Mom's Spaghetti

Note: Contains themes of depression and loss

His heart ached as he watched his daughter sulk on the couch. Her laughter, her joy lingered in his memory, but right now, Nate knew his one and only child would not find such happiness. A few days ago, she had been so cheerful, excited for her second summer break and all her daydreamy plans, playing with friends, watching all the videos she wanted, not having any schoolwork. A few days ago, she might have screamed with joy at her mother coming home, jumping into her arms and celebrating her freedom from her first-grade classroom, but it was her mother she was missing. Abigail, sweet Abby, the love of his life, was no longer with them. A few days ago, she would have been with them at this time, but a drunk driver had taken her away from them.

Nate wished he could feel closer to Elle. He had always made time to be with her, playing with her, taking on the roles of her dolls as she chatted with them, argued with them, worked them into outlandish scenarios. He had spent plenty of time with his daughter, but she was always much closer to Abby. His wife had always been so full of life. Whenever she wasn’t taking care of Elle or working, she was making videos for her cooking channel. Nate always did plenty around the house, but he was never very good at cooking, not like Abby. He had planned to learn, to be able to help her out and cook sometimes, but his job started early, and while construction paid the bills fine, Nate was already tired when he got home, and he was ready to collapse by the time Abby got home.

Still, Nate thought, I could have learned on the weekends, I could have made time for it! A wave of grief washed over him, he wished he could have spent more time with her. Nate pushed the feelings down. His daughter was hurting, and he didn’t want to give her anything else to worry about, Nate wanted to find a way to make her feel some kind of peace.

He had been told last night, and he promised the officer to call her family, but dread consumed him thinking about how to tell Elle in the morning when she woke up. He had called Abby’s parents this morning, her mother yelled at her for waiting to tell her, her father didn’t, but seemed just as irritated,. He had always felt that neither one liked him, but he felt he had to tell them anyways. With his duties to Abby’s kin out of the way, he went to check in on his daughter.

Elle stared blankly at the wall. It had been less than an hour since her dad had explained to her why her mom hadn’t come home yesterday. She knew what death was, her goldfish had died only a couple of years ago. However, she still struggled to wrap her mind around it happening to her mom. Elle ached for the squeeze of her mother’s embrace, she hadn’t felt it yesterday when she didn’t come home. Elle’s brain simply wouldn’t process the reality of what she had heard.

Her dad came over to her, asking how she was doing. He got down on his knee, matching her eyeline, and told her that he loved her, and that he was there for her. His words didn’t have any effect on her, she couldn’t focus on him. Her dad hadn’t done anything wrong, but she couldn’t help but wander into her own thoughts. Elle started to tear up, remembering her mom, all the time she spent with her after dad went to bed early, how she would make so many wonderful things for her. Elle had asked her mom for spaghetti yesterday morning before she left, I wish she could have made her spaghetti!

“I wish she could have made her spaghetti!” Elle loudly mumbled, catching Nate off guard. She didn’t seem to notice that she said anything, and Nate didn’t want to interrupt her thoughts. He left her on the couch, as she hadn’t responded to him, and he assumed she wanted to be left alone.

I wish I had learned to cook, I could have learned from Abby, we could have spent that time together! He pushed away his regrets as he resolved himself to make Elle her mom’s spaghetti, maybe it would help her open up to him and see that she had a father who loved her.

Their family only had one car, and it had been totaled in the wreck. He would have to order the groceries delivered. Nate hadn’t had time to pick up the rental his insurance company was supposed to pay for, and he now wouldn’t do so until tomorrow, because he needed all of his remaining money for the ingredients. Nate checked his checking account, which only had $43.58. He wasn’t able to tell his wife before she was killed that his savings account had been drained, that someone had stolen his identity. He wouldn’t get his direct deposit until tomorrow, and his wife’s purse was still with the investigators. Nate found her recipe for spaghetti in her ring-binder full of recipes, and ordered the items he knew they didn’t have, which took $40.60 from his remaining balance.

Forty minutes later, and the groceries arrived at their doorstep. Nate peeled the two onions he had ordered, easy enough, then he pulled out a knife. The instructions said to dice the onions, and he wasn’t sure whether that was necessary or if it would be good enough to slice them instead. No, I’m doing this the right way! He cut the onion in half, but when Nate tried to make his first cut into one of the halves, the knife pressed the onion down and squished the layers, causing the knife to slip and the side of the onion to be cut off altogether. If his wife had still been alive, she might have been able to explain honing the edge properly to him, but already frustrated by his failure, Nate thought about the fact that he’d never diced an onion before.

