Chapter 10: Ray's Chili

On Wednesday night Dale kept the lot open until nine for a truck sale, and my mother called me at five fifteen.

"He's gone," she said. "He took his good loafers. Come make the chili."

I had not made my father's chili since the week he died.

I stood in the hallway of the dental office with my phone against my ear, and I couldn't say anything.

"Rosie?"

"I don't have the card," I said.

"I do," said my mother. "I kept it. Bring the boy."

By six o'clock the four of us were in the kitchen of the house on Hird Avenue.

Maude had come in a cab, with her cane and a bag of onions the size of her head.

My mother sat at the table in her good robe, with her feet on a stool, wearing lipstick for the first time in a month.

Ewan stood at the stove in his chef's jacket, holding an index card.

It was yellow with age and spotted with grease, and it was written in my father's blocky handwriting.

RAY'S CHILI. DO NOT IMPROVE.

"Do not improve," Ewan read aloud, and his mouth twitched.

"He meant it," I said. "Don't touch it."

"I wouldn't dream."

"You're thinking about improving it right now."

"A little."

"Ewan Carberry."

"I'm just saying the bacon fat could be rendered slower."

My mother laughed so hard she coughed.

"Ray would have thrown a spoon at you," she said.

"I'd have deserved it."

We cooked.

I browned the meat, because that was my job and always had been.

Maude chopped onions at the table, crying freely and not minding.

Ewan stood next to me and did exactly what the card said, no more and no less.

I watched him follow another man's recipe for the first time in what I suspected was twenty years.

He measured the chili powder with a spoon, level.

He added the coffee when the card said coffee, a strong black half-cup, and the peanut butter, a single spoon.

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