Charles Sampson’s life ran on the juices of his stomach while his wife, Rose, was alive. Food had fulfilled him, rounding his belly and marking events in his life, much like keeping a diary. Rose’s death six months ago changed everything. Now food tasted like dust in his mouth, and he’d lost thirty pounds.

As he paced his small box of a living room, he noticed the worn blue carpeting and the washed-out beige wallpaper with the edges curled away from the wall. It occurred to him that every room in his house had been neglected for years with the exception of the gleaming white-tiled kitchen equipped with state of the art appliances.

He recalled watching Rose’s sensual movements as she prepared meals, and hungered for her. At mealtimes, his robust wife became a svelte, stunning movie star.  Even lovemaking often took place in the kitchen – on the table, and even more exciting, on the hard, cool floor.

A week ago, he’d spoken to his manager about taking time off. During the discussion he’d been unable to focus on his boss’ physical presence. Instead, he visualized the words flapping out of his boss’ mouth like billowing sheets on a clothesline. 

“Take some time off, even a month, Charles,” his boss had said.  “Grieving takes a long time. 

Charles felt grateful that no mention had been made of his recent shoddy accounting work, something that distressed him. Numbers now bunched up before his eyes, swimming like a huge school of minnows. He had lost his bearings since Rose passed away. She alone had grounded him with the magical world she created through her culinary skills. 

Whenever he entered his home the aroma of fish steaming in wine sauce or the blipping sound of a thick pot of pea soup on the stove aroused him. He had to compose himself before entering the kitchen as they always ate first. Once he saw Rose behind the butcher block smiling at him, their home instantly became insulated from the frenzied outside world. His love for his wife was like chocolate mousse slithering down his throat. 

“Time off will help get your head on straight,” his boss said, cocking his head as he stared at Charles. You’re only forty-six, and you have to get on with your life.” Then he patted him on the shoulder and left.     

Easy advice, Charles thought. Now even sunshine or store windows filled with merchandise – looked threatening. He feared drowning when he crossed streets.

He recalled Rose’s meat thermometer. It registered the stages of doneness. How nice if he had such an instrument to gauge his emotional health on any given day so that he’d know when to stay home and when to go out.

When he Charles was twenty-two fresh out of college, he had joined the Rich and Sumner Accounting Firm. He had approached his work in a plodding but meticulous way. Any semblance of a personal life had gone on hold. His lunches had consisted of slapped together salami sandwiches and his dinners purchased from supermarket salad bars.

He labored at his job for ten years, his sparse social life never bothering him much. At that point he began leading investment seminars, and that’s when his life turned around. He met Rose. Her job was to check in clients. Although not attractive in the traditional sense, Rose had intelligent kind black eyes, a well-proportioned thickness to her body and a crooked, sweet smile that stunned him. Her dark, shiny, black hair hung loosely at her shoulders.  At the end of the seminar she had stood very close to him. The room shook.

“You were quite dynamic up there on the podium,” she had commented. He immediately asked her out.

They went to one movie and a restaurant afterward. Then she invited him to her apartment for dinner. Never before had his uninspired palette been so delighted. His enthusiasm encouraged Rose to cook dinner every night from then on. Charles experienced a spiritual uplifting like never before in his life. Four months later, he proposed. Only the fear of scaring her away stopped him from proposing earlier.

For the fourteen years Charles was married to Rose, her exquisite meals propelled his life into discoveries of distant new stars in an unending universe. Rose had given special meaning to the numbers on his spreadsheets. Halfway through a work day morning he’d go into his office, unwrap his wife’s firm, home-baked anisette biscuits and dunk them into hot coffee. The semi-sweet, sopping cookies fell apart in his mouth like a gentle kiss. Then he’d go back to work like a demon.

Lunch happened promptly at noon every day. Out came the Italian loaf of crusty bread filled with the buttery-soft, buffalo-milk mozzarella topped off with sautéed peppers. By the end of the day, he felt energized knowing dinner time was fast approaching. The nights Rose prepared cheese gnocchi in a blush sauce and tender veal paprika for dinner called for champagne and a bubble bath together.

All new accounts were celebrated with a rich creamy rum cake that melted like silk scarves fluttering across his tongue. All the edibles came out of gleaming shiny copper pots and cast iron skillets. He had the notion that their sumptuous dining coated his vital organs like a buffer against disease and that they’d live forever.