Nate was starting to wonder if he’d ever be able to make his daughter spaghetti when he remembered he had bought a vegetable press dicer. He had planned to use it to learn a little more about cooking, but never got around to it. It might have felt like cheating, but Nate dug the press out and used it to dice quartered onions into nice quarter-inch squares. He rough-chopped the canned tomatoes as the instructions ordered, wondering if it was really important to spend extra on the “San Marzano” tomatoes instead of getting a ride to pick up his rental vehicle. I’m doing this the right way! He thought to himself again as he started to slowly trudge through some of the motions he remembered Abby doing when she would make spaghetti.

Overwhelmed with emotion, Elle retreated to the garage, which was calmingly silent compared to the noise of her dad’s pitiful attempt at cooking in the house. There was a bookshelf in the garage for storage, and Elle noticed a photo album on one of the shelves. Carefully, Elle pulled the binder out and opened it up. Family photos filled the pages of the album, with handwritten comments beside many of them. One photo featured Elle smiling at the beach, proudly standing over her sandcastle. Beside it, her mom had written, “Best sandcastle ever!!!” With a heart drawn next to it. All of the comments were so full of love, of her mother’s life, and Elle started to tear up again. Why? Why me? She wished her mother would walk in the door, wished this would all be a mistake. Please, please let it be wrong, she can’t be gone! Tears ran down her cheek as she sobbed, just bring her back! I don’t want anything else!

Nate was starting to get the hang of cooking, sort of. Thankfully, Abby’s sauce was quite simple, it’s just took a lot of time to simmer in a slow cooker. He knew he could cook noodles well enough when it came time to do so. Satisfied with everything that was in the slow cooker and simmering, Nate suddenly heard his child sobbing.

She was in front of their storage shelf when he got to the garage, bawling her eyes out. Picking Elle up, Nate carried her inside and brought her to her bedroom. He sat her on her bed and held her as she cried. Elle held onto him, and Nate could feel the tears coming up himself, but he pushed them down, She shouldn’t have to worry about me right now.

Eventually, Elle calmed down, and Nate went back to set up for dinner, even though they had hours left on the cook time. She came down not long afterwards with the photo albums, flipping through the pages with a mournful look. He started to talk about the photos he could see her looking at, and she seemed to like hearing about his recounting of everything, even though she was present for every family photo. Nate opened the pantry to get the spaghetti noodles out, only to realize that there were none.

Oh fuck! He thought to himself as he started to frantically search for some noodles anywhere, but he couldn’t find any. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!

”Oh fuck!” Elle heard her father say out loud, although she wasn’t sure her dad realized he did. She went over to see what he was fussing about, and caught him beginning to heave just a little from repressed sobs. Her dad noticed her standing beside him, and with sorrowful eyes, he told her that he couldn’t find any spaghetti to use. Elle didn’t know why he couldn’t just go to the store to get some, but she saw that he clearly didn’t think he could. She could remember the taste of her mom’s spaghetti, but it dawned on her that she would never feel her mother’s embrace again, and the comfort of being held by her was gone forever. Elle felt numb, her mind cleared as she quietly stopped begging in her heart for her mom to come back, she had to learn to live without such reassurance. Her father wiped his eyes and told her he was sorry he couldn’t even make her what she wanted. He started to walk away, wallowing in a somber funk when Elle, no longer lost in thought, remembered out loud, “Dad, I saw some spaghetti at grandma’s house three days ago, you can go ask her for some.”

It was true that Elle had been at Abby’s mother’s house then, and it was only a short walk, as Livia didn’t want to live too far from her daughter or her granddaughter. Elle didn’t understand their history, how he had alienated them through the years, how he and his wife would get into arguments because he wouldn’t go with her to see either of them, but Nate didn’t want to spend time with people who didn’t like him. Abby hoped that they could make up, but the more Nate avoided them, the more he knew he had insulted them. He wasn’t sure why they didn’t like him at first, but he had definitely built up resentment over the years of pretending they didn’t exist.

Still, he didn’t like the defeated look in his daughter’s eye, he could see her heart breaking and felt his own splitting apart with hers, he had to try and mend it fast. He set out for Livia’s house, hoping she would be in a forgiving mood, or save that, that she would be willing to lend a hand for the sake of her beloved granddaughter.

