Cajun Shrimp Pasta

CAYLEE STANDS ALONE in the kitchen, the overhead light humming softly as water boils on the stove. The smell hits her first, garlic blooming in warm oil, familiar, deepening as she stirs. Cajun shrimp pasta. Andouille sausage. Chicken. A dish she knows by heart now, even if it never quite tastes the way she remembers.

She slices the sausage carefully, evenly, the knife tapping the cutting board in a steady rhythm. Her hands move with confidence. Her thoughts don’t. They drift, as they always do, back to him.

Her father used to cut the sausage thicker. She remembers noticing it the first time she watched him cook, standing awkwardly at the edge of the kitchen in his new house, unsure of where she belonged. Thick slices. Unapologetic. He said they held the flavor better that way.

At fifteen, she hadn’t even known her father could cook.

That was the part that stunned her most. Not that the pasta was good. It was unreal. The kind of meal that makes you pause after the first bite, eyes widening, fork hovering midair. She had nearly laughed when she tasted it, a surprised, disbelieving sound slipping out before she could stop it.

This? He made this? My dad?

She’d wondered, quietly at first, why she had never known this version of him.

Before then, he had been a part time father. When he was there, he was great, present, funny, warm. He made her feel like the most important thing in the room. And then he would disappear. Months passed. Birthdays came and went. Phone calls grew farther apart. She learned not to ask questions that didn’t have answers.

But now there was Brenda. Now there was a small, perfect house that smelled like spices and butter and something always simmering. Now there was a son, Tyler, who would grow up thinking this man at the stove was normal. A father who cooked. A father who stayed.

Caylee drops the chicken into the pan and listens to it sizzle. The sound pulls her back to the present. She stirs, seasoning carefully, remembering how he used to taste as he went, eyes closing briefly, adjusting without measuring. He cooked like someone who trusted himself. No recipe. Just knowing how much to add, when to wait. A mad scientist in the kitchen, lost in his work.

She hadn’t tasted his cooking until she was fifteen. Not once before that. And the realization had lodged itself somewhere deep and painful.

Why wasn’t I worthy of this version of him?

The pot thickens as the sauce comes together. She lowers the heat, patient now, just like he taught her. Rushing ruins everything, he used to say.

When the meal is ready, she plates it neatly and carries it to the small dining table. One plate. One fork. She sets it down and sits, her gaze drifting instinctively toward the front door.

For a moment, just a moment, she waits. For what, she doesn’t know.

She twirls the pasta once, then again, not eating yet. The shrimp sit on top, pink and curled, perfect by anyone else’s standards. She wonders what her father would say about the texture. If it needs more seasoning. She studies the plate the way she always does, as if something might change if she looks long enough. As if his hand might enter the frame.

It never does.

The first time she ate this dish, she had been sitting at a much bigger table. Brenda’s table. Everything had felt staged then, like a set she’d wandered onto by accident. Matching chairs. Warm lighting. A framed photo of her father holding a baby she didn’t recognize yet.

Tyler.

He had been barely old enough to sit upright in his high chair, fists pounding the tray while her father cooked. Cooked. Moving through the kitchen like he belonged there, confident and relaxed, explaining flavors to Brenda as if he’d been doing it his whole life.

Caylee had watched him from the doorway, something tight forming in her chest, wondering who this man was.

She remembered taking her first bite. How the resentment had come immediately after the pleasure, sharp and uninvited. The thought she hated herself for having.

So this is who you are now. A family man.

She’d smiled. She’d complimented the dish. She’d thanked him.

But later, lying awake in the guest room, she had stared at the ceiling and counted the years backward. Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve. All the dinners that never looked like this. All the restaurants he took her to without ever putting in this kind of effort. All the nights she ate pizza and microwaved meals with her mother while he was somewhere else, living a life she didn’t get to see.

She lifts her fork now and takes a small bite. Chews slowly. It’s good.

It’s just never as good as his.

After she turned eighteen and left for college, the distance between them stopped feeling accidental. It became something she controlled. When his calls came, she let them go to voicemail. When his texts showed up, she read them and never replied.

He tried. She knew that. Messages checking in. Asking about classes. About her life. Telling her he missed her.

She became a ghost anyway.

There was a quiet satisfaction in it at first. A sense of balance being restored. Let him feel what it was like to be on the outside. Let him lean on Brenda. Let him have Tyler. Let him be the version of himself everyone else seemed to enjoy so much.

The new Dale.

The family man.

The man who cooked.

The man who loved hard.

Two years passed that way.

Long enough for her to miss him deeply and still refuse to admit it. Long enough for his voice to fade just enough that she had to work to remember the exact way he laughed. Long enough that the anger began to harden into something quieter, heavier.

Punishment, she told herself. That was all it was. She wanted him to feel it.

