Seasonal

Cooking was Lillian’s love language.

Now, that’s not to say she was a professional. Far be it from her to maintain hopes of opening a restaurant or starting a career as an online influencer.

But the pleasure she got from sweating under the lazy kitchen fan, Frank Sinatra gently crooning in her ear as the garlic popped and sizzled in the pan on the stove was unparalleled. That was always her favorite part - the moment when raw things began to soften, when patience gave way to reward. Seeing the effort validated in the lightened eyes and full stomachs of those she loved came as a close second.

Nobody ever taught her to cook. Her mom, working full time and taking care of 5 kids, made sure to have dinner on the table almost every night. Kielbasa, sliced thin to feed more mouths. Beans and rice or peppers and potatoes, steamed until soft. Shepard’s pie, stuffed with frozen vegetables. A turkey on Thanksgiving, dry but proud, because tradition matters, even when money is tight. The food wasn’t romantic, but it was dependable. It did the job. It filled stomachs and quieted complaints.

Love, Lillian learned early, was about consistency more than joy.

When she was younger, wild blackberries grew along the side of the house, untended and in a tangled, thorny mess. Her childhood memories were smeared with sweet purple juice. Her mom tended a small garden in their vast acres of backyard. Tomatoes and zucchini were the easiest and came up every year beside the wilted green beans and withered melon vines. Every day after work her mother watered the plants, still in her scrubs, humming tunelessly as the sun dipped low in the evening sky. Lillian sometimes joined her, silently sneaking tomatoes from the vines as she listened to her mother murmur encouragement to the growing leaves. Nothing tasted as good as a tomato fresh from the earth.

One summer, before her parents finally split for good, her father ran the mower straight over the garden.

Her mother cried for weeks.

Lillian learned then that care was fragile and that effort could be undone in seconds.

Ratatouille was Lillian’s signature summer dish. Light and refreshing with cool, crisp vegetables, thick tomato sauce and freshly shaved Parmesan, it took only about an hour to throw together. Less, if she used store-bought sauce, which she rarely did. She liked that it was seasonal, that it depended entirely on timing. The vegetables mattered. Farmers market produce changed the dish completely — brighter tomatoes, firmer zucchini, eggplant without bitterness. Grocery store vegetables dulled it, flattened the flavor. The dish survived either way, but one was the clear victor.

She had made it for her boyfriend, AJ, on their 1st date, after they had sex on her bathroom counter, a frantic whirlwind leaving shattered make up palettes and strewn Bobby pins in the wake of its passion.

He didn’t particularly like ratatouille, she learned later. He was born in Pakistan and missed the foods of his childhood — falooda in the summer heat, biryani fragrant with spice, goat roasted low and slow until it fell apart under a fork. At first, the difference thrilled the anthropologist inside her. She loved learning the names of dishes, the way food carried memory across continents.

But over time, she began to confuse difference with distance. When conversations turned sharp or confusing, she told herself it was language. When his anger surfaced sideways — clipped phrases, silences that stretched too long — she told herself it was culture. She became fluent in explanation, translating his words for herself until the meaning softened enough to bear. She was tired. The arguments had grown more frequent, their resolution less complete. The unhappiness seeped outward, dulling everything else. Still, she stayed, asking herself the same question in quieter moments: wasn’t love commitment? Didn’t staying count for something, even when you were hungry?

Three years they had been together. He wasn’t a bad guy. In fact, in most regards, he was the best boyfriend she’d ever had. Reliable, ambitious, generous, loyal. The summer before he had taken her to Europe and shouldered a majority of the expenses, dismissing her protests with a simple forehead kiss and a “let me handle things for you” smile.

Most of her doubts surfaced when AJ traveled to Texas to visit his family, a monthly ritual that left her alone in their apartment for long weeks at a time. The first night after he left always felt strange — the bed too wide, the air too still. But by the second morning, something loosened inside her chest.

Recently, she moved differently when he was gone. Cooked quicker things with fewer steps. That was if she cooked at all, instead of throwing together a mish-mash of low effort items from the fridge. Ate standing at the counter sometimes, scrolling absentminded through her phone. She let silence stretch without it becoming uncomfortable.

When he returned, it didn’t hurt as much. That was the part that scared her.

The arguments were less frequent now, not because they had learned how to resolve them, but because she had learned which ones to swallow. She brought things up carefully, or not at all. She adjusted faster. Accepted explanations she once would have questioned. The sharp edges had dulled but so had something else.

It was easier to live this way. Quieter. The ache faded into something manageable, like hunger you learned to ignore when you didn’t know when you’d eat next. She told herself this was what compromise looked like. That love, after all, was supposed to soften over time.

But some nights, standing alone in the kitchen, she missed the feeling of wanting more, missed how badly it used to hurt.

Shaking her head and grabbing her keys and purse from the table, she headed to the front door and stepped outside. The air was heavy and stale with impending rain. The heat nipped at the base of her neck, glasses fogging up around the edges. Summer pressed down on her with its unavoidable expectations.

The farmers market on 4th Street buzzed with low conversation and movement. She wandered slowly, selecting eggplant; firm, glossy, unblemished. Zucchini with blossoms still attached. Tomatoes warm from the sun, their skins taut and fragrant.

She imagined making ratatouille that night.

Then she imagined not making it.

Her phone buzzed in her bag. AJ, asking how her day was going. She stared at the screen for a long moment before sliding it back into her purse, unanswered.

She realized then that she knew how to recognize what was ripe.

She had just been afraid to admit this wasn’t.