At times, Charles felt blessed they had no children to disturb their tranquil, exquisite world of dinners. He tapped his now flat stomach as he recalled Rose’s thick, competent hands chopping, slicing and dicing from a large collection of herbs and spices grown in her garden. The scent of oregano, marjoram, basil and parsley dogged his dreams, but since Rose’s demise the pleasant dreams turned into nightmares as his tongue grew four feet long, lashing at the tasteless air.

Two weeks into his sabbatical, Charles still felt disquieted.  Moving restlessly around the large kitchen he touched the smooth unused butcher-block counter tops that he continued to oil weekly. He sniffed the air for any vestiges of cooking smells still imbedded in the plaster walls, but the fragrances had grown dim. He ran his fingers over the rough bricks of the oven he’d built for Rose to bake the crusty breads. She told him the hard water out of the tap made a difference.

Each brick seemed old and tired now, but once a week the kitchen came to life when he stoked the fire. The warmth brought Rose’s presence into the room. He’d approach the spot that contained the most intense heat and encircle the space with his arms. Then, moving his feet in a sensual rhythm, he felt his wife’s body close to him, undulating to a tango rhythm. Charles never learned to dance, yet Rose now followed his precisely executed steps.   

“Rose,” he whispered while he whirled around. “I can’t live without you.”

And then, they made love against the cool, white tiled wall. Rose touched his skin in the way she used to and breathed life into him.
            After the fire died down, Charles would sit on the floor until the oven grew cold. Then he’d place his cheek against the open, smoky scented door sometimes falling asleep in that position. 

Now he stared at the shelf between the refrigerator and the stove that held the marble urn filled with Rose’s ashes. The air shimmered. Nearby were her jars of prized spices and herbs. Where else would he put Rose but in her beloved kitchen. A short distance away sat identical urns of Rose’s mother and grandmother. He had promised Rose to always keep their remains together.

From his living room window, he stared at the property surrounding his modest bungalow. The house sat on a neat, small square of lawn. In the past, he saw the exact boundaries of his property, like reading a map of his life. Now the sharp definitions blurred, making him feel unhinged.

The doorbell rang. He didn’t move knowing it was his widowed neighbor, Donna. Her husband had died three years ago at age fifty.     

“Coming,” he yelled through the door although he didn’t move.

Donna told him she’d come to terms with her husband’s death and Charles would, too. She didn’t understand he’d lost the inner core of himself along with his sense of taste, touch and smell. Donna insisted that removing Rose’s clothing would help the grieving process. Charles went along, reluctantly.

Charles could not foresee any romantic entanglement with Donna, a woman who made tuna noodle casseroles, meatloaf flavored with ketchup and white bread toast.  Donna, although a handsome woman, reminded him of fries, fast foods and nuked hot dogs. Even her hands smelled of bland, antibacterial soap.  Breathing deeply he recalled how Rose’s hand always retained a hint of onions and garlic. He slowly opened the door.

“Hi, Donna.”

“You’ve lost more weight, Chuck.”  She pushed past him carrying an anemic looking chicken potpie. He cringed at both the food and her calling him Chuck. Rose always called him Charles.

Donna busied herself at the refrigerator easily finding a spot on the shelf for her pie. Her frown told him she was doing a silent inventory of the bleak landscape of wilted lettuce and half eaten TV dinners. 

At least TV dinners were better than the gray and white food Donna served. Even his cat refused to eat anything she cooked. Rose, in her crisp, white apron had always created multi-colored hues around her; vermilion filled the room when she cooked red sauces, dots of purple spun around her when she stuffed eggplants. Surrounding Donna, he only saw bleached white; white hands, pasty, white face. She sometimes reminded him of an embalmed person.

As he glanced over to the stove, he wished Donna would go away. All he wanted was to resurrect Rose’s spirit that disappeared in Donna’s presence. Once more, he wanted to dance, to prance around the whirling spiral of heat, summoning a life filled with colors and smells. He wanted to make love to Rose. But his thoughts felt obscene and his body sucked dry with Donna nearby.

“Would you like to eat now?” Donna asked.

“Can we work first?”  He toyed with the idea of claiming a stomachache after they finished. 

“Oh, I don’t mind.” She motioned for Charles to lead the way.  He walked down a hallway to the master bedroom. It almost seemed blasphemous to allow Donna to enter. Charles opened the door and steeled himself as they stood in front of a large closet that spanned an entire wall. Donna tried to pat his cheek, but he ducked his head.

