(Recipe from Joy of Cooking)

 

It starts with crying.

Thinly slice:

No matter how strong or resilient or tough as nails you might be, cutting that many onions will make you cry. Deal with it. Embrace it. Just cry. In fact, I recommend making French Onion Soup when you’re feeling strange because then you can let it out. Let your strangeness out, without having to explain why.

Heat in a soup pot over medium-low heat:

While the oil heats, continue slicing perfectly (or imperfectly) julienned onions. If you can complete this task before the blurry vision and uncontrollable tears set in, great. If not, don’t worry. A woman knows how to push through her emotions to get the job done. Dinner must go on.

Melt into the pot:

Still wiping tears on the back of your sleeves, holding a knife dangerously close (but quite under control), you listen to the spits and farts of melting butter. A gorgeous smell wafts upward. Take a deep breath here. Take this moment, while staying ever so cautious of the looming shift to burning. Splash in more olive oil to cool the temperature and preserve this moment, this smell, for just a second longer.

Add to the pot:

A pinch of time. Let’s all sit on that idea for a moment...

Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally and keeping an eye on the onions, so they do not scorch. As soon as they start to brown, about 15 minutes, reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to cook, covered, stirring until they are a rich brown, about 40 minutes. Stir in:

Who measures sherry by the tablespoon? My soup deserves much more than a jigger. In fact, so do I. I rarely keep sherry or Cognac, so I opt for a bottle of white wine. If I’m out, then I reach for the dry Vermouth. And if I’m going to reach for dry Vermouth, I’m making myself a Manhattan.

A symbol of glory and achievement. Your wreath of laurels. Joy of Cooking does not include a bay leaf in their recipe. French Onion Soup does not need a bay leaf. You do not need a bay leaf. Yet I add one. Why? Because I have already achieved so much. I’ve cried (onions). Forgiven myself (butter). Breathed deeply (pinch of thyme). Cared for myself (Manhattan). If you add a bay leaf, as I often do, it is simply a symbol of your womanhood. Your reward for forgiving yourself, for just being who you are.

Increase the heat to high and cook, stirring constantly, until the sherry has evaporated. Stir in:

Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 20 minutes. Season with salt & pepper to taste.

The calm before the storm has passed. Your life (partner, kids, work, landlord, weather, whatever...) bustles through the door, brandishing iron and protein, a brash energy that conflicts with your newfound calm. The onions, which browned beautifully on their own accord, suddenly become immersed in a flavorful bath. Their hard work of patient, slow softening disappears, overpowered by the stronger beef flavor. But that’s okay. You are a woman. You knew this would happen.

Place 8 ovenproof soup bowls on a baking sheet. Ladle the hot soup into the bowls and top each with:

Broil until the cheese is melted and brown.

After one hour, your whirlwind of emotions is tucked neatly to bed under a layer of bread and cheese. Nobody knows that you added a secret ingredient of forgiveness. It is likely that nobody cares. But I care. I know that at least for today, I have taken the time to forgive myself. For what? I don’t know. But I know I needed to cry. I know I needed to feel nourished. I know that every day I need to feel grateful that I am a woman.

I wake at six with the news that you’re not coming.

It is unceremonious as usual: cold bathroom tile, scream of overhead lights, a spill of crimson on balled-up tissue. I’m always perplexed by how fast it seeps through that chalky material, morphing into a murderous glob of red-so-red it’s black. I let the toilet water catch it with a dense plunk that sounds and feels quite final: The period at the end of a very long sentence.

This is your monthly telegram. You’re not coming. Soon, I feel the slow pull of the crowbar in my groin and I remember that this is a multi-step process, it doesn’t just dissolve with your lack of an RSVP.

I clamor for the bottle of Advil below the bathroom sink. We keep it in here, mostly for this event. I chase five down with rust-tasting faucet water. I worry that five might be too many, but then, you aren’t here and I feel reckless with my body once again. Tonight there will be wine and vodka and probably McDonald’s or Taco Bell. There will be sleeping in, and not showering, and forgetting deodorant. There will be funny movies and empty laughter.

I lift each leg back up the stairs to the bedroom that I share with your dad. The mattress absorbs my weight like a giant gauzy bandage; I, the gaping wound. Your dad is still asleep. Something about the back of his head, the way the sandy blonde tufts gather at his crown and form an “o” shape, like a baby’s mouth, makes me wonder if perhaps yours has that same swirl. Does it? And I feel a choking need to see your head. To know its pores.

Much later, I get dressed. In a peculiar twist of events, you’ve been considerate enough to send bloat. My belly bulges with the irony of your absence. I shove it out in the mirror, running my hands over it like a globe or a precious stone, pretending to explain to my friends, “Oh we’re not finding out the gender—why ruin such a wonderful surprise!?”

I haven’t been surprised in years. Even our fridge knows my internal system like clockwork. On its door we keep a magnetic calendar marking my ovulation days in pink sharpie. In blue we have the potential dates where you might show first hints of arrival: heightened sense of smell, ligament pain, achy boobs. I sniff for these clues like a truffle pig but always come up short. With each desperate wheeze of the sharpie I picture the bagged fruit inside our freezer letting out one long impatient sigh.

