with tomatoes. She’s the stew master.”

“Well, why did you ask if you weren’t going to let me have a say?”

“It’s called being considerate, honey.”

“No, it’s called dodging the question.”

Dad paused for the third time today.

“Anna, look out the window.”

I saw a big black sky, and our street. Someone biked past our house, lit by the lamplight.

“You see the street light?”

“Mhm.”

“When we were a few years younger, a few years before we had you, your mom and I had just moved into this house. There used to be a broken and bent street light in the place of the one you’re looking at, by the looks of it someone had run into it with a car. Looking at it drove me crazy the first few months, but after a while I got used to it. I would even look at it fondly from time to time, like it was something special to remind me that I was home.”

He went back to the cutting board and started frying the leek in oil.

“Then one day, it had been replaced. Just like that. It was around the time we had you.”

“What does this have to do with me not getting a say in things?” I asked.

“Anna, you have to understand that sometimes dad is still looking at you like a little girl who likes to make random things happen. I don’t see the young lady who can make decisions for herself. The street light story is just my way of saying that sometimes things change before you know it, and you don’t know what you are going to miss. So cherish them.”

I took all of this in.

“That’s really wise of you da- Hey! You started cooking!”

Dad giggled like an eight year old boy.

“Serves you right for not paying attention! Tell you what, we’ll throw in some tomatoes if you can chop them before they go in. Deal?”

“You’re on!”

Outside, a tribe of magpies were flying home to roost.

“Everyone, I’m home! Anna? Clint?”

“In here, mom!”

“Oh, that smells lovely! Clint, did you put tomatoes in?”

“I did. It was Anna’s idea actually.”

Mom took a spoon and tasted the stew.

“Just like how I taught you, dear. Anna, the tomatoes fit in really well! I’ll start making it like this too.” Mom reached down and gave me a hug.

“I cut them too, and some celery! Dad taught me how! Dad, I want to cut more things from now on.”

Mom practically beamed.

“That’s my girl.”