Time felt foreign in the waiting room. I counted the number of fingerprints that reflected on a magazine’s glossy cover. One headline read with a lilac font: “beauty trends” or “must-haves for summer.” I began hating my face more since I got pregnant. The thought of my fine lines going into deep wrinkles during labour made me feel ashamed. The fresh faces with no pores. The “must-haves for summer.”
The mid-day slot is difficult to accommodate leaving a handful of us in the room. There was no reason for us to be silent to each yet Albert couldn’t stop looking at his phone. He promised to take me to all these appointments once I made them before the restaurant opened. We decided to have a dinner only menu after the pandemic, for people to at least have something to bring home. He knew I was thinking of him. I smiled. He went back to his phone. I leaned back in the chair trying not to think of the bacteria multiplying on the table. I heard a bottle bounce down a vending machine before being opened. The pressure to escape echoed with a mist. Time really didn’t matter, I was already here.
A nurse came by the entrance which made Albert put his phone away. She handed me a clipboard and asked if I had a pen. I dug around my purse and found one from our baby moon. I admired the cursive font of the winemaker and remembered how I wanted to wait until the bump was distinct enough for photos.
“How do you know it won’t be curved like a lactose intolerance?” Albert said. He knew I wasn’t sure how my body was going to look in a few weeks, let alone a few months. The winemaker had invited us to relax while they disbudded the vines. Albert asked me to pack a weekender bag as he felt the fresh air would be good for my pregnancy. At night, the winemaker opened reserves while I picked at the crumbled parmesan on the board. The next morning I left Albert in bed to go for a walk. I saw a couple people with the winemaker move the leaves aside to remove branches that didn’t form a grape. Their hope is by controlling the quantity of grapes, you get better quality. I stood watching stems unable to show potential, rain down to the ground.
“Are you done?” the nurse said. Her formal voice beckoned me back into the room. I stood up and followed her.
The privacy gown was folded on the chair like a tablecloth kept for special occasions. I began taking off my dress in the confined space. My elbows grazed the wall as I struggled to keep my large belly in the centre. I started to show soon after we got back. I caught my reflection on the cellar glass as I unpacked the Chardonnay. Over the months, the growing pains were to be expected but this last week felt extreme. I wasn’t sure if it was normal until the 4th day in a row. One so painful that blood rushed from my head; where I saw bubbles floating all around.
“Whenever you’re ready,” the nurse said. I laid back on the table as she dimmed the lights. When she pressed the wand into my side it initiated some movement. I flinched from pain. “Just a few more for the doctor.” I knew that to mean: manage. The screen turned into a blur as I tried. I closed my eyes and thought of Albert waiting for me. “If the doctor finds something wrong, I’ll bring you two back to speak with her.” I scooted down before slowly sitting up. “Otherwise, I’ll send you both home.” I pulled on the gown, suddenly feeling exposed. I waited until she left with the printed scans before I walked into the closet to change.
Albert was in a different chair. He stood up to hear the news. I shook my head. I sat down to wait. He followed. We came here to get answers and maybe that would come from silence.
“The doctor is ready to see you now,” the nurse said. Albert put away his phone as I heard the pen slide to the floor.
That night Albert left his iPad charging on the end table for me to use. He saw me struggling to reach for a book off our shelf and thought the device would be better. He went back to picking out the overripe strawberries from a pint basket. The photogenic ones got put into his cooler for the pastry chef as he called out that mine are in the crisper. I brought over my small bowl to the couch soon after he left, something sweet before dinner. I heard a notification coming from the iPad as I sat down. I bit into one of the strawberries causing droplets to bleed into the throw blanket. I didn’t see a banner on my phone, this isn’t for me. I slid open the iPad without a password. I picked up another strawberry before I spotted a badge on iMessage. The juices pooled around my gums as I read, Sally.
I was young when I heard Mom say over the phone that Dad was sick. I thought that’s why Dad wasn’t here, he was in the hospital. I waited for Mom to help me put together his favourite cookies. I was old enough to do most of the actions except putting the sheet in the oven. As I looked in the pantry for oats, a woman rang the doorbell. I wondered if she was here to help measure the flour as Mom invited her inside. Mom asked me to talk to the woman in my room before we baked the cookies. I wasn’t sure what Dad got that made someone from the hospital visit but I agreed. In my room, she started asking how Dad was around my friends. I confessed I didn’t have many friends and when I did, Dad was at work. But then I remembered that time he was really excited. It was my 9th birthday, Mom booked a bouncy castle. The woman came closer when she wanted me to tell her how I knew Dad was excited. I explained how the other dads were near the food but my dad was inside the tight weave.
