just talk to me
Knife taps against cutting board and the onion cries. The delicate scarlet rings fall, hiding the slicing scars, all those crisscrossed lines like a haphazard tally of breaths. If only the flavors–peppery and sun-soaked and honey-sweet–lasted as long as the evidence of our cooking. A sigh slips as I turn my burning eyes away from the wounded onion, lifting one arm to catch a tear on my sleeve.
“Mom Jones?”
I blink, spinning toward her voice.
“Yes?”
Jones–it’s like the autistic Riley version of honey or dear or love but with a twist of humor because it’s the wrong name. This eccentricity feels like some odd snatch of my daddy twisted into Riley’s DNA and reinterpreted, because during my growing up years, my dad intentionally called my neighborhood girlfriends by different names to be funny. Shelley became Tiffany; Laura became Amy; Jenny became Mary Beth. We’d stand there in our wide-striped t-shirts and pigtails and giggle, gap-toothed, hiding behind our hands. But now that I think about it, this joke may have actually been a cover; my dad has a terrible memory for names. Riley, however, excels at remembering people, which is why, especially as a literalist, she finds such humor in deliberately calling someone by the wrong name. Jones has become her pet name for us, and she intones it affectionately, the same way I say Ri-lo when I pause to ask her a question and touch her cheek.
“Tomorrow is Zoe’s last day of school this year,” she says, standing just outside the kitchen, tapping one bare foot on the linoleum. She drags a fat brush through her thick, brassy hair, separating out flat lengths like ribbons, testing the ends for knots with her fingers.
“Yes, you’re right,” I say, turning back to my onions, gently reclaiming the knife.
“Mom Jones?”
The onion is damp, nearly sticky, beneath my fingers.
“Yes?” Knife taps again against the cutting board. As my stinging eyes fill, I imagine invisible poisons curling up from the broken flesh like steam.
“After tomorrow, Zoe gets to sleep in.”
“Yes. She’s excited about that.”
“Mmmhmm. Yes she is. She’s excited about that, alright.”
Gathering the errant rings, I begin to dice. The vegetables make tiny mountains on my cutting board. I move to the stove to drizzle olive oil in the deep well of a Dutch oven, already imagining the the sizzling of aromatics, the earthy smell of seared meat. Lately, I have tried to give attention to the art in everyday rhythms. I’ve noticed that brokenness gives way to renewal, like a story on endless loop.
“Mom Jones?”
“Yes?”
Riley sets the hairbrush on the bar, gathering and smoothing her thick, silken hair with her hands. But her thoughts aren’t in her hands or on her head or in the swells of her ocean eyes, nor even in the gentle curve of neck below chin as she leans to catch every stray strand of hair with her fingers.
“After tomorrow, Zoe will be home with you.”
“Yes, that’s true.” I smile, stopping a moment just to look at Riley. I want not to be too busy to notice the distance in her expression; the “otherness” of her attention; the focused concentration with which she interviews me. Sometimes I pray the way she’s talking, in conversational reiteration, every sentiment another shade of the same need. Father this and father that; I’ve heard it said we can over-say His name. So I try for variation, constructing phrases, because for some reason I imagine God to be impatient with the repetition. But suddenly, plainly, I know that God listens more than he evaluates. Because here I am–cracked-up, messed-up, tripped-up me, holding my sticky fingers aloft, ready to scoop hills and valleys into the fire, and does it matter to me that our exchange is a repetition? No. I am overjoyed. And if the reiteration of truth results in some reassurance for my daughter, so much the better. Because carefully, I remember the days when she did not speak at all. Because even now, with the heat at my back, I unwrap the memories like delicate heirlooms swathed in tissue paper, holding them in my palm. Because here she is, calling me Jones; here she is, standing in front of me, requiring only my attention while she loves her sister. And I, wanting only to love her, am delighted.
