It was mid-Sunday morning. I, and other members of my family, had been up for a while, separately, in different rooms. I was in the family room, on the couch, earbuds in place. I had just finished listening to Ben Lerner read his short story ‘Cafe Loup’. The narrator is a young father telling the story of how he was choking on a piece of meat at a meal, among other things. He has a daughter who is of the age where she cannot yet talk. The story is not just about choking, but about communicating or not communicating. It is about dying and what and who you leave behind. Trying to protect your children when you are alive and not being able to protect them when you are dead. The story is about not having control; but in small ways, trying to maintain a bit of it.
Later that morning, after listening to the story, I found myself alone in the kitchen with my daughter. I was hugging her. She was crying. I had taken her cellphone. I had just told her the chores I wanted her to do in the morning. Things she did not do the night before. She had been yelling. I asked her not to yell and now she was crying. Earlier that morning, before my earbuds were in place, there was an argument between my wife and my daughter. It had to do with chores that were asked of my daughter that she did not do. There was yelling and crying.
The night before, I was scrolling Facebook randomly. I came across a post from Kevin, a friend of mine from high school. We had played soccer together growing up until he stopped playing soccer. We were in the same circle of friends in high school. He was a friend who I had lost touch with over the years, but through Facebook, we had kept tabs on each other’s lives, as people tend to do on Facebook. Lately, Kevin had started posting photos of he and his teenage daughters going out on father-daughter date nights and I thought that was nice. Kevin had recently lost some weight and was looking pretty fit.
Kevin’s post from the night before was to let people know that “the first love of his life and the mother of his daughters had passed away suddenly.” I was shocked. I did not know Kevin’s wife, but I reached out to let him know I was thinking about him and sending warm thoughts his way.
Later that night, I texted Juan. He was another friend of mine from high school who still lived in Miami, along with Kevin. He was good friends with Kevin and knew Kevin’s wife and daughters.
In the last few years, Juan had reached out to me a few times to let me know he would be in Baltimore on business. I took him out to dinner the first visit and we caught up after a long time from not being in touch. The next time, he was with his wife, and the four of us, Juan and his wife, me and my wife, went out for a nice Sunday brunch.
Juan and I had remained close since his visits, often exchanging texts at random moments in our lives about music and food. We had bonded over our mutual love of cooking and entertaining friends and loved ones. Once, I had asked Juan, after being intrigued by an article I read, if he had ever used a Caja China before. It was a big wooden box made exclusively for the roasting of whole pigs.
“What a shock. I am so saddened for Kevin,” I texted Juan that Saturday night.
“Yeah. They divorced suddenly the previous November and now this. It’s been a roller coaster.”
“Hug your family,” I texted.
“Thanks, buddy. I got my eyes on Kevin, hug your family too. “
When my daughter finished her chores, she came into the family room and asked me for her cellphone back, which I gave her. Before she went upstairs to her room, I asked her what she had planned for the day.
“I’m ignoring you for at least two hours,” she replied.
After this exchange, I went back to the couch and put my earbuds back on, this time listening to some quiet music while I read an interview with Ben Lerner discussing ‘Cafe Loup.’ In the interview, Lerner states the narrator’s concern that if he doesn’t survive his choking incident, his daughter will have to rely entirely on the stories of others about his life. Later in the interview, there was a discussion about a passage in the story where the narrator, his wife and his mother-in-law argue about if and how much their young daughter’s food should be cut up.
After I finished reading the interview, about thirty minutes later, I went to the kitchen to make myself some breakfast. I pulled out the ingredients and paused. Grabbing my cellphone, I texted my daughter:
“Do you want some toast or a fried egg or a sliced apple for breakfast?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“All three?”
“Eggs and sliced apple please.”
