The Taste of Waiting

The rice cooker clicked, its gentle pop breaking the evening silence. Lila didn’t move. She sat at the kitchen table, elbows pressed against the cool laminate, eyes on the faint glow of the orange indicator light. Steam curled and vanished into the half-dark room.

The smell of jasmine rice drifted through the small Queensland house — floral, sweet, familiar enough to hurt. Her mother had always said that smell meant you were home, even if everything else had gone wrong.

Now, Lila wasn’t sure if she was home or just somewhere she ended up.

---

Her mother used to hum when she cooked. Not proper songs, just soft threads of melody — fragments of lullabies and love songs, things she’d carried across oceans. When Lila was small, she’d sit cross-legged on the kitchen floor, pretending to read while watching her mother rinse rice, the grains slipping through her fingers like pearls.

“Never trust someone who rushes their rice,” her mother had said once, laughing. “People who rush food will rush you, too.”

At the time, it sounded like one of those sayings mothers invent to fill silences. Years later, it would echo in her mind at the strangest times — in restaurants, while waiting for someone to text back, or when she caught herself tapping her foot impatiently in line at the grocery store. She hated how right her mother had been about most things.

---

The rice cooker clicked again. Lila stood, the floor creaking under her bare feet. She lifted the lid, letting out a cloud of heat that fogged her glasses. The rice was perfect — fluffy, white, separate. She scooped a portion into a ceramic bowl, the same chipped one she’d taken from her mother’s kitchen after the funeral.

She placed it on the table. Then she filled another bowl.

Two bowls. Always two.

It wasn’t superstition, exactly. It was habit — the kind that comes from loving someone who used to sit across from you, chopsticks poised, smile crooked, stories spilling into the quiet.

Ethan had left six months ago, but somehow, he was still everywhere: in the coffee mug he’d chipped, in the socks that turned up in the laundry, in the ghost indentation on the other side of the mattress. He’d said he needed space, and she’d tried to give it to him — but the problem with space was that it kept expanding, until she wasn’t sure where it ended.

She’d texted him twice since he left. The first time, just to say I hope you’re okay. The second time, two weeks ago, I made rice tonight.

He hadn’t replied.

---

The rain started again, slow at first, then heavy — a downpour that made the tin roof vibrate. Lila sat with her bowl, steam rising in front of her face. The rice was soft, warm, and almost tasteless. She chewed slowly, forcing herself to eat.

She was hungry — but not for food.

She was hungry for someone to talk to, for a conversation that didn’t loop in her head, for the sound of her name spoken softly in the dark.

She thought of calling her mother, then remembered again that she couldn’t. Grief was strange like that — it didn’t dull with time so much as resurface when your guard was down, sharp and familiar.

When her mother had died, people brought food. Lasagnas, curries, casseroles, all stacked in her freezer like well-meaning bricks. She hadn’t been able to eat any of it. Too much salt, too much kindness. Instead, she’d lived on rice and soy sauce for weeks, because it was simple, and because it didn’t pretend to fix anything.

---

Tonight, she added a fried egg on top. The yolk broke, yellow spilling over white grains. The act of eating felt holy, almost rebellious — as if feeding herself was an act of faith.

Halfway through the bowl, she paused. Something moved outside — a shadow, maybe just a neighbour’s cat crossing the wet street. But her heart jumped anyway. It always did. Some part of her still believed he might show up.

She stood and opened the back door. Rain drummed on the veranda. The scent of wet earth rushed in. She stepped outside barefoot, the chill biting her skin.

It was dark except for the porch light. The air was heavy with petrichor and the faint smell of cooked rice.

She closed her eyes and let it soak in. For a moment, it felt like being alive again.

---

When she came back in, she was shivering. She reached for her phone out of habit. No messages.

She opened their old chat thread anyway. Scrolled back through the tiny digital ghosts — photos of meals they’d cooked, notes they’d left each other, little in-jokes that now felt like artifacts.

She stopped at one from nearly a year ago:

> E: Don’t forget the rice tonight. You always burn it when you’re thinking too much.

She smiled despite herself. He’d known her better than most people ever would. And still, he’d left.

---

By the time she finished washing up, it was close to midnight. She dried her hands and looked around the kitchen. Everything in its place. Clean, quiet, untouched.

She wanted to leave something out — a sign of life. She left the second bowl on the table, half-full.

Tomorrow morning, she’d put it away. But not yet. Tonight, she wanted the illusion that someone else might come along and finish it.

She turned off the light and went to bed.

---

In her dream, she was standing in her mother’s kitchen again. The counters were cluttered with bowls and jars of preserved lemons. A pot simmered on the stove. Her mother was humming softly, back turned, wooden spoon in hand.

“What are you cooking?” Lila asked.

Her mother didn’t answer. She just smiled, stirring slowly. When she turned, her face was young again — smooth, radiant, alive.

“Rice,” she said simply. “Always rice. It teaches you patience.”

Lila reached for her hand, but her fingers met only steam.

---

When she woke, morning light filled the kitchen. The rain had stopped, and the world outside glowed with that clean, wet brightness that only comes after a storm.

The bowl was still there on the table, untouched. She sat down, tracing the edge with her finger. The rice had hardened overnight, a pale crust forming on top. She thought of throwing it out — but something stopped her.

Instead, she took the bowl outside to the garden. Birds called from the fence. She scattered the rice across the grass, watching it fall in uneven handfuls.

Within minutes, sparrows descended — small, quick, unapologetically hungry. They pecked and fluttered and argued, scattering tiny grains into the air like confetti.

Lila smiled.

For the first time in a long while, the sight of something eating — something needing — didn’t make her feel alone.

She went back inside, rinsed the bowl, and set it on the drying rack.

Then she put on a new pot of rice. Not for anyone else. Not out of habit. Just because she wanted to.

The water bubbled and hissed. Steam rose again, carrying that same scent through the house — familiar, grounding, alive.

She leaned against the counter and breathed it in.

Outside, the sparrows kept eating. Inside, the rice cooked. And for once, the waiting didn’t feel empty. It felt like preparation — for what came next.