honey, i’m home

by Valerie Levy

Cynthia dances her way through the kitchen. A two step in four time. Slowly and carefully. Three steps left, reach behind the air fryer, pull out the pan, five steps right, lift your leg high to ... easy, easy ... step over the food processor. Okay, so it's not the two-step, but Cynthia's imagination makes her feel light as air, as she once was in her youth.

Be careful not to trip on a wire or a box or a plate or a pile of newspapers, Cynthia! she reminds herself. She knows that being one hundred pounds overweight is a slight hinderance to her movement. The spatula's here somewhere.

Ah yes, beside the sports section. Baseball players spit, there's my spat. Cynthia applauds her mnemonic cleverness as she sifts through a sea of napkins.

I can't even see my feet, she laughs to herself. Some dancer am I!

She twirls a half a turn before tripping. For a second she sees the danger she's in. But she rights herself quickly. Muscle memory from years of ballet as a kid.

Oh, don't be silly, Cynthia. Just take your time. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor was a decent meal made in a minute.

She trudges through some Tupperware like a fly fisherman wading in the waters. This river is no river, though. It is her clear, plastic road to the refrigerator, and she just wants to find her way there. Cynthia can open the door just enough to stick her hand in, where she remembers somewhere on a middle shelf sits the pork chops she bought at the Cash-n-Carry earlier this week. It was a triumphant week if only for the lone grocery excursion that took her out of her home and into the world where she had to overcome the twin obstacles of physical liability and public shame. She found safety in the electric shopping cart because no one really looks at the person who's toting herself around in a golf-cart gone wrong like some Lily Pulitzer Southern belle on the putting green of the eighteenth hole. No, this is a hole only she alone can dig herself out of.

It's not so bad, she thinks to herself, trying to forget the curtness of the pimply checkout boy, as she trudges back to the stove where the frying pan sits in waiting. The Pam is right there on the shelf, the smartest organizational move I've ever done, Cynthia thinks proudly.

She turns on the stove and prays for the click and pats her pocket to make sure her matches are there, just in case. Voila! A flame. The stove's been so fickle lately, she's shocked the house hasn't blown to smithereens. She takes the pork chops out of the packaging as the pan heats up and she looks around for a plate. She spies one across the room. It'll take some acrobatic maneuvering, she knows, but the challenge excites her. She lowers the flame to buy some time to creep across some chairs toward what looks like a garbage heap but that used to be her kitchen table.

Well, the kitchen table IS still there, she thinks to herself. It's just a bit bashful. She remembers how bashful she herself was when she first met Harold at the church picnic. He was stuffing his face alone at a table when she crossed his path and couldn't help but notice how his mouth stopped chomping while he ate her up with his eyes. She knew she was something special, but she also knew it was not ladylike to be too confident. Demurely, she floated away to the Dr. Pepper table and could feel his eyes burn through her halter top like laser beams into her heart, which warmed at the thought of Harold if only because she liked the attention.

Now her attention returns to her mission. Her mission to find a plate. Mission not impossible. At the top of the heap on the kitchen table area sits a precarious pile of plates and bowls.

Cynthia stands tippy toe and, with great finesse, snatches a white plate with pink flowers and carries it to the stove like a ring bearer bearing forth his red velvet pillow. Of course, there's no pillow and there's no groom. Not here, anyway. Harold hasn't stepped foot in the kitchen for three years now. She thinks to call out to him.

"Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes!" she yells at the top of her lungs.

"Thanks, honey!" he promptly yells from afar as if every breath he had been taking was waiting for that signal.

What a patient man I've married, Cynthia thinks. I'll have to pay attention and not burn the pork chops this time around. It's the least I can do. He's such a saint.

Harold has been a good husband to me. Why, remember the time he brought me home that new set of pots and pans? They were the Teflon kind, of course. He always wanted the newest thing. It was so nice in the box. I don't believe I ever took those darn things out! She looks around as if hoping to find the box of pots and pans from three decades ago, then realizes the futility. He always thought of me. I mean, gosh, how many times must a man eat burnt-to-a-crisp meatloaf before he explodes?

Cynthia recalls the flash of a pan arising midair and her own instinctual cowering before she recalls not recalling anything at all. Stupid, stupid! She shakes her head to vanquish the vision and turns back to the pork chop, which sits flaccid yet smoking in the simmering pan.

Oh, how I wish I had some Mrs. Dash or some Shake-n-Bake, something to give this dish some pizazz, Cynthia chastises herself. Maybe I'll surprise Harold with a can of green beans. A side dish! Well, now, that'd be a shocker!

Cynthia looks around the kitchen and sees that the journey to the pantry, though treacherous, might be worth the risk because, well, there's gotta be some can of something or other in there!

She brings her body low to the ground and bear crawls across a pile of rags and dishes, careful where she places her hands so as not to cut herself on a broken plate.

