Word Recipe

      “Fudge. Fudge. Where is the chocolate coconut?”

      It’s the fourth time this week Nina has made truffles for Gammie Josephine, but almost three months since her quiet, Catholic funeral. She gets on her hands and knees, head deep into the oakwood cabinet, clunking her way through dried spices and goods. Salt begins to spill onto the yellow tile floor.

      “No! No! Don’t spill! Carefully!”

      I grab the blue handled straw broom hanging on the top shelf of the pantry. Sweep sweep. It reminds me of the light snowfall that covered Gammie, the cherry glint of the casket winking back at me in the December cold. I remember “Silver Bells,” the gentle mumble of the mortician. Ring-a-ling, hear them ring. The date is March 23rd, and I see Nina begin to chop away at the bricks of eighty percent cacao, each block getting closer and closer to her exposed wrist, the raised blueish-purplish veins popping out as to greet the knife. I don’t know how many truffles it will take before she kills herself, but as long as it’s Christmas time in our home and Gammie is six feet underground, I will continue to fear every single meal until it finally stops storming in the springtime.