He hadn’t thought to text her that he was coming over until he had knocked on the door a few times. Great, she’ll probably hate me more. Livia answered the door, looking at him with irritation on her face. “What’s going on? What do you need?”

“I’m… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what happened yesterday, I should have… I need some spaghetti noodles if you have any.” Nate said, getting the words out before he lost the nerve to do so.

“Noodles?” Livia looked puzzled and slightly less annoyed, although it still lingered in her voice. “Yes! We don’t have our car anymore, I can’t get to the store, I can’t…” He hesitated to tell her he didn’t have any money and that his account had been emptied, but he continued, “Someone stole my identity and cleaned my savings, I had to use most of my money to pay the mortgage and all of our bills, and I used up the rest getting ingredients for the spaghetti, and then I found out we have no noodles. Elle is having a hard time, I don’t’ wanna let her down, please Livia!” His eyes started to well up again, but Livia softened at the mention of Elle.

“I’ll go get the ones I have.” She came back with angel hair pasta, close enough. “You really should have visited sometime in the last decade, it really tore Abby up that you wouldn’t talk to me, or talk to Todd. I admit I didn’t think much of you when I first met you, but you were clearly a better husband than Todd was. I gave him everything, and he still cheated!” She caught herself starting to yell, but she calmed herself, “Make sure to bring Elle over sometime, it’s empty in here without her.”

Nate realized that he might have been able to have a friendly relationship with her, he might still be able to. He regretted not visiting her with his wife, but was glad he had never gone to see her father. I shouldn’t think like that, she still cared for him. Though he didn’t fully know why. She did see him a lot less, and Nate wondered if that really was only because of the distance, as he was only 15 minutes away.

Elle was still crying, wondering what her life would be like without the comforting reassurance of her mother when her dad walked back in with the spaghetti noodles. She knew he never went over to grandma’s house, and that he didn’t seem to like grandma very much. Elle started to think about everything her father was doing to make spaghetti for her, and she heard his words in her head, “I wish I could bring your mother back, but I want you to know that I love you, and that I’ll always be here for you.” And a profound need hit her. She ran up to her dad, tears in her eyes, and held him tight. She could feel his love as he massaged her scalp and bent down to kiss her head. He came back up, tasted the sauce, and looked sad. “It tastes like it’s missing something, what did I do wrong?”

Nate felt the weight of failing his child again, why couldn’t he just give her the spaghetti she wanted? He looked down at her, and she was smiling, the most perfect smile in the world. Her eyes were watery, but she smiled as she dug into his leg with her hug, burying her face into the side of his thigh. Nate felt a sense of peace as he picked her up and brought her to the couch. He held her as she squeezed onto his neck, his heart poured out as he held her in his arms, “You are my child, I will always love you, I will always be here for you! No matter how big you get, no matter where you go, I will always be here for you! Even if you think I don’t love you, I still do, and I always will! I would do anything to bring your mother back, but I will do anything for you!”

The catharsis washed over him like a tsunami. He might not be able to give Elle her mom’s spaghetti, but he could be there for her for the rest of his life. He thought about his late wife, and he promised her in his heart to always look after Elle. He thought about Abby’s smile, so much like Elle’s and almost as precious, he thought about her passion for cooking and her cooking channel…

Abby’s cooking channel! Nate realized as he pulled out his phone and checked it. He scrolled and scrolled, until he saw it “Homemade Pasta Bolognese” He pulled the video up, and watched it intently. Nate smiled as he watched his wife make her recipe, just as he had done less gracefully. Elle watched along as well, but held onto her dad while she did. Everything was the same until the end, when Abby said, “I know it’s not traditional, but I add a little of this in. I don’t call it Bolognese here in my home, so I don’t feel guilty!” While adding a squirt of Sri Racha. Nate laughed, even he knew that it was strange, but she did always like her hot sauce. He hopped up off the couch, carrying Elle on his shoulder, although she wiggled herself free. He ran to the fridge with surprising energy and pulled out the bottle of rooster sauce to add some to the slow cooker.

The spaghetti tasted just like it always had, and Nate was glad. Elle, who had accepted never eating her mom’s spaghetti again, had a smile, even if her eyes were still sad. Nate was happy to see his child smile again, and he repeated his promise to Abby in his heart one more time, I will look after our child for the rest of my life!