Look, I’m not an incredible cook.
In the kitchen I have one indelible skill, really. Resourcefulness.
I was raised a staunch middle-class New Yorker. Sing it with me now: wasting food is a sin! (Said my mother as she put a spoon in a leftover can of pinto beans when I complained of being hungry after dinner.)
Not many people take their formative-childhood-inflicted neuroses and turn them into careers (or maybe they do, IDK) but I sure did!
I’m a recipe creator and food distribution coordinator with Harvest NYC, a food rescue org. Basically, we dispatch teams of volunteers to race around the city, rescuing the excess food from farmer’s markets and restaurants and grocery stores. Then I’m sent this week’s list of what we’ve rescued and I rush to put together something edible out of the mishmash. So that when people come to pick up their free boxes of rescued produce, they have some vague guideline on what the heck they could make out of bok choy, damaged jars of peanut butter, garlic, and romaine. (Averyfestive salad, in case you were wondering.)
All this is to say that cooking is my zone of competence. You need dinner on the table, I’m putting dinner on the table.
Which is why this current tableau is not a coincidence. Vin closes the front door and I turn toward him, holding a frittata framed in pink-and-green-striped fabric. (The apron matches the mitts.)
I feel like a stick-figure wife someone might have as a bumper sticker on their Subaru.
But, look, as much as cooking is my zone of competence, it’s also my zone of confidence. And I really needed to feel confident tonight.
Because this morning I received one of the worst texts that someone can ever send. From Vin:Are you going to be home tonight? I have something to tell you.
I have something to tell youvia text message should be illegal. Seriously. You should have to, at least, show up in front of a judge, in your Sunday best, and explain yourself for sending a text like that.
He sent it in the moments after I heard him leave for work, and it ruined my entire day. Not that it’s been a great week so far. Vin leaves before I get up, returns home after I’ve locked myself in the room at night.
But tonight we’re both here. I’ve got a frittata and he’s got drywall dust on his clothes.
“Smells good,” he murmurs, toeing off his work boots.
I blink at him. Well, look at us. It’s like a night from happier times got airdropped into the present moment.
This is excruciating.
I all but slam the frittata down on the counter. “Just tell me!”
He jolts, assessing me with wide eyes. But says nothing.
“Seriously, Vin! You have something ominous and terribleto tell me and I’m all ears. I’ve been all ears the entire day. So tell me already!”
“Oh. It’s not ominous. Or terrible. I don’t think. Just. Maybe. Complicated?”
I’ve got two hands on my hips and I’m eyeing him with the intensity of a high-speed train. I know that if I interrupt now, it’ll only derail him further, but everything in me wants to scream the wordSPEAK.
He walks to our dinner table, pulls out a chair for me. I pole-vault into it and fold my hands.SPEAK.
He pulls out a chair for himself, but then takes stock of his dusty work clothes and instead stands behind it, bracing himself on his elbows. His eyes are down.
“It’s…” His eyes come up. “About the accident.”
I take a deep breath. My mind already racing through every possible combination of unknowns he’s about to make known. “Okay…”
“I’ve been thinking…everything got fractured…nothing’s been easy since…”
I’m pinning the insides of my lips closed with my teeth. I want so badly to hurry him along. Waiting for him to say what he’s really here to say is excruciating.
“There have just been a lot of bad days this year,” he says finally. “And I thought…maybe if I went back…to that day…”
“Back?” I ask, certain I’m not hearing him right. My voice is scraping out of me. “To that day?”
“I…I found the other guy…The guy who was with us…”
