Second Helpings

Second Helpings

The reception had been going since noon and by three the neighbors had finally cleared out, leaving just the family and the food and the strange quiet that settles into a house once everybody polite has gone home.

Ruth's dining room table had never held so much. Church food mostly. Green bean casserole. Ham gone gray around the edges. Deviled eggs sweating onto paper plates. A sheet cake that said “Rest In Peace, Dale” in blue frosting, which was funny because he'd gone by Martin his whole life and hated the color blue.

Then, there was the other end of the table.

Three foil pans Luminița had brought in herself around eleven-thirty that morning after Ruth insisted she come early to help set up. Stuffed cabbage rolls. Cucumbers in sour cream. Little fried pastries dusted with powdered sugar. And the round pale cake with the cross dusted over the top in cocoa powder that looked less like dessert and more like something from church.

The smell of it had settled into the house hours ago. Garlic and dill and warm cabbage and something sweet underneath it all.

Becca stood by the sideboard with a sweating glass of tea and watched her brother eat his fourth cabbage roll like he was trying to prove he didn't like it.

“Too much garlic,” Garrett muttered.

“Then stop eating them,” said Becca.

“I’m hungry.”

“There’s ham.”

Garrett glanced at the ham. “That thing’s been out since eleven.”

“And the cabbage rolls haven’t?”

“They were covered.”

Becca almost smiled. “It’s ham, Garrett. That’s like ninety percent preservatives already.”

Garrett was fifty-four and angry in the same exact way their father had been angry, which was to say constantly but quietly enough that everybody else had to do the work of feeling it. Tie loosened. Sleeves rolled twice. Standing instead of sitting because sitting would've implied comfort.

Ruth came out carrying another spoon.

“This one’s for the cabbage rolls,” she said.

“There’s already one in there,” said Garrett.

“That one's bent.”

Ruth replaced it anyway.

Garrett stared at the new spoon.

Diane sat beside him in a black maternity dress she kept tugging down over her knees.

“My doctor said sodium makes swelling worse,” she announced to nobody in particular. “Especially during pregnancy.”

Nobody answered.

Diane nodded like they had.

At the far end of the table, Lumi sat beside her son, Ioan, who was coloring silently in a little notebook with a blue crayon worn almost flat. Every now and then he glanced up at the adults deciding whether they were safe.

Becca hated herself a little for noticing he had their dad’s eyes.

Even dead, he was making everybody uncomfortable.

Ruth came in from the kitchen carrying more rolls nobody needed. Her black funeral dress hung loose on her narrow frame and her pale blonde hair, usually pinned tight enough to survive a tornado, had started slipping around her face sometime after noon. Standing there in the doorway, washed out by the kitchen light, she looked strangely like Lumi if somebody had drained the color from her. Same capable hands. Same steady posture. Same habit of entering a room already looking for what needed done.

“Lord,” said Becca. “Mom.”

“What?” Ruth replied.

“There’s enough food here for an army.”

“People need to eat after funerals.”

“Why?”

Ruth looked at her like she didn't understand the question.

Garrett pointed his fork toward the white cake.

“What even is that?”

“Coliva,” said Lumi before Becca could answer.

Garrett looked at her.

“It is for memorial,” said Lumi. “In Romania, we make it after funerals. Wheat, walnuts, honey. We bring it for the soul of the person.”

She spoke softly but without apology, her black hair pinned back loosely at the nape of her neck, olive skin warm against the gray blouse she wore like mourning came naturally to her. Up close she and Ruth carried the same shape in the face and shoulders, only where Ruth looked faded by years and winter light, Lumi looked darkened by sun and weather and life actually lived outdoors.

Garrett nodded once.

“Hmm.”

“You don’t have to eat it,” said Becca.

“I didn’t say I was going to,” Garrett snapped.

Ten minutes later he'd eaten two pieces.

“It’s dry,” he said, scraping the last crumbs off his plate with his fork.

“You’re literally licking it.”

“I’m trying to figure out what’s in it.”

“Orange peel,” said Lumi. “Very little. And vanilla.”

