Cat food, dad

It was cat food tonight. That is what was in my fridge: the components for cat food. Not literal cat food, of course, I didn’t have a cat – I couldn’t afford a cat that is, maybe one day I’d have one but not under these conditions where all I had in the fridge was cat food.

Cat food was my dad’s dinner, he usually forgot to go grocery shopping so the only things in the house were canned salmon, guacamole dip, cheddar cheese and bread, it was cat food to me, but my dad used to say things like: ‘we used to have this every Sunday when mum and dad couldn’t be bothered to cook for us, reminds me of those days.’

Dad always spoke of his childhood like that, I never had the heart to say that his childhood sounded kind of miserable, five kids stuffed like sardines in a creaky old house up in the Central Coast but he never seemed to resent it. He always had an anecdote on his tongue whenever we sat down for our cat food dinner. Stories about kicking footballs through church windows with his brothers, or another one about climbing a tree to rescue a ring-tail possum at his little sister’s behest. That specific story had me curled over, clutching my stomach with laughter the way dad told it and I made him tell it all the time.

I sighed, hung my head and grabbed the (pre-sliced, oh my days, what a week it had been) cheese, the quarter empty guac dip and the bread from the fridge. I opened the deserted pantry and took out the canned salmon that had been in there since June just in case the exact conditions for cat food came up sometime in the future. I felt a little bit like a doomsday prepper as the cartoon salmon on the can smiled at me.

The sound of my dad’s voice directing me echoed through my mind-kitchen, ‘toast the bread, Pheebs, spread the guac on the toast, Pheebs… drain the salmon, Pheebs,’ with obedience, I followed each step, my body moving with the fluidity of muscle memory even though it had been months since I last had cat food, months since I’d last seen dad too, now that I think about it. I spread a layer of salmon over the guac toast and lay a blanket of cheddar cheese over the top.

I turned the grill on and squatted in front of the open door, watching the coils get red hot. As I stood up, I groaned, my knees weren’t what they used to be when I was a kid. With delicate fingers, I placed the two pieces of cat food on the tray and slid them to get grilled. I squatted in front of the grill again and with wide eyes watched the cheese soften, melt, then bubble looking like some breathing thing. I remember doing this as a kid, watching the moving cheese, imagining it was some kind of yellow, lava monster ready burst forth. I slipped the oven mitt on and pulled out the tray, pulled a plate from the drying rack and slid the grilled cat food melt onto the plate.

I placed the plate of cat food on the kitchen bench, turned off the grill and then stared at the cat food. It always looked like that.

‘Bon Appetit, Pheebs,’ I said to myself and lifted one of the slices of cat food to my mouth, taking a big bite from the corner the exact same way dad used to.

The flavour of dad’s favourite dinner burst on my tongue, bread gave way to smooth, lemony guac, and salty, fishy salmon and sharp cheddar, I closed my eyes and imagined sitting at the dinner table, eating cat food because there was no other food in the house and no more money in the bank. Moving around the small kitchen with my dad like two people who were once one, moving in sync as we made the cat food, then ate the cat food, then washed up the dishes that we used for the cat food. I took another bite and remembered my dad remembering his own childhood.

I should really call my dad, I was eating cat food, and it just wasn’t the same without my dad.

I pulled my phone from my back pocket and dialed my dad’s number, the only number I knew from heart because he hadn’t changed it since I was a kid.

It rang twice and then my dad picked up.

‘Pheebs!’ he said, I smiled in spite of myself, in spite of my spiraling professional life, my absent-headedness and the cat food that honestly wasn’t even that bad.

‘Hi, dad, I made cat food and thought of you, are you doing well?’ I heard shuffling on the other side as my dad moved around. He was always doing that, shifting around and fiddling. Full of energy that I simply couldn’t keep up with. It used to annoy when I was a teenager but now I was envious of it, I wished I still had energy, but I couldn’t even be bothered to sit at my barely used dining table. Just like this, I ate half my meals still standing in the kitchen. Dad would’ve called it bad manners, I don’t know why at the time, but he was always serious about eating meals together at the dining table and talking about our day. But it was good, now that I ruminate on it over cat food, that we know each other so well, so I know dad isn’t upset that haven’t had time to call or visit, it’s relieving to hear him on the other side in fact.

‘Cat food? Oh, right, I’m eating that for dinner too,’ my dad laughed boisterously. I laughed too, it was kind of funny after all, and kind of like a warm hug as well. As long as I had dad, I always had my other half, moving in sync with me, even half a country away.