He shouted at me, an obscenity. My gentle, generous husband who never so much as slams his hand on the arm of our cushioned couch when his team loses a game. He was walking away, as he does, when we go at it, both of us so tired of the old habits burrowed deep into our 20-year love like tattoo ink under a scar. So I told him, fine, go, we don’t need you, even though it was a lie, a lie so obvious we could have laughed if either of us remembered where we had last left our laughter. Our son was still sick, still so in need, our marriage was parched with a thirst that comes only from years of unmet desires. I knew he was worn down, frayed at his ends, edges rubbed raw, no relief, no release, from the expectations of everything he loves that loves him back with great expectation. I knew it, but maybe I wanted him to slip, for his pressure valve to leak the same kind of hot steam that built up behind my sternum every day from sharded sleep and worry wounds. I wanted him to reveal evidence of his pain, to make it manifest and give it shape. Lonely with my sorrow, I said the worst thing; I implied that he was unnecessary. No heavier stone could be thrown at him, he who believed doing was the same as loving. I said it to him and he shouted at me: go fuck yourself, words so foreign to my ear it was as if he were speaking in tongues. But I knew it couldnt be true because he doesn’t believe in the God to whom he should have shouted it.
Author: sehaldorson
I write narrative nonfiction/lyrical memoir. I'm the mother of a special needs child and the wife of a cancer survivor, and I work in publishing.
Rough Patches
Alice Walker summoned
The kitchen erotica, sent us
Scurrying to cabinets for olive oil
To lubricate skin, scabs and scars.
My doctors erased mine with careful
Cuts and tucks like hospital corners,
skin kissing skin, hurts hidden.
In our kitchen, my husband
Slices into chicken, removes skin,
Cuts careful one-inch cubes. I do not
Handle raw meat. I slice cooked
Sausage at an angle, toss in olive oil
That splatters the thin skin
of my wrist. I tuck my hands
into fists. I do not own an apron.
My brother wore an apron. It read:
A Wolf in Chef’s Clothing.
He made spaghetti for Dad and me
On Sundays after church. He browned
Meat from the half-cow in our freezer.
It was his specialty, as were his biting
words that stung but left no marks.
Autumn Ragout
I should have begun earlier. The recipe calls for pre-prepared Pennsylvania-Dutch Apple Butter. That recipe is printed on the previous page after Prune Breakfast Butter, Cranberry-Maple Butter, Spiced Squash Butter, Spiced Plum Butter, Spiced Pear Butter. Good thing I bought Granny Smiths at the grocery store for a week’s worth of lunches. Five peeled apples and the tips of my fingers are sandpaper. Three cups of pale half moons. I add apple cider, Ground cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger. Spices simmer in a Dutch oven, fill our apartment with a savory-sweet scent. I need a bigger knife. I peel squash, carrots, rutabaga, one small red onion. I cube squash, carrots, rutabaga, one small red onion. I chop Napa cabbage, also called Chinese. I should have bought a fresh lemon; I want it only for its rind. I need prepared mustard.
My mother told just one joke her entire life:
A new bride returns to her mother’s house, says:
I left my husband.
When? Her mother asks, Why?
The new bride says: I
Was making dinner and the recipe
Said to take one egg, and beat it.
The vegetables are roasting. It is already seven o’clock.
I make my husband slice the chicken, cut one-inch cubes. I do not handle raw meat. The turkey sausage is pre-cooked and I slice at an angle, mimic Julia and Martha, though I do not own an apron. My brother wore an apron when he made spaghetti on Sundays after church. He browned frozen hamburger from the quarter cow in our extra freezer in the basement, and wore the apron that read: A Wolf in Chef’s Clothing. The word ‘ragout’ is French, pronounced the same as the spaghetti sauce my brother fed us on Sundays after my mother died because my father didn’t cook. He ate steak whole, flopping from a fork, plate on his knees.
The vegetables are roasted, but not brown. I send my husband out for bread. It is now seven-thirty. My mother cooked from a Betty Crocker cookbook. The red one, with round metal rings to hold slick pages. Brown stains, blue-inked stars to note if we kids ate it, a checkmark for a potluck or ladies’ aid luncheon. I open the oven door, mitted hands reaching, lifting, combining roasted vegetables with jelly-pink chicken, coins of kielbasa, cabbage, cans of chicken broth, more apple juice. I use only one-half cup of the Pennsylvania-Dutch Apple Butter.
Bake at 350 for 50 minutes, when the vegetables are tender and the chicken is cooked through. While we wait, we dip torn bread into the surplus sweet paste, thick and dark in a bowl painted with a small brown bird, rescued from my mother’s Red Wing pottery set before my father sold the rest. Dinner may be ready by nine o’clock, but I will be too full with memories.
Rough Drafts Only 