“Mom made me go in and get him to help with my cake,” I said. The woman wrote something down, maybe it was a symptom. Before she left, she told Mom that we’d have to find somewhere else to stay. She said that Dad would be released and it wasn’t safe here. I knew then that whatever Dad had, must be contagious.
That afternoon we packed our stuff and went to her friend’s place. There the houses looked identical and none had toys scattered on the front lawn. Mom made me promise to be on my best behaviour. She kept repeating that we won’t be here long and how this woman was doing us a favour. As she pulled into a driveway, a woman came from the porch to greet us. I watched as her blue floral dress grazed a thick orange flowerbed. Mom was met with a short hug as the woman never once assured her that we were welcome to stay here. The lady bent down to meet me smelling like my teacher.
“You could call me Bon-bon, it’s Bonnie but I’m sweet like chocolate,” she said. I smiled. Her son came down and told us his name was Braton. I thought it was funny he had to spell brat each time he wrote his name. Inside Bon-bon turned to me and said I was not to keep my stuff in the living room. She took us upstairs to see the room; the only one without a name on the door. After we unpacked our clothes into the closet, Mom asked if I wanted to go to the park. The leaves had fallen into large piles which made the ground feel like a trampoline. The other moms watched Mom with the same face one does after you spot a bird that’s fallen from the nest. I was always told not to touch them, as there’s a plan for when that happens.
A few weeks later, Bon-bon said she wanted to invite her children home for Thanksgiving weekend. Bon-bon wondered out-loud over dinner if the house would feel too cramped.
“Not really, I’m guessing we’d all be with friends if not at dinner,” Braton said. He waited for Mom to respond but she was busy cutting up my steak. In our room, Mom asked if I wanted to go to Grandma’s place. I shook my head because I hated her house. Grandma had both too many options to sit and nowhere to sit. One time I went down for some water and stubbed my toe so bad that I had to limp back to my room. I reminded Mom that Braton said it was okay to stay and that he was by definition the “man of the house.”
The next day I got off the bus in pouring rain. Instead of walking along the sidewalk, I swished my boots through the pools of water on the lawns. I preferred houses where dogs didn’t bark from the window. When my socks got wet, I began to feel cold. I went home to warm up in the shower. I waited until I saw steam coming off of the water before I stepped in. I closed my eyes trying to figure which of my homework assignments I should do first when the door opened.
I called out, one minute.
The door closed. Relieved, I began washing off the mud. I heard the sound of a metal tink before I saw his hand on the shower curtain. I froze. I held onto the bar of soap. His belt buckle pinged against the porcelain. That hand didn’t leave him. I listened for Mom in the hallway.
Nothing.
Braton’s fingers moved like a caterpillar. I remembered learning about how the cocoon fed off of the body, to grow into something beautiful. In art class, we got to choose the color for our butterfly. I went for yellow because I wanted to be seen.
The water went cold. He was gone. I sat with my knees into my chest until I heard Mom’s voice. I ran back into our room and waited. She asked me if I was cold as my body trembled. I reached up to her neck and held her until dinner.
I no longer wanted to come back to Bon-bon’s alone. That meant getting into detention and apologizing for smoking in the bathroom. I didn’t tell her I was just standing there watching the ash build, waiting for a teacher to find me. Then a male’s voice called my name, with a vaguely familiar rasp, I looked over. Dad. That’s when I noticed how much the illness had changed his face.
He took me to the ice cream shop. I asked him if he was allowed to eat this much sugar because he was sick. He twisted his face, confused, and suggested we try the sprinkle cone. As we bit off the sprinkles, he asked me what Mom had planned for the long weekend. I shrugged my shoulders and told him how I refused to go to Grandma’s place.
“Sounds like it’s time to come home,” he said.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” I said.
“Don’t you want Mom and Dad making your turkey?” he said. “I know you liked to help with the mashed potatoes.”
“Macaroni,” I said. I finished my ice cream as Dad adjusted his jacket.
“Okay, macaroni,” Dad said, opening his palms like a cat. “We could make anything you want. Can you tell Mom to come home?”
“Did you ask her?” I said. He started to look red, maybe from all the chocolate.
