Day On the Grille

DAY ON THE GRILL 

She looked over at him and gave a silent look of reproach. He saw the look; he always saw the look. He asked her, “what?” 

“I don’t know”, she said. She looked at her husband and could see the judgement in his brown eyes as she watched him watching her. She supposed it inevitable that he scrutinize her as she worked the grille. Curiosity is a very common feeling when you encounter something unfamiliar. 

It’s not that she was unable to cook so much that he routinely prepared and cooked all of their meals. Hence the curiosity, and scrutiny.

She told her husband, “you’re giving me a look.” His immediate response, almost as if he had been expecting such an assertion was, “a look of Love!”

She smiled at that and said, “more like a look of, I don’t know; silent reproach maybe.” Before he could speak, she added, “if I had to put a name to it.”

He shook his head slowly and said, “I wouldn’t even know what that looks like.” She noticed the slight smile on his face and he thought to himself: I know exactly what that looks like.

“Well what is it babe?” she asked him as he continued to watch her handling the gold plated spatula and the sizzling sandwich on the grille.

“I don’t think you’re doing that right,” is what he told his wife, but in his head he thought, you are definitely not doing that right.

She eyed the sizzling sandwiches on the grille top and slowly lifted one of them to see if it was golden brown enough. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, watching her. She knew that it was killing him to not be the one making the sandwiches, but she remembered the previous day on their scavenging run when they had come across a large freezer unit in the back of an abandoned deli. It was unusual that it had still been working. The contents of the freezer had been unusual as well.

“Cheese!” he had exclaimed as they uncovered several shelves in the large walk-in freezer that had quite a treasure trove of dairy goodness hidden there for them to find.

He had explained to her as they loaded box after box after box of cheese, that cheese was a plural of cheese. “You see my love,” he had told her as he showed her several blocks of a certain type of dairy product: “if it is multiple units of the same type of cheese, then the plural is cheese.” He could see how interested she was in the subject and subsequent grammar lesson; which was to say, not much at all. He still continued. He showed her several different blocks of different cheese and told her; “if there are different types of cheese, then the plural is actually cheeses.” Her blank expression left him nonplussed and he told her; “so now you know.” Before she could offer anything else on the subject, he told her, “you’re welcome.”

She had shaken her head slowly while he continued to load their cheesy bounty into their dented solar car.

She herself enjoyed cheese, but he was a near fanatic. She fondly recalled back before the world went to hell in a handbasket, that he used to love buying and eating many different types of cheeses. She smiled at the memory that it seemed his favorite part of finding any new cheese to try, was the opportunity to slice the cheese that he would acquire. And each and every time he did it, he would say, with a grin on his face, “My love, I cut the cheese.”

She remembered the drive back to their future home, after their haul of frozen cheese, in their dented solar car. He had told her several times that he would kill for grilled cheese sandwich.

“Do I have to worry about that?” she had asked from the passenger seat after the third time he expressed murderous desire for a cheese sandwich. He looked confused for a moment and then snorted a short laugh. That brought a smile from her, and as always, she had to say out loud, “You snorted!”

He laughed again and said, “Don’t worry my love, I would kill myself before I killed you.” She shook her head slowly and said, “then no sandwich for you.”

They had gotten home in the late afternoon, and it had already begun to rain heavily. It had taken them longer than expected after their dairy find and as a result, they were only a few minutes ahead of the near daily tornado that hit their homestead, not quite like clockwork, but close enough.

It had been later in the day than usual when they arrived home, and for one reason or another, her husband had not crafted his longed-for grill cheese sandwich that evening.

She remembered thinking to herself, as she hung the gun-belt she habitually wore on a peg in the kitchen; I’m going to make him a sandwich.

She woke before him that morning and set about preparing the dairy sandwich for the love of her life.

And now, as the sandwich sizzled and turned a delicious shade of golden brown, she couldn’t help but smile as he anxiously hovered about her and the grille.

In response to his declaration that he questioned her grille technique, she responded. “I’ll have you know that I am crafting the best grilled cheese sandwich on the planet.”

Under his breath she heard him mutter, “or maybe the worst.”

“What was that?” she quickly asked of him. His rapid response was, “I love you the most!”

She smiled slightly as she said, “Uh huh.”

She laid the plate in front of him with the resultant product of her efforts on his grille. The sandwich was golden brown on one side and perhaps a bit charcoal colored on the reverse. This was the side that was coincidentally facing the bottom of the plate.

It certainly smelled delicious and was ooey-gooey in the best of ways. She had sliced it diagonally because according to her husband, that is how one sliced a sandwich.

He took a bite and slowly chewed the offered sandwich.

She waited. He chewed. She waited some more. He finished the first bite and spoke with a shy smile. “Congratulations my love,” she smiled as he continued. “You have crafted the best grill cheese sandwich on the planet for me.”