Brother, I'm Dying - Edwidge Danticat [89]
Overjoyed that he was actually craving food, I shared the news with my mother, who was downstairs cooking.
“Guess what?” I said. “Papa wants some rice.”
My mother sent me back to ask exactly how he wanted his rice prepared. Could she soak it in chicken broth, mix it with black or brown beans or mushrooms, sprinkle it with shredded cashews? Would he mind if she lubricated it with butter or margarine to add some extra calories and taste, stirred in chunks of sausage or bacon for much-needed protein? Perhaps he wanted some fresh vegetables thrown in for fiber?
He only wanted a small bowl of the plainest white rice she could possibly prepare, he said. He even provided a shorthand recipe. “Cup of rice, water, drop of salt, spoonful of vegetable oil so nothing sticks to the pan. Boil it all.”
My father had always been a picky eater. However, he had only learned to cook during his early years in the United States, while my mother was still in Haiti. When she joined him two years later, the first thing he did was cook for her.
My mother’s first Brooklyn meal was very much like Bob’s and mine. It consisted of stewed chicken, fried sweet plantains, which my mother loves, and diri ak pwa, rice and beans. For a while, each time someone would visit from Haiti, my father would help cook that same meal, just as he had for us, his welcome repast, he called it, because he wanted his visitors to taste something that had buffered his transition to immigrant life. And even if their stays were not meant to be as long as his, he hoped that they would feel, as he did, that one could easily return home, simply by lifting a fork to one’s lips.
I watched as my mother prepared my father’s rice. As she dropped the contents of an overflowing measuring cup into a pot of boiling water, a few grains spilled over the side, turning black in the burner’s blue flames. Her hands trembled as she lowered the lid to trap some steam to prevent the rice from becoming sticky. My father liked his rice light and fluffy, but separate. If given the choice, he’d rather eat it al dente than soggy. Since he’d gone so long without a taste, the possibility of disappointing him weighed heavily on my mother.
When the rice was done, my mother searched a cabinet filled with her special-occasion dishes, the kind she used only when she had company, and pulled out a white porcelain plate with two giant cherries sketched in the middle. The cherries overlapped in a way that made them look like one large heart and as my mother heaped the rice on top of them, they seemed like a coded message from a woman who was beyond taking ordinary moments with her husband for granted.
I took the rice up to my father on the bright yellow tray on which all his meals were served. My mother added a tall glass of ice-cold water, which my father had requested at the last minute. When I walked into the room, my father’s face lit up, his eyes sparkling with anticipation. He was sitting in the recliner, his eyes glued to the plate. I leaned over to place the tray in front of him. He was covered in four layers of blankets, which were doing the work that muscle and fat had once done for his body. What seemed like room temperature to someone else could feel glacial to my father.
The forward sway of my body made the water glass skid across the tray, spilling the chilled water into my father’s lap. The water soaked through the blankets onto his pajamas, leaking into the sponge padding beneath him.
My father let out a loud cry. I quickly pulled the tray aside, resting it on the dresser behind the television. Even as he moaned and tried to wriggle away from the soaked sheets, my father’s eyes trailed the plate of rice that was now cooling off just a few feet away.
My mother heard my father’s screams from downstairs