She takes another bite, then sets the fork down. The plate is barely touched. Her thoughts drift back to that day.

The call came from her mother on a Tuesday afternoon, in the middle of a campus walkway loud with voices and footsteps. Caylee almost didn’t answer. She nearly let it ring, the way she had learned to do with her father.

But something in her mother’s voice stopped her before she could say hello.

There was no buildup. No careful phrasing. Just the words, spoken plainly, as if saying them any other way would make them untrue.

Her father was gone.

Not sick. Not an accident. Gone in a way that left no room for follow up questions that mattered. Gone in a way that made the air feel thinner. Harder to breathe.

Caylee sank onto a bench she didn’t remember sitting on. Around her, students passed, laughing, arguing, living entire lives that had nothing to do with what had just ended. She stared at the concrete beneath her feet, waiting for something to make sense.

It didn’t.

What came first wasn’t sadness. It was confusion. A sharp, disorienting disbelief. That doesn’t fit, she thought. That’s not his life.

In her mind, he was fine. More than fine. He had Brenda. He had Tyler. He had dinners and routines and a kitchen that smelled like spices and comfort. He had everything she had convinced herself he didn’t need her for anymore.

The guilt followed quickly, heavy and unrelenting, like a flood.

Every unanswered call replayed itself. Every message left on read. Every moment she had taken satisfaction in being absent. She had assumed time was waiting for her. That he would still be there when she decided she was ready.

She hadn’t considered the possibility that he was struggling. That the man she believed had finally found peace had instead been quietly unraveling. That he might have needed her in ways she never allowed herself to imagine.

She had mistaken silence for strength. Stability for happiness.

Later, much later, her mother told her about the package that had arrived in the mail. Addressed in her father’s handwriting. Postmarked just hours before everything ended.

A DVD.

For Caylee.

She doesn’t remember the drive home. Only the way the house felt when she walked in, still, like it was holding its breath.

She stood there for a long time, unsure of what to do next. She stared at the DVD longer than she meant to, afraid of what it might contain. Afraid of what it already was.

Her eyes drift now to the DVD resting on the coffee table. She exhales, then looks back down at the plate. After a moment, she lifts it, walks to the trash, and lets it fall.

The sound is dull. Final.

She stares down at it, noodles tangled and wasted, sauce smeared along the edge. Another thing left unfinished.

Only then does she turn toward the television. She crosses the room, picking up the DVD as she goes.

The DVD case feels lighter than she expects when she picks it up. Plain. Unlabeled, except for his handwriting on the disc itself. Her father’s handwriting on the envelope had been unmistakable. Uneven. Slightly rushed. Like he hadn’t wanted to waste time making it neat.

She slides the disc into the player and sits on the edge of the couch, hands folded in her lap. The screen stays black for a second longer than she expects. Then the image flickers to life.

Her father fills the frame, too close to the camera, as if he hadn’t known how to set it properly. He looks tired. Not sick. Just worn. His hair is uncombed, his eyes ringed with shadows. But when he smiles, small and uncertain, it’s still him. The same kind eyes she’s known her whole life.

He clears his throat.

“I just wanted to tell you that I love you,” he says. “And that I miss you. So much that it hurts.”

Caylee’s chest tightens. She doesn’t move.

“I hope you’re doing okay out there. I know you are,” he continues, nodding to himself. “You’ve always been resilient. You can do anything.”

He looks away from the camera for a moment, collecting his thoughts.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” he says quietly. “About who I was for most of your life. And about who I became when I met Brenda.” A pained smile crosses his face. “I didn’t even realize I hurt you. I’m sorry.”

The word lands heavier than she expects.

“I’m sorry I never made you Cajun pasta before,” he adds, almost under his breath. “Hell, until you told me, I never even realized I never cooked for you. You deserved it. You deserved that part of me more than anyone.”

He exhales slowly, as if the sentence took something out of him.

“I guess I never really had the chance to show you that person before,” he says. “Anyway… I love you. Take care of yourself, Caylee.”

The screen goes still.

Caylee doesn’t realize she’s crying until the tears blur his face into something indistinct. She watches the frozen image for a long time, his expression caught somewhere between hope and regret, before the television finally goes dark.

The house is quiet again.

She stands and walks back into the kitchen. The trash can sits where she left it. She lifts the lid and looks down at the discarded plate, the pasta cooling into something unrecognizable. She doesn’t flinch. She lets the lid fall closed.

What remains is the smell.

Garlic. Butter. Spice. The faint heat of andouille still hanging in the air, wrapping around her in a way nothing else can. She closes her eyes and breathes it in, letting it carry her where her hands and memory always lead. Back to his kitchen. His laugh. His arms around her shoulders as he leaned over the stove.

The aroma fades slowly, but she stays where she is until it’s gone.

Nothing is left but the smell that always takes her back to her father.