“I know you miss your Rose. You’ll be fine.” 

She pressed his collar down. He recoiled. It made no difference to him that his shirts were not ironed anymore. 

As Donna surveyed the closet, Charles watched her from the corner of his eye.  Strands of gray ran through her brown hair, and her dull blue eyes reminded him of the pale blue starch his Rose used on his shirts.

Charles removed clothing from hangers while Donna climbed a ladder pulling out hats and handbags from a top shelf. When she wasn’t looking, he pressed his face into a pink sundress dress and smelled the faintest fragrance of rosemary. Another dress held the scent of apples. Tears burned his eyes.

No way could he pack them in cartons and give them to strangers. Charles stared at the bed and, a hazy image of Rose appeared and gave him an approving smile. Suddenly, Donna called for help as she pulled out a scruffy cardboard box and teetered on the top step of the ladder. He took the box out of her hands. It brimmed with Rose’s recipes. 

Donna clung to the sides of the ladder as she descended. “Let’s put that with the trash. Just a bunch of food-stained, old recipes. They’ll attract ants.”

Charles’ mouth dried. He could barely swallow. “No.” His tone was harsh.

Donna’s white coloring grayed around the edges.

“These were recipes handed down to Rose from her mother and grandmother.” He quickly excused himself and carried the box into the guest room, locking the door. 

Once seated on the floor, he flipped through cards, envisioning each dish. He removed his clothing. Rose’s presence hovered over him and his body swelled with anticipation. Unmoving, he waited. Extraneous sounds receded. Bliss crept slowly over him, seeped into his pores. He lifted the box over his head and let the cards fall over him like gentle snowflakes. Stuck in the bottom of the box he saw a note. Pulling it out he sat up and held the paper tightly. Seeing Rose’s looped handwriting made his heart pound.

When Rose was alive he never felt the need to go to the theatre or the movies.  She provided all the drama in his life that he needed. Often she fluttered around the kitchen, singing beautiful love songs in a sweet, warbling voice, or told him stories about the cooking talents of her mother and grandmother. 

He thought about the game they often played. Rose asked him to guess every single ingredient with each taste. He never guessed them all. She’d wink at him and say how she loved keeping him in suspense and that if she gave him all the answers he’d

have no reason to come home. He swore to her that could never happen.

“My secret ingredient is love,” she’d tease him in her lusty voice.

He refocused his attention on the note clutched in his hand.

“To Charles,” he read aloud.  “If anything happens to me there’s something you have to know.”

At that moment he realized Rose had a sense she might die young like her mother and grandmother. Why had he not seen that? Maybe he could have helped her, saved her even. The heart attack came on so suddenly.  

He glanced at the note again then quickly dressed. Suddenly, he heard Donna’s impatient voice outside the door.

“Don’t go in the kitchen. I’m making you dinner,” he said.

When Donna finally entered the kitchen, her hands and face looked scrubbed.  Charles stood at the stove stirring a big stockpot of marinara sauce.

“I packed Rose’s clothes in boxes, Chuck.  I knew how hard it must be for you.” She stared at him like a child waiting for a reward. Somehow it didn’t make him angry as he thought it would. Charles waved her to a seat at the kitchen table.

“Would you like to have some of Rose’s clothes?” he asked, surprising himself. “She had some very good dresses.” 

Donna looked coy. “To tell the truth I loved that red floral print dress.”

Charles almost said no, but he squeezed his eyes shut and agreed.  “I gave that to my wife for an anniversary present.”

“You were such a sweet husband.”

“Oh, Rose was my life, you know.” He leaned over the stove, wanting to bathe in the scent of oregano.

“When did you learn to cook, Chuck?”  Her nasal voice hit him like icy water. 

“I learned a lot from Rose.”

“What about my potpie?”

He coughed. “Tomorrow for lunch. I made this meal to thank you for all the work you’ve done. It’s from Rose, too,” he added.

From a small blue saucer, he added a pinch of Rose’s special ingredient that she had revealed in her note. He inhaled the steam curling from the pot and riding up the dampened wall like a man inhaling the scent of his lover’s body. He squinted at the recipe propped against the toaster and picked up a handful of garlic.        

