operating instructions

I.
Just before he walked me down the aisle, my father asked if I wanted to smoke a cigarette with him. The question was proof I’m more like him than I care to admit. My days of being a daddy’s girl were long gone. He’d shot an arrow through the portrait of a family I thought I’d known well years ago. I wasn’t his to give away and I never was, but the exertion of holding his arm as I walked toward forever with a man who was his polar opposite in every way, seemed far less than explaining reality to a narcissist. It would be years before I would know he arrived at his behavior from years of trauma that lived deep in his bones. In some ways, that trauma became woven into my own DNA, and try as I might to separate myself from him, there are times when I still see the man who taught me how to grocery shop and who I loved deeply before I knew there was a word for the feeling.

As we stood in the laundry room smoking a Marlboro menthol, he gave no advice and asked no questions. I wondered whether he’d chosen the washer when we all moved into this house together or if the clothing of my mom’s hanging to dry made him miss their life together. I wanted him to tell me how much he loved her and how being caught by the priest after sneaking out the boy’s school was worth it for more time with her. I wanted him to tell me who stood with him before he vowed a forever he couldn’t keep to my mom. I was wrong but he is not, I wanted. We both knew the silence, punctuated by the slow singe of tobacco, was more beautiful than any words we could exchange. He knew I was in good hands. I would be taken care of in a ways he couldn’t take care of my mom and in that way, he’d given me all the instructions I needed.

II.
Taking care of me looked like feeding me meals I would never know how to make. When I would ask what was in a dish, the common refrain was just some stuff, a challenge to my controlling nature that eventually became comfort. Standing in the doorframe of the kitchen and watching him work was like peeking in my parents’ closet around Christmas. I often didn’t know what would be on the plate when he was finished, but I knew it would be exactly what I needed. Like most people I love, all I had to do was give him a few words to describe how I wanted to feel and he had the knowledge to make it happen. You don’t need to know how to do this because I’ll always be here to do it for you, he told me in so many words.

By the time the treatment had taken away his ability to taste his cooking the way he used to, he needed my help. I need you to taste this and tell me if it’s any good, he said. All I taste is metal. He spent all day making a batch of mapo tofu, choosing to ignore the occasional numbness in his hands and his need to sit more often than he used to. Taking the spoon to my mouth was more than a taste test. I’d spent our relationship as the recipient of a love for which I knew none of the ingredients, and here he was, spelling it out for me. I knew the taste and he knew I’d need to know how to find it myself.

III.
I didn’t know who to call but I hoped you’d know what to do with these feelings. I called my sister on a walk after an ill advised mushroom trip. I’d taken much less than everyone else, but my reality was much more fragile, and the small amount I took made that reality burst at the seams, spilling over my every thought. I couldn’t lie on the floor and watch a movie because the colors were too bright and I was too aware that the frame rate on the television didn’t match the film’s native content. I couldn’t play a card game because the characters on the cards meant less and less as the seconds passed. All I could do was lie in bed with Evan and let my feelings pour out of my eyes as I realized he wouldn’t always be there to guide me through it. I explained this all to my sister as I walked down Los Feliz Blvd and past Griffith Park.

Why did you do that? I didn’t have an answer and I was in no state to search for one. I needed her to tell me that she wouldn’t be another person who would leave. I needed her to be the sister that sat with me on our college campus as I rapidly disappeared myself. She’d told me she needed me and I’d always known I needed her. I needed her to be the sister that brought me broccoli cheddar soup in the hospital because she had been there before herself and knew I wouldn’t eat what they served. What I didn’t know was that hearing her voice was enough and it always had been; it sounds a lot like my own. When she speaks it’s as if she’s telling me what I already know. I spend a lot of time imagining the differences between us when the only real differences are the places we ended up. All she had to do was ask me why I did what I did because I was asking myself the same question. We both knew that I did it to feel, which is all she and I both ever wanted.

III.
What does it look like when it happens and who do I call? I’d been avoiding asking the question because having the operating instructions would surely make it real. If knowledge is power and ignorance is bliss, which do we choose to evade the inevitable? I didn’t want this information from any doctor I’d met. The dark eyed doctor had all the information I needed. She was also keenly aware I was made of glass and Evan was the slowly deflating air filled packaging keeping me from shattering to pieces. The well dressed doctor was too hurried and asked questions that felt like accusations. He made a living tending to dying patients but talking to the living wasn’t a skill he spent much time sharpening. The only person with the information I needed and the ability to hold my hand while she said it was my mom. She may not have known the science behind it or how long it would be before I needed the information, but she knew my soft heart because it once lived just below her own. She started to tell me exactly what would happen: his breath will slowly begin to become more intermittent until-
The door to the hospital room opened and he came wheeling in. He didn’t need this information because, although he would be there, I would be the one carrying the burden of living and he would finally be free of the too heavy burden his final months had placed on his shoulders. When I finally did get the information I needed, I made sure to leave the room and talk to the doctor without Evan around. When I came back in, Evan asked what I was talking about with the doctor. Just some stuff, I said.

IV.
Beat butter and sugars until soft yellow
Add vanilla and eggs
Add all dry ingredients
Batter will be very thick
Add chocolate chips

These simple instructions gave me purpose when I couldn’t find much. As a novice baker, time passed quickly in the kitchen, which is exactly what I wanted it to do. She’d shown me how to be there for someone when they needed it, how to host a holiday that no one will forget, and how to be the diplomat of a family, but these five simple instructions were all I needed to get through days that felt like years.