The right recipe

The summer Andrew was born, the tomatoes would not ripen.  They clung to their green skins until they split in the heat.  A slow mold had edged it way up the cinderblocks of our foundation and my brother Charlie and I drew pictures in it with sticks.  Laundry wound not dry on the line and trees lost their leaves early in August.

Gran came.  Andrew was born on a sultry late june day.  Gran was there to mind me and Charlie.  She cooked and cleaned and made me some new summer clothes.  I do not know what happened when the lights went down.  The adults spoke in heated whispers and you could hear crying in the dead of night.

We took our new baby down to Mississippi to be baptized.  We were a hobbled family at best... Sandy had left, I refused to wash my hair, Charlie wouldn't take off his ridiculous Fisher-Price tool belt.  Yet Merrie Gayle remained regal and composed.  She pinned her lush auburn hair back with tortoise shell combs.  She stood tall and proud in the dresses she had made herself.

If anyone was unhappy that Sandy wasn't there, I didn't know it.  I myself was so glad to be rid of him that I couldn't fathom why anyone would want him around.  Andrew was feted and celebrated, held and petted.   Still at night, the sobbing from the other guest room would leave you breathless.

I remember sitting in the kitchen while my mother and grandmother deveined shrimp.  The boil of the pot made me nauseous.  Suddenly, I fell ill.  And was racked with crying.  I couldn't stop and I couldn't explain why I had started.  The pot boiled over and left to myself, I bolted out the back door.

This I know is true; my father did not come to my youngest brother's baptism.  My beautiful mother wept in closets, bathrooms, under pillows, anywhere she could be alone.  Neither of my grandparents ever said an unkind word about my father.

I have learned to love shrimp and green tomatoes.  It hasn't been an easy journey but with the right amount of seasoning, coating, I can tolerate almost anything.