“Mom isn’t listening to me.” He grabbed my jacket and leaned close enough to where I smelled the mint chips, “But Mom will listen to you.” I shook my head and remembered how I couldn’t tell her anything anymore. I began to cry. Dad shook me to stop.
I needed him to tell me why we had to live in that room.
To explain what he had that made him contagious.
Dad didn’t stop until a woman came over. She told Dad to stop. He shoved the woman away, hard enough to make her teenage daughter call the manager. Dad demanded that I tell Mom to come home. His voice was loud. It echoed in my head. I watched him get into his car. I wanted to call out but couldn’t find the voice.
I felt movement under the blanket. I got up to close the window as the night air chilled the sweat on my neck. I caught the reflection of my pregnant belly in the window against the night sky. It’s been months since Albert’s looked at me. Maybe that’s when he was watching Sally. I moved my hand onto the bump with little reassurance. Making tea gave little reprieve as the piercing sound made me jealous. I placed my palm over the whistle to stifle the sound. I stood until I felt the urge to move away. Only then did I hear my pitch.
At our scheduled birth, the nurse reminds me to keep my breath steady. I’ve been practising since Albert started coming home with red blotches on his chest, an allergic reaction to intimacy. He spoke to me on the other side of a mask. The medication made his words sound like they were being held under water. I watched Albert look over to the doctor who began the incision. I felt the pressure and went a bit pale. Albert said clearly then, “I’m here.”
I saw the doctor’s wrists gripped around our fish. I watched as it thrashed around to flop back into the womb. Albert released my hand as the nurse took hold of the fins. She placed her thumb near the gills to calm him. An aquatic gel was then applied on the slits on our son to help diffuse the air. I waited for the nurse to rest the warm scales on my chest. I felt his thick spine thrashing against my breast. As our son calmed down, Albert registered the dark pink tail as his.
I looked down at our son’s glossy eyes, each like Albert’s in the doctor’s office. He too searched the shadows of the room for an explanation of how he got here. The fins were narrow and sharp like Albert’s frame, while the dark pigmentation in his hue is from me; a mask from my youth. The cheeks slightly moved as it latched onto my finger. Do I promise someone would always be available to apply the gel, or discuss the option of an aquarium? To circle within thick glass like a skyscraper. Albert approached the exit focused on his phone. The nurse placed a tense thumb around the fins to keep our fish from slipping out. She pointed to a clock mounted on the wall and said I needed to rest. With her back turned, she assured me that he’ll be back at my side. Who the nurse was referring to wasn’t clear. Albert was gone, anywhere but here.
Albert had bought a foreclosed dry cleaners to build the restaurant. He removed the bells on the entrance door as he felt the sound would clash with his vision of a single chef’s table. However, his effort to pay homage to the community staple was using the same vendor for the font of “next day service” to now read: “entrance.” To where, tonight a host will be notified the guest has arrived, by the flicker of candlelight. The table has been set for 4 people, two chairs on either side of a rectangular table with their backs to the wall. After the scheduled guests have been seated, would Albert come out on cue. Only when everyone has been seated would he dive into the performance. I’m in the shadow of the kitchen on the same cold tile that once housed machines large enough to hurt.
“A client recommended this spot,” the older woman said to the younger woman. The younger man ignored her comment and sipped on the champagne. He lifted the pastry shell that housed whipped burrata.
“She wanted me to check out her workplace,” he said with a full mouth. The older man stopped drinking his champagne to ask the younger woman.
“So you know how to make your way through a kitchen?” He asked with disdain.
“I guess we’ll see,” the younger man said. The couple laughed and then finished their champagne.
“Well maybe if you had the courage to ask.” The younger woman lifted her bare ring finger. The men twisted their faces at her gesture. She then lifted the pastry cup and began picking off the diced scallions.
“Let tonight be about finding the nerve,” Albert said. “Excuse me, I’m going to make sure my sous chef is busy.” The sommelier came out during this thought with a Savignon from Languedoc.
I stood in the kitchen with the saucier. He fidgeted in his spot because he didn’t want to tell me where Albert was instead of picking up the leeks. He asked if the newborn was keeping us up at night. I should have explained how our son doesn’t have the chords necessary to create a voice but it felt mute.
“Maybe we could soak it in blood orange and I could do a light Armagnac glaze with white onion sauce?” he said after he looked into my cooler. I nodded.