She remembers when Lucy used to bear crawl around the whole house. That girl sure was fast! Faster on her hands than any upright toddler she'd ever seen. Oh, how Lucy would zip from room to room! Darn near gave the cat a heart attack with her energy! What was that little darlin' looking for? A big, live Elmo? Santa Claus himself? No, laughs Cynthia to herself, that girl was just in it for the sheer movement. The joi de vive, or whatever they call it! Harold simply hated watching us. Made him downright nervous, it did! Always so scared for her safety. And he was always so jealous of my time with her. Why, there was enough of me to go around! Pee-shaw!

Cynthia flips her wrist downward, and the movement makes her lose her balance. She puts her hand down to steady herself and feels a sharp pain in her palm. Gosh darn it! I've cut myself. It's not quite a gash, but the blood makes her queasy. She looks around and grabs a nearby rag, stiff as a board, but it'll do the trick. The red blood softens the dirty cloth enough to let her wrap it around her hand. I'm not gonna let a little boo boo stop me, she thinks, as she continues toward the cabinet that cannot open, so buried is it amidst the kitchen stuff. Cynthia begins to dig out space, throwing the refuse behind her and chuckling to herself. If Harold could see me now, boy would he be mad!

But she knows he won't be mad about green beans. No, not a lick! So she carries on, and in just ten minutes is able to wedge the door open a smidge. Just enough to stick her hand in. The angle is not good, though, and it's a painful task. Her hand jerks around inside like a dog sticking its nose blindly in some hole in the ground, not knowing what might bite it. Each movement is an affront to her arm bone, but she's determined. At last her hand comes upon a can. She twists her body to angle her arm out slowly and carefully. Oh darn. It's peas. Harold hates peas. Welp, peas'll have to please because I need to get me back to that chop!

With the can in her uninjured hand, Cynthia pivots and crawls back across the pile, making it to the stove in record time. There, the pork chop sits limp and sad. She turns up the heat and looks around for a pot for the peas. I ain't got a pot to pea in, she jokes to herself. Nor, she realizes, do I have a can opener. Mercy, cooking a meal is hard! She believes she may find a can opener on the countertop somewhere near the sink, though, and, aha! Spies it--safe where it belongs.

An image of Lucy's empty room enters her mind like a scene from a scary dream. Why, that girl couldn't a' been more than four years old that day she went missing. Cynthia will never forget it. She was dusting the house when she noticed things were eerily quiet beyond the backdrop of Harold blasting that damned ESPN as he sat propped on the couch, beer cracked open and belly sticking ponderously out like a happy sack of flour. But no sounds of Lucy singing to herself or of Harold telling her to god-dammit quit all that ruckus. Cynthia walked behind the couch like a ghost. Something inside her dropped. And when she entered Lucy's room to find a rumpled bed, dolls strewn everywhere, and Lulu lying on Lucy's pillow, licking its paws languidly--but nary a sign of the girl hiding under a bed or holed up in a closet--she knew her little girl had left the house and was lost, God knows where. Oh God!

The next bit is a blur. Did she say something to Harold before stumbling down the street, vomit down her new JC Penny's blouse, wind whipping her banged-up face? Boy, I must'a looked a'fright! It's almost funny. But her next memory straightens her smirk. A cold police station. Yellow cinder-block walls and a hard wooden chair. Question upon question, stacking up out of control, but none of them her own questions, none answering her heart's query about her sweet-gone Lucy. Only Did he rape you? Did he beat you often? Did he hit the child?

The smell of smoke stirs Cynthia out of her miserable reverie. Gosh darn it! The pork chop!

She pokes it with a knife and flips it over. Black as tarnation! Maybe the peas will help, she thinks to herself. She opens the can, dumps the peas onto the plate, and nukes it for a minute.

Meanwhile, she rummages around for a fork. The silverware drawer is sadly empty, save for crumbs, an old straw, and a plastic spork. It'll have to do! She grabs the spork and adds it to the black and green plate of food. Now for the balancing act! Holding the dish, spork, and knife in her good hand, Cynthia glances back at the stove to make sure the flame is off and prepares to bring Harold his meal.

"Honey, I need a beer!"

Cynthia's face grows as red as her hand wrapped with blood. She braces herself to navigate once more to the fridge. Each obstacle no longer a fun challenge; each obstacle getting in the way. It's about time that I was the one being angry about things getting in my way, she sulks.

"Honey, where's my beer!"

"Just one minute!" Cynthia tries to sound calm but the faint smell of gas is giving her a dull headache.

She knows she has no choice but to trudge back through Tupperware River for that beer. Stupid! I should have grabbed it when I was there! But, then again, she was distracted by the memory of the rude check-out boy and didn't want to carry too much stuff at once.