Our fridge also contains magnetic invitations to several baby showers. Your dad says, “Just don’t go,” but instead I go all the way. I spend too much money on the perfect dress and apply way too much makeup. I’ll wear Spanx to remind people that sometimes not having a belly is cool, too. I’ll apply self-tanning lotion that makes my hands smell like old pennies, because non-pregnant skin can also glow – Why shouldn’t it? These things mean I am a woman, I really am. And I need them to know it, too.

I’ve spent a lot of money on you. Vitex-berry capsules, raspberry leaf tea, overpriced packets of dried herbs that might as well be oregano, even a vaginal steaming kit that came with a pouch of what looked like potpourri and an index card with a burn warning. You sent it all back.

A few years ago I joined a local Rotary club. I needed something to fill your void. Through the club I chaired a literacy committee. I worked on a grant that brought clean water filters to a village in Tanzania. I was eventually voted club president. The night of my induction I received several awards. I wore a bleachy white dress from Amazon. Everyone said I looked lovely. But none of it seemed to count. After the ceremony, your dad handed me a bouquet of pale pink roses and a card that told me he was proud of me. We stood under the swampy glow of a street lamp and I cried on his new suit. I thought of how he might do these things for you after a school play or a soccer game. How desperately hungry we were to know you.

Last September we did something called an IUI. It’s a procedure where they take your dad’s sperm (I know, gag!) and they inject it through a catheter into my uterus. It hurt more than I expected, but it was over quickly. Afterwards, we walked around a nearby Wegmans, sampling cider donuts and eyeing gourmet coffee beans. I had already caught myself searching for the decaf. The imported wine shelves stood adjacent to the counter of deli meats. I glanced at both and couldn’t wait to give it all up for you. I said a silent goodbye to sushi that day, too. These severed ties filled me with an excitement that bordered delirium. You were just a few hours free from the catheter, but I was buoyant with purpose.

Outside, the late September air was shedding its last strands of warmth, and a brisk sweep of Autumn bit at our cheeks as we paced back to the car, a bit more cautious with each step. I was carrying so much. I could barely breathe. I might become a mother by May, I beamed as I chewed an apple donut on the ride. Right before Mother’s Day.

Twelve days later, I received your telegram.

Both of your uncles weighed over ten pounds at birth. I remember your grandmother—a tiny woman!—describing it as something otherworldly, a feral kind of pain that scorches everything except the memory of it.

A searing, slicing, organ-gripping hurt.

I’ve been tempted to nod and say, I’ve felt that. I know.

So maybe when you do come, I won’t feel a thing.

i.

Some pains can’t be written away.

ii.

Together, you two stand in the doorway, arguing to be the sole embodiment of your favorite color blue.

iii.

In the bottom right drawer of an old craigslist desk: a paper bag with four broken geode pieces; two books of poetry; a pile of corks, initialled and saved; a white print of Istanbul on a worn out V-neck; a birthday card envelope without the card.

iv.

A pedestal to break.

v.

It is better when there is someone else’s clean skin to kiss.

vi.

Rooftops are beautiful at sunrise, until you can see the dirt that’s collected.

vii.

Orange peels, when spread across window sills, smell like sex.

viii.

On top of a wooden dresser: a thin gold chain with three small jeweled birds sitting on a branch and an evil eye underneath, like the one your mother owned.

ix.

Inside your kitchen cabinet: two silver teapots from his home in Turkey, stacked together; two tea glasses and their plates, rimmed in gold paint.

x.

Is your childhood worth understanding?

xi.

I stopped listening, is not endearing.

xii.

Learn to love time spent alone.

xiii.

In an old present box: a polaroid shot of you two, lying in bed, naked; camera film from your trip together through Turkey; a moleskin journal full of notes; tickets and passes and restaurant cards held by a rubber band.

xiv.

In a bag at the back of your closet: an old black soccer jersey with a small stain on the chest that you once wore for his favorite team, the one you wore for his good luck.

xv.

Your introduction to poetry and collaborations, drinking tea for pleasure, not revival.

xvi.

Olive oil is better than butter for breakfast.

xvii.

Inside a woven backpack: the small leather purse his mother bought you; the red knitted hat his mother made you.

xviii.

Sliced tomatoes make for a lovely snack.

xix.

Pressed against your chest, an imprint of his cheek, warm.

xx.

First kiss a person’s intelligence; it is lovelier than the first touch of lips.

xxi.

The left side of his body.

xxii.

Your first trip out of the country.

xxiii.

Always keep water by the bed for the morning.

xxiv.

Together, you agree to share a title, each almost, but not quite, blue.

xxv.

Two nicknames nobody else will use.

xxvi.

Don’t always be the small spoon.

xxvii.

An empty apology hurts more than an absent one.

xxviii.

Be mindful of your salt, not his.

xxix.

Cigarette hands pressed against your sides, staining your curves.

xxx.

You’ll miss the smell of his skin in the morning.

xxxi.

A stove top serves the same purpose as a toaster.

xxxii.

The middle of the bed can be warm.

xxxiii.

One dance in four locations.

xxxiv.

Words smell sweeter than flowers at night.

xxxv.

You can still be almost blue, even in his absence.

xxxvi.

On a wall by your window: a wall hanging of the Puerto Rican porch where he wanted to sit together, watching the world spin on and on, the one with the brown wood railings, white edges, and fake flower leaves that still fall off, red.