Garrett looked irritated.

“Well. It’s sweet.”

“Yes,” said Lumi pleasantly. “Dessert usually is.”

Becca looked down into her tea to hide the smile.

Ioan spoke without looking up from his notebook.

“Bunica puts more walnuts in hers,” Ioan said without looking up.

Lumi touched the back of his head gently and smiled. “My mother thinks more walnuts makes everything better.”

Ruth gathered plates from the table and Lumi stood automatically to help her before either woman said a word.

Garrett watched them go.

That was the thing underneath all the other things. Becca could feel it sitting there at the table with them.

Not the food.

It was the way Lumi moved through the house without hesitation. The way she knew where the dish towels were. The way Ruth handed her things without looking. The way there were suddenly two women in the kitchen acting as if this was an everyday thing.

Diane broke the silence.

“I actually think the cucumber thing is really good.”

“Nobody asked,” said Garrett.

Diane blinked. “I was just saying.”

“You’ve been ‘just saying’ all day.”

“Well, sorry for talking.”

“Jesus Christ,” muttered Becca.

Garrett grabbed another cabbage roll.

“They’re salty now,” he said.

“You said they needed salt earlier,” Becca spat out.

“Bunicul said Americans only salt food because they are afraid of garlic,” Ioan said as he switched to the purple crayon.

Garrett looked at the top of Ioan’s head before turning back to Becca. “I didn’t say ‘needed’ salt.”

“You absolutely did.”

“I said they could use something.”

“They're literally the only thing you've eaten.”

Garrett pointed his fork at her. “You know what your problem is?”

“No,” said Becca turning her body to face him. “Please tell me.”

“You always gotta act like everybody else is crazy for noticing what’s right in front of them.”

“And what exactly is right in front of you, Garrett?”

Garrett looked down at his plate.

“The whole damn house smells different,” he said after a while.

Nobody said anything.

In the kitchen the faucet shut off.

Ioan switched from blue crayon to green.

Garrett laughed once through his nose and shook his head.

“He used to insist on sitting in the back corner booth,” said Garrett. “Every birthday. Every anniversary.” He looked up at Lumi then. “Guess now we know why.”

Everybody looked at her.

Lumi glanced toward the kitchen.

“Your mother always ordered dessert first,” she said quietly.

She stood there drying her hands on a dish towel.

Garrett stared at her.

The room went still.

“What restaurant?” Diane asked, looking back and forth between Garrett and Lumi.

“Casa Dunării. On Clement.” Garrett didn’t look away from Lumi.

Diane sat up straighter. “Wait. That’s your restaurant?”

“My family’s,” said Lumi. “My brother owns it now.”

Garrett looked at the cabbage rolls in his hand.

The memories came back all at once for Becca of those dinners at Casa Dunării. The back booth. Her father ordering for the table before anyone else sat down. The waitresses greeting him without menus.

Becca remembered thinking, as a kid, that her father must've really loved that restaurant.

“You worked there,” said Garrett slowly.

“My parents own it. I have worked there since I could stand.”

“And, Dad knew you from there.”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

Lumi was quiet for a moment.

“Long enough.”

Nobody spoke.

Ruth came out of the kitchen and stood next to Lumi. “Lumi, where’d you put the foil?”

“On top of the microwave,” Lumi said, one hand still wrapped around the dish towel.

When she looked back at Garrett there was no anger in her face. That somehow made it worse.

“Your father liked trying new things,” said Ruth as she turned and went back to the kitchen.

Then everybody sat with that for a second.

Garrett looked toward the kitchen. Toward his mother asking another woman where things were in her own house.

That seemed to land harder than anything else had.

He cut himself another piece of coliva.

“Too sweet,” he muttered.

But he ate every bite.

Lumi started pulling the empty trays off the table to throw away. When she was finished, she wrapped aluminum foil over the untouched casseroles and the sweating ham.

Nobody moved to help.

Garrett pushed his plate to the center of the table and didn't reach for anything else.

The cabbage smell still hung warm in the house.