Charles felt Rose’s hand guide him. He chopped the garlic, browned it in hot olive oil in a skillet then spooned it into the thick red sauce. Stirring vigorously, he then ladled the sauce over two big dishes of hot pasta and set them on the table. He opened a bottle of Chianti and sat down.

“I don’t eat much.” She touched her stomach. “Watching my girlish figure.”  She sighed.  “I wish someone loved me as much as you loved your wife.”

“I think I’m coming to terms with her death and you’ve helped me.”

“Really?” Donna’s somber expression brightened. “We’ll always have her in our hearts, won’t we, Chuck?” Donna spoke with soft determination. 

Charles patted her hand. Donna looked into his eyes and smiled. “It’s exciting to have a man cook for me.  It’s never happened in my entire life.”

Donna speared her fork into the pasta, chewing slowly. “This is wonderful,” she said, her pace picking up speed with each forkful. When she finished, she asked for second helping.

Feeling life expand inside his chest, Charles hummed as he ate.

He and Donna chatted amiably until ten PM. He listened to her chatter about her children, and she listened as he spoke of his desire to become an accomplished cook.  When they finished doing the dishes he walked her to the door. She took the red dress out of a box. Charles impulsively leaned over and kissed her parchment white cheek. At first it felt like kissing a ball of cotton. He kept his lips against her cheek until he imagined her flesh taking on the softness of baby skin. 

“Goodnight, Charles.” Once again, she smoothed his shirt collar and, this time, he didn’t flinch. She had called him Charles.

In the morning Charles hurried into the kitchen. He began slicing peppers, onion and mushrooms. With an adept hand he whipped eggs without spilling a drop. In the past, an unspoken pact between Charles and Rose kept him from doing kitchen chores. Now he handled the food preparation with assurance and marveled at his newfound talent.

He poured the beaten eggs into the pan, enjoying the sizzling sound as it hit the hot, melted butter. The sautéed vegetables went in next. Again, he lightly sprinkled the food with some of the contents from the ceramic saucer and jiggled the pan. Scooping half the omelet into a dish, he sat down and ate slowly.

When Charles finished, he grabbed a pencil from a cup on the table and like a warrior grasping the handle of his sword, he jotted down some items on a grocery list. It occurred to him to call his boss later and tell him he didn’t need a full month off.

Then Charles phoned Donna and invited her for breakfast. He returned to the stove singing, making up silly words to the tunes.

Donna was over in ten minutes. When he saw her, he gasped. She wore Rose’s red floral dress. He noticed she had on white face powder and two red smears of rouge. For some inexplicable reason, she looked better to him. Patting her hair in place, Donna stared at him as though waiting for a comment.

“The dress looks very good on you.” Charles jiggled some coins in his pocket. He enjoyed seeing Donna come alive, the soft pleats of the dress swaying to her movements instead of hanging lifelessly on a hanger.

“I remember watching you and Rose get into the car when she wore this dress,” Donna said. “I admired it so.”  

“I’m sure you can find others upstairs.” Charles turned away and immediately served her the remaining omelet.

She carefully smoothed the dress material over her thighs. As she ate, Donna’s face had a look of raw contentment.

He placed himself across from her. Donna didn’t seem to notice him. Her eyelids fluttered. That expression reminded him of how his wife sometimes looked when they made love.

Charles continued studying her and kept shifting his body to get different views.   Suddenly, he noticed a change. Donna’s features drifted out of alignment. Light beamed around her face like a laser disintegrating and crumbling concrete. He blinked and watched the pieces of her face slowly transform. Soon her nose took on girth and her eyes went to ink black. A beauty mark appeared on her olive toned cheek, and her pencil-thin, skim milk colored mouth swelled and shaded to terra cotta. Heat rose from his skin. Rose sat before him. 

A sigh relaxed his body as tension drifted away. When Donna finished eating she smiled and blew him a kiss just the way Rose did when he left for work each morning. Donna excused herself to wash up and Charles walked back to the stove. 

“I’ll be back in a heartbeat.” Donna’s voice had gained heft, took on depth. As soon as she left the room, he pressed his lips against the Rose’s cool, marble urn on the shelf. He reached into the container, removed a handful of ashes and refilled the blue, ceramic dish.   

When Donna returned he held his arms open. With a look of surprise on her face, she ran to him, peered at him with an expectant smile on her full mouth. His knees buckled as he nestled his face against her shoulder and cried.

END