She rests the plate and "silverware" on a pile near the kitchen entryway and turns around to wade back through the plastic river to the refrigerator where she manages to grab a Budweiser. The coldness of the can feels good on her hand and makes her forget the throbbing pain as she slowly plods toward the plate of food sitting atop that pile like some hallowed rock cairn. All the piles are sacrosanct to her. Everything here has a place, she reasons, and though it looks like a mess from the outside, each item, she feels, is being its authentic self. It's this sacred sisterhood she shares with her stuff that allows her to tolerate the fact that getting even the simplest task done these days feels like an Olympian feat.

Now, however, she's triumphant. She grabs the plate of food, the spork, and the knife with one hand and holds the beer in the other. Look, ma! No hands! Cynthia laughs at the thought of how annoyed her mother always was when Cynthia showed off. It was as if Cynthia's achievements, be they as small as riding a bike with no hands, were a direct attack on her mother's competency and pride. "You never will amount to much," she remembers her mother telling her when she confessed to being pregnant with Harold's child.

"Now what cha going to do?" It was her mother's crowning moment.

"Imma marry him, ma! Harold loves me!"

"He loves his drinking more."

"He's an epicurean, ma."

"Now don't go throwing your high-fallutin' words at me, young lady!"

"Yes'm," Cynthia replies. She re-remembers not to engage in such discussions and excuses herself from her mother's sight, letting her anger sit in her throat like she'd eaten a bullfrog.

Cynthia heads out into the hallway where there's a slim row of relief from the clutter, an alley way she fondly calls Take-a-Breath Boulevard. On the sides of the path leading toward Harold's room are four-foot piles of old TV Guides, while forking right toward the front door are more Sports Sections from the Daily Tribune. Her annoyance at his clutter is tempered by her pride in her compromise to organize the piles to make way for foot traffic.

It's not so bad, really, she thinks to herself. Being a good wife is something I knew I could do despite my mother's doubts. I could make a home for my family.... She feels a pain in her heart and buries the thought: without Lucy and Lulu, is it still a family?

"What's taking you so damn long?" Harold yells. Oh, fudge! Harold is mad. Cynthia's instantaneous panic turns, much to her surprise, into an instantaneous fire.

"I'm coming, Harold! You have the patience of time itself!"

"What did you say?" Harold's voice goes down an octave.

Cynthia knows she's in trouble, but something feels different inside her. The fire of her anger heats her blood, and she lets it put its hands behind its head and feet out in front of it.

As she approaches the room, she knows she'll have to dig her way to open it enough for herself. More side-arm angle fishing. Now right outside the door, she modifies her tone to appease him. "I'm right here, honey. Just need to dig my way to ya! It'll be worth the wait, don't worry. I've cooked up a special meal for you tonight!"

She places the plate, spork, and beer on the TV Guide rock cairn in the hallway and uses the knife as a digging tool. More like a poking tool, to clear up some space in the room beyond.

"It better be as good as you say for the waiting I've done!" Harold threatens.

"Oh, it is! It is!" She is breathless from the work of digging.

Flinging cups and cans and boxes and magazines and bags and shoes any which way to accommodate herself through the door, Cynthia's knife hits upon something different, and she stops.

She wedges the door open a few more inches to peer inside and see what she has unearthed.

What is this soft but firm ball in there? Is that ... fur?

With superhuman strength, Cynthia pushes the door open some more, catapults herself atop the pile where the pillows prop Harold up on his bed and the small television box blares out mundane sounds and blue light. She shoves the beer can in his face and puts the dish down onto his stomach, harder than she'd meant to.

"Goddammit, woman! You are as graceful as a hippo in heat!"

Wiping her tears, Cynthia pulls herself away.

"You're as mean as they come, Harold!"

With that, she climbs out of the room and back onto Take-a-Breath Boulevard. There, as if moved by invisible strings, Cynthia turns her head not right, but left. Her body follows as she walks stiffly toward the front door. There she pauses and puts her head in her hands. My head! She rubs her temples then opens the door. Stepping outside, she breathes in and out deeply, savoring the fresh air. But the creep of rotten air soon fills her nose, and she turns back toward the open door just as Harold screams out from his lair, "I can't eat this garbage!!"

Cynthia rolls her eyes and flairs her nostrils as she approaches the front hallway once more.

"THEN DON'T!" she screams.

Shaking, she reaches in her pocket, pulls out the book of matches, lights one, and flicks it toward the yellowing newspapers before turning gracefully on her heal and gliding out the now-closed front door for good.

BIO: Valerie Domenica Levy received her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in multicultural and nineteenth-century American literature. Scholarly credits include book chapters on Zora Neale Hurston and Lydia Maria Child. She is currently an Associate Teaching Professor at Rutgers University-Newark where, she finds, teaching writing inspires creative writing.