Even From A Distance

1. Brylee:

     For the life of me, I could not recall a moment in my life when I had not wanted to be in or around a kitchen cooking. From a drastically young age, I pleaded with my mom to allow me to help her. Mom says it was beyond humiliating when I tried to join the staff of a restaurant one night when I went along with her and my aunt for mom's birthday when I was just four.

     "We never went there again." Mom would laugh, the punchline always making whoever is being told the story double over in a fit of hysterical laughter.

     See, Dad had fled the family so early that the only parts of my parent's togetherness that I know of is their loud disagreements about custody and court dates. Mom was granted sole custody mainly due to her exceptionally intelligent yet very much man-hating lawyer who made quick work of making my dad appearing to the judge as some lowlife scumbag. Mom's lawyer made Dad out to seem too undeserving to be a permanent fixture in my life.

      Dad was allowed to see me. "Supervised visitations" they were called. They didn't last, and Dad quickly vanished from my life completely. This thrilled my mom, something that I didn't understand when I was younger. For years it seemed okay, I never questioned my mom's ways. She was my mom after all. In my eyes, she could do no wrong. As a result, I have a great deal of resentment towards her because of that whole ordeal but that is a topic I'll get to a bit later.

     It should go without saying then, that my mom was stressed out during most of my childhood. Jobs, rent, me.

     "Brylee, go sit down and watch TV like a normal kid. I have dinner covered." She used to say to me often.

      My fascination with food and cooking would've had to derived from the lady who lived upstairs in the apartment above ours. Her name is Penny and she was a chef for thirty years before retiring so she could do her crosswords and wear her pink frog slippers all day.

    Mom and I met Penny Damone the day I broke my arm diving off the counter into the couch when I was six years old. Penny was on her way to a meeting of her bookclub and was nice enough to share her cab with us.

      Following the broken arm and my series of questions inquiring about her life as we rode to the hospital, I was compelled to follow in Penny's footsteps. Even at six, I knew she was special. One day during the trip to her apartment we took in order for me to give Penny the picture I'd made of her cooking for the whole world, mom mentioned to her how shady the daycare I went to when school was out. Graciously, Penny recommended for mom to leave me at her apartment every afternoon until my mom got home.

     "Bry, you don't need to make me anything. Honest. You're going ot make me fat." Mom tells me now.

     She's stripping from her black waitress getup right in the kitchen as I chop vegetables. She feels of cigarettes and alcohol.

    "But Mom!" I exclaimed. "You have to eat some of this."

    
     I spent half a paycheck from my part-time job at the bakery to afford the ingredients, plus I had a math test to study for. But really, math is not important to me and I have been wanting to make this recipe for ages.

    Shrimp Scampi Over Steamed Vegetables and Bowtie Pasta.

     I have no idea how to cook shrimp but I'm excited about the possibility of it. Cooking with new foods never ceases to get me pumped.

     "Do I have time to take a shower?" Mom sighed.

    She worked both jobs today and she looks like she's recently been unfortunately run over by a semi truck.

    "Just as long as you don't fall asleep in there again." I said lightly though I was only half joking.

    Breezing passed me, she waved my comment away with a flit of her hand.

     "Can you put my clothes in the wash and get the load going? I'm working a double shift tomorrow." She shouts on her way to the bathroom.

     Taking a deep breath, I agitatedly replied to the empty room. "I'm kind of busy, cooking for you..."

     Reluctantly, I put my knife down to grab the clothes she had left heaped on the floor to trudge through the wetness of October to get to the laundry room across the property of our apartment complex. I never understood why the laundry room that everyone uses everyday was located as far away from us as possible.

    Ugh.