“Bring me 2 cups of blood orange juice,” I called out to the line. “Okay, the sommelier just poured the pairing for the soup starter, when he gets back give him the details of this dish.” He nodded. “Make sure they get a good bottle or Albert will blame me.” The saucier laughed but it’s true. I went back to my station.
I opened the foam cooler that held tonight’s sea dish. The prep line scaled away the skin leaving the pale grey flesh on the bone. The head laid flat with the spin like a tulip prepared for harsh wind. The tongue is no longer seeking but rather housed in the bone-rich mouth. My fingers rub along the fibres, trying to feel the best place to insert the flexible blade. I swipe the knife along the stone sharpener watching the size fit for a table. A smaller portioned fish couldn’t do for tonight, only a sole with this much promise could.
I grazed the knife along the bone, careful not to lift any in the fillet. I use the scales left to rest my palm and feel the once-thriving muscles resist. The motion to cut this section off comes from somewhere in my past. I see my mother leaving me inside as she runs behind the man who just threw her down the porch. I rest the strip of fish on the board. I press flat the dark pink parts once close to the organs. I cut away the marrow taste. I flipped over the sole, blinking from the reflection from light said to help. There is no going back. I found the break in the flesh. I resharpen the knife to be sure I don’t have any parts caught in the blade. The parts left untouched for show are the gills, where it worked hardest to live.
“I want you to meet the table,” Albert said. I handed the fish soaking in marinate to the saucier to complete. I washed my hands and turned to Albert. The sommelier came back in the kitchen, a little flushed. I followed Albert under the dry cleaner’s original awning now hovering above the kitchen doors. The older couple is seated on the side of the drop lamp to give them a better chance at seeing the presentation. As I came into focus, I watched as the older woman focused on my body as I stepped out of the shadow. She seemed to have agreed with Albert that I did bounce back after birth. The younger man looked at his date, again fixated on her waistline. The younger woman ignored her date’s inquired glance and reached out to shake my hand.
“I work with your husband,” I heard, “Sally.” I desperately retracted from touching her skin, that would make her real. She watched me closely for a reaction. I got lost in her forest green dress as it seemed to absorb the light.
“You’re a lucky man,” the older man said in my silence. I nodded and went back through the doors to the sound of flames wrapping around a pan. I watched as a line member garnished the dish with fennel. When he was done I saw my creation for what it was and reclaimed myself.
A server stood with two dishes behind the older couple, while Albert remained behind me with a bottle of Loire. I placed the sea dish in front of Sally, cuing the server to act in step for the older woman. I then angled the second one to the younger man, to which the server mirrored in front of the older man. We then rested the plates down in sync. The server faded back into the dark. Sally doesn’t hesitate with this privacy as she pierces the meat with her fork. A chunk comes off with ease and is quickly in her mouth. She moves the piece of fish around her tongue to savour. Her date follows. Albert steps towards the table to see the flesh’s tanned colour. He reflects on how my arms looked when we started dating; in that summer vacation to Basque from sitting at the cafe for hours in the sun. He leaned around the shoulders of the older woman to top up her glass. Above the plate he smelled the same macadamia scent he once gave after a run. He waited for once, an explanation.
“The sole has been soaked in blood orange with an Armagnac glaze. On a bed of pureed celery root with aged parmesan,” I said. They hunched over the meat barely registering what I said. Only Albert heard me. In the midst of them devouring, I saw the older man look at Albert for more wine. But Albert’s eyes were no longer seeking empty stems but fixated on me.
“You really ought to try some,” the older woman said. “I really shouldn’t be indulging like this.” She gracefully touched the base of her stem as the others agreed. The table hummed the soft texture against their gums. Albert turned from me to face her. Unable to find his voice, his pale lips mouthed to her: stop. A server stepped into the candlelight to take the wine bottle from Albert’s grip. She narrowed her eyes in bewilderment and shrugged, “your loss.”
The dance continued as forks moved against the candlelight. Without Albert’s effort, the glasses shone vibrantly from the server’s pour. The guests each took turns bringing their wrists to their mouth like pistons as they washed down the flesh. The stone walls have nothing hanging, to echo their gulping sounds like a whirlpool. Albert clutched his lapels at the sight of the old man’s vacant meat. His appraisals about the moistness tied like anvils in this sea of pain. Albert fought tears to find me with salvation drawn on his face. He didn’t know when I found out about Sally. She raised her fork to Albert’s mouth, I watched him push back his shoulders with pride. The steel instrument shone like a torch within grasp. He took the fork and ate.
