Misalignment | ✔

rice

Margo Sanders
isn't quite the person
I would have expected
her to be.
When Matty had
described her to me before,
I had imagined a woman
much like my own mother -
quirky, compassionate, and outgoing,
if a bit more responsible
and less childish.

Instead, I'm met by
the sight of a
much different person
when I walk in the door
to Matty's temporary residence.
A woman with
overcast eyes
and a timid smile
greets me from the couch
with a tiny wave
as we pass by.
A feeling of
perpetual melancholy
seems to cling to her,
to saturate the air
around her,
as though she can't help
but remember upsetting things
all the time -
and it shows.

"She hasn't been the same,"
Matty whispers when
we're out of earshot,
"since her son died
two years ago -
my cousin, Hal."
She points him out
in a picture on the wall
on our way to the kitchen.
"He had Down Syndrome.
My aunt loved him
to bits,
even though it cost her
a job
and a husband
to take care of him.
She's gone back
to working now -
but it's not been
the same since."

She says no more then
on the subject of her
deceased cousin -
and neither do I,
fearing that we may
upset her aunt
by speaking of him.

Matty gets to work
preparing dinner
almost immediately.
"Everything is ready,"
she explains
as she turns on
the stovetop
and dumps the contents of
several plastic containers
into a skillet.
"I just have to
cook it all up.
It shouldn't take
too terribly long."

She wasn't kidding
when she'd told
my mother and I
that she knew how to cook
back at Thanksgiving.
When the three of us
finally sit down to eat,
she presents us with
a dish that looks like
it came out of a
cooking program on TV,
rather than a few bowls
from the fridge.
"Chicken fried rice,"
she announces as she
sets a plate before me.
"It's a family recipe.
Easy to make, too.
You remember when
Grandma used to make it,
Aunt Margo?"

Her aunt nods abruptly,
as though she had been
caught off guard
by the question.
"Your mother taught you
how to make this,
didn't she?"
she asks softly.

Matty's features
cloud over
within seconds.
"Yes..."
she answers,
sounding almost
reluctant.

"It tastes just like
when she would make it.
I remember when
Marianne was
a freshman in college,
she'd come home on breaks
and make this and
a few other dishes
nonstop
because she'd missed cooking
so much."

"That's nice,"
Matty says distantly,
visibly unsettled by the mention
of one of her
estranged family members.

At the same time,
I put in:
"That sounds like something
my mother would do,
too."

Margo suddenly turns her gaze
on me, then,
as though seeing me
for the very first time.
It's almost
unsettling;
I feel a shiver
run down my spine
before long.
"You're Flory's kid,
aren't you?"
she asks suddenly.
"You look
just like her..."

"You know my mother?"
The expression on
both Matty and
her aunt's faces
is introspective and
unreadable now,
as if they are both thinking
of some event of
the distant past
that I myself
am not a part of.
I fall silent
soon after,
not wanting to disturb
either of them.

Margo recovers first,
though,
clapping her hands so loudly
that Matty jumps
and nearly drops the pan
she is still holding.
"We should eat,"
her aunt says
too enthusiastically
for the moment,
"before the food
gets cold.
Thank you, Matty,
for cooking such a
wonderful meal."

"Any time,"
Matty murmurs a reply,
sounding dazed.
Before I can ask,
though, she
plops down in her seat
and plasters a smile
onto her lips.

"Let me know
how you like it,
Cam,"
she tells me.
I can tell that her heart
isn't in her
sad attempt at conversation,
though.
"Maybe your mom will
want the recipe.
She's told me before that she
wants to try cooking more dishes
that have rice in them,
anyway."

×

So. Matty's aunt. She's cute, right? Cute, awkward, and sad. So basically an older Matty, lmao. She was actually a lot like Matty personality-wise before her son died. Maybe that's why they get along so well.

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