Canned Salmon

This looks like cat vomit, I thought as I emptied a gelatinous mass into a mixing bowl, wincing. And it smells like it too!

Dinner duty fell on me that night. It was a real test of my otherwise considerable culinary prowess – a perfect storm of work schedules and a lack of options in the kitchen gave me a very limited manifest of ingredients with which to work. We had no meat in the freezer. Our produce drawers were empty. Aside from an assortment of condiments and a few other odds and ends, our kitchen was no country for an empty stomach.

Lurking in the pantry was a lone can of Atlantic salmon, something that had become a fixture of the shelving as constant and unmoving as the vinyl contact paper lining it. Its constancy had become a form of camouflage. Dylan and I had at some point asked each other why Mom had bought it. That had to be at least five years ago – we’d had this can of Salmo salar perched on the back of the fifth shelf for so long it registered to the brain less as “comestible” and more as “hardware.”

The sound it made as its congealed fluids spread into the vessel was…unholy. With a wooden spoon I forced the cylinder of pink, grayish meat open to reveal the spinal column inside. I can’t say I’ve always been the biggest fan of canned food. At that point, I’d begun to doubt that I was a fan of food.

It took me a few minutes to pick out the bones. Our two cats had shown up, clamoring at my feet with erect tails and a chittering, like they make when they see a bird outside the window. Doing my best not to trip or step on them, I scoured the kitchen for whatever help I could find to make this mire into any sort of simulacrum of a meal.

As I found two cans of cream of mushroom soup left over from the Thanksgiving season I heard the garage door open. It was the time when everyone started to get home. Dylan walked in, curious about the menu.

“Damn. It was a rough day, wasn’t it?”

Beneath several layers of engine grease the whites of his eyes darted from the bowl to me, trying to make sense of what he was looking at.

“Yeah. We had to finish an engine rebuild today, we were behind schedule and what the fuck is that?”

“I’m doing my best, bro. This is all we’ve got.”

“Yeah but, what is it?”

“Remember that can of salmon in the pantry?”

“Yeah…” As it dawned on him what was happening, his face went pale enough to lighten the grease on it. “Is that…is that even good anymore?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t. I don’t have a point of reference.” Closing the trash can lid on the heap of eldritch-horror bones I’d just thrown in there, I added, “I’m not sure it was ever good to begin with.”

“It’s supposed to be shelf stable isn’t it?”

“If so, that’s terrifying.”

“How so?”

“That would mean this shit is supposed to be this gross.”

The only reason we had cream of mushroom soup was because Mom would have used it to make green bean casserole for Thanksgiving. That didn’t happen last year, the year without Thanksgiving. Or Christmas.

Or Camryn.

Dylan went upstairs to shower. Tragically, the smell of oil and grease on his work jumpsuit was better than what I had there in the kitchen.

I hate cream of mushroom soup, but for the first time ever, I found myself actually concerned that I was about to ruin two cans of perfectly good cream of mushroom soup. After spreading what I can only describe as a “generous” amount of garlic powder and onion powder over the cleaned-and-deboned fish meat, I mixed it into the bowl and stirred. All five of my senses were offended.

American cuisine is strange. I’m of the cultural subset that grows up with these “special family recipes” that we see every holiday but as we grow older we realize that they’re just the recipes on the sides of the food packages. Green bean casserole is such a great example of that. I always hated it. The flavors are off, the taste of the green beans overshadowed by an incoherent mix of salty, slimy mushroom gruel, cheese, and these weird, processed fried onions. I love green beans. Why would anyone want to cover the taste of green beans?

I’d been cooking for the family since I was nine. It was nothing too involved – mostly fare such as hamburger helper and boxed mac and cheese. But it sparked a fascination with food that I grew into as I matured. Being sick at home from school without cable, I’d watch Julia Child and Jacques Pepin make steak au poivre and yearn to try it for myself.

At 14, Mom and I had a tense discussion over why I started to dislike jarred spaghetti sauce.

“It’s just so…fake! I can literally taste nothing but sugar in it!”

“I don’t know what you want. Do you want me to not get it anymore? Do you want to just eat spaghetti plain?”

“No! It’s just…there’s gotta be something better we can do.”

“Like what?”

“Umm…I don’t know…do you know how to make it homemade?”

“Oh all of a sudden we’re in a Tuscan villa.”

“Not quite…”

“What?

“Well it’s just…they grow tomatoes near Naples, it’s a completely different area than Tuscany.”

“Okay we’re done here.”

For the record, Camryn loved my homemade alfredo. He requested it for his birthday several times. He always told me how much he preferred it to anything he’d ever had in a restaurant. Or from a jar.

That was so long ago. Since I’d been back to care for the family I hadn’t eaten very well. Mom hadn’t either. I could feel it in my weight, and even in the lack of clarity in my skin. Mom was doing much worse than I. Some time ago I’d noticed my eyes sunken a little farther back, catching myself off guard having seen much less of a certain spark I’d always had. In the last few months Mom had aged an apparent ten years. I wasn’t working – I spent my days taking care of the house and Mom. It’s hard to eat well when you and your family are poor.

It’s even harder when you’re in mourning. Sometimes, it felt like the only reason I hadn’t died of a broken heart was because I needed to make sure Mom didn’t die of hers.

It was my best estimation that the contents of the mixing bowl were ready to transfer to the casserole dish. I had been fortunate enough to find a small can of mushrooms in the pantry, though they seemed to get lost in the greater volume of other more vile substances.

Mortified that I was resorting to such measures, a piece of my soul died when I grabbed a half-empty bag of sour cream and onion potato chips, crushing them up to top the casserole. I’d be damned if I didn’t give this abomination at least a little bit of texture. Maybe the weird flavor additives can give the dish a little extra oomph?

As soon as I got the chip crumbs distributed over the casserole, I stopped dead where I stood.

No, no not now. I learned in the last few months that I stand as still as a statue when I get like this, like stone. That cold, hard knot in my chest threatened to erupt.

I just realized that Camryn was the only one who liked sour cream and onion potato chips. These were most likely the last of his food left in the kitchen.

No. NO. You have to finish dinner.

I forced every thought out of my head as I breathed, long and heavy. No tears this time, but it was a close one.

Maybe, I thought, just maybe… I knew I was thinking nonsense…

Just maybe Camryn could join us for this meal, this one last meal.

Grief does strange things to the brain. It causes so much wishful thinking, because there’s no part of myself that can ever truly cope with the idea that he just doesn’t even exist anymore. Because of it I’d find myself talking to him – out loud, like he was right there. This had gone on since the funeral. In my mind he was sitting there next to me making fun of the music, the flowers, and the way people dressed.

He made fun of the way the undertaker had blushed his cheeks. In life he was a pallid sort, sometimes making fun of himself: “I’m just a striped shirt away from being a mime,” “My skinny ass looks like Frosty on a diet,” “I wore a crop top and they thought my shirt had a reflective stripe,” and so on. The boy had no hint of color in his cheeks and that embalmer made him look like, in the joke I’d imagine him making but in different words, a certain racist football mascot.

The casserole went into the oven. After about 15 minutes, the kitchen started to smell a little fishy. The cats were excited; I was horrified.

Mom came down the stairs. Lurking into the kitchen, her eyes met mine as I closed the oven door after peering into the chamber.

My jaw tensed up. I knew what was coming — this was almost a daily ritual at this point.

“Do you have a job yet?”

I turned away and hung my head over the counter, over the empty bowl that had minutes ago held the putrid fish remains.

“No. No one’s called me back yet.”

“What have you been doing all day? Just wasting time?”

My teeth clenched; I could almost feel them cracking.

“No, Mother, I have been looking. And cleaning house.”

I turned to look her in the eyes.

“And cooking.”

“I can’t believe you’re in your 30’s and still live at home without a job.”

“Mother —” (I only called her “Mother” when I was fighting hard to contain my rage) — “how fast we forget why I’m in my 30’s, living at home, and unemployed.”

Her eyes narrowed, her mouth opening slightly ajar as she took a sharp breath in—

“How dare you say I’ve forgotten him! How dare you!” She devolved into sobs and tears, and I took off my apron and rushed over to hold her.

“I’m sorry, Mom, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I know you haven’t forgotten him.”

“It hurts, Teddy, I just want to die!”

She said that a lot. Every time I’m hopeful that she’s finally coming to a place of peace something happens and she takes a few steps back. She’ll be relatively normal one day, and then that night she’ll find herself alone in her room and fall into a spiral, which she would seek to quench with the bottle. Apparently that’s what happened last night, again.

“Mom, I…” Almost a decade as a counselor, and I had no idea how to comfort my own mother. Hell, I had no idea how to comfort myself, save for staying busy and taking care of others until I was too exhausted to feel grief.

“I’m glad you’re still here with me,” I muttered to her. “Thank you for letting me take care of y’all.”

“Teddy…” She lifted her head and tried to figure out what she was smelling. “What is that?”

“Oh that. It’s what I’m trying to turn into dinner.”

“It smells like…fish.”

“Well, it used to be a fish.”

She chuckled. At once, a lifetime as a smartass was made worth it to make her chuckle at that moment.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you about finding a job. I just don’t want to see you wasting your life away on us.”

“Oh Mom…” That knot in my chest suddenly found its way to my throat — “You of all people should know that time spent caring for your family is never wasted.”

“But your schooling, your degrees!”

“Look, until the state carries my license over from Washington, that doesn’t even matter.”

Dylan had finished showering and worked his way down the stairs.

“Okay so no offense but I’m not touching that shit and I know I shouldn’t do this but I’m ordering pizza.”

I was relieved yet disappointed, but just mostly out of habit.

“What, what are we gonna do with…” I gestured at the oven like a lunatic — “all that?”

“Just dump it, man. Accept defeat.”

Mom chirped up, “He hasn’t had to accept defeat since the first time he made tomato sauce.”

“Oh man I remember that! Bro you had us swearing off Italian for life!”

“Hey hey we all had to start somewhere. Now look at how I’m doing it!”

Not to brag but I make the best tomato sauce any non-Italian has ever made. It took me a decade and a half to refine the recipe but my tomato sauce has won me success at first dates with an 80% success rate. (The other 20%? I didn’t realize until the sauce was simmering that he was a bona fide Trump supporter.)

The pizza arrived and we settled into the living room to find something to watch. I remember nothing about what we put on the television, nor how good it was or wasn’t, nor if it made us laugh or cry or think or just ignore it.

I just remember them, my mother and my brother. I remember how the strange casserole made with abominable canned salmon and the last bits of my late brother’s food ended in the trash can, sought out by the cats, and even though it didn’t feed them physically, it fed us all vicariously.

I remember that night because it was the first time when three broken-hearted people shared a meal with something like lightness in months, and because most of all, given the things that would happen in the following year, this is a moment I would look back on and miss.

It was the last time I would ever see my mother and my brother in the same room again.