The Pantry.

THE PANTRY.

I was in my third year of university majoring in History, my sister was in high school with all her extracurriculars, and my mom was trying to find a new hobby after my dad left. Bird watching, pottery, yoga—candle making, poetry, flower pressing. We don’t talk much—the three of us—but between moments we find some way to communicate. Every time the bookshelf is reorganized, the endless scribbles from my sister on our calendar, the soft, unsure, notes of a piano coming from the basement followed by my mom’s tired sigh, the soothing scents the different parts of the house seems to hold onto.

My dad played the piano very well, he tried teaching me but soon found a better student in my sister. I wonder if they still get together.

A slither of jealousy weaves through my blood like a snake, it itches everywhere it travels, but I remain as still, as blank as a plank of wood.

Needing something salty and crunchy to chew on, I make my way to the pantry.

-

Every time I walk into the kitchen, I see a different childhood memory play out. Like growing over the years and slowly being able to reach further and further into the pantry, trying to learn how to cook with mom, or just doing homework at the breakfast bar while my sister ran around laughing—which back then was just happy screaming—with chocolate everywhere but in her mouth.

The pantry isn’t a walk-in but rather a floor to ceiling cabinet, and though it is currently full to the brim and is swelling with food, I can’t find the spicy Doritos chips that I like. I look through the shelves, my chestnut brown hair falling in front of my eyes, my arm long enough now to reach the back, but all I find are some stale potato chips. I sigh and grab them and then go to the ‘everything drawer’, grab a sticky note and pen and write my mom a note for the grocery list.

Out of my chips, mom.

- Aden

I post the note on the pantry door, covering one of the faces the lines of the wood creates, then retire to my room to snack and study for an upcoming midterm. I don’t know when we started this habit of posting notes on the pantry door, but I think it was around the time we started to see less of each other, a little after dad had left. Deep sadness hits me out of nowhere, this home—our home—feels emptier by the day.

A horn honks outside my window and my sister and her friend’s giggles fill the empty house. I can’t tell if it makes me angry or relieved that the silence is broken. It is always someone other than me to break it.

-

I’m studying on the kitchen table when my sister walks into the room talking animatedly on the phone. She multitasks well as she pours herself some milk while her phone lays wedged between her shoulder and ear.

“And then Coach didn’t even say anything to her, and it was the second time she's targeted me…” she walks to the pantry and opens it. She sighs dramatically and sends me a scornful look slamming it closed, I shrug my shoulders and discreetly try to brush away the chocolate crumbs from my mouth. “Nothing, just my brother doesn’t understand the concept of what’s his and what’s mine.” She pauses her rummaging through the ‘everything drawer’ to glare at me. Eventually she scribbles on the back of a receipt and tapes it to the pantry.

Just one word written on it:

OREOS

With an added afterthought under it:

PLS + THANKS

“Exactly, I have never even done anything to her, like…” she spills the milk down the sink and grabs a protein bar from the pantry.

I roll my eyes while listening to her voice get quieter and further, I can’t tell if she was talking about her swimming coach, soccer coach or gymnastics coach. I have the urge to get up and follow her voice and listen to the rest of her story, despite her annoying, whining voice, but I remain rooted in my seat.

Mom hasn’t gone grocery shopping yet, so when I get up an hour later hungry for something sweet, from the endless supply of green tea I choose a berry flavoured one.

-

Dad walks into the living room. Mom’s not home, maybe that’s a good thing. She can be quick to act at times. She didn’t used to be…but after your husband of 25 years leaves you because you are “boring” and wants to explore the world, despite you doing everything you can for your family, you would change too. Dad was the same, though, smiling, carefree…selfish.

“Aden, son.” His tone carries this relaxed lilt, it makes me want to strangle him.

“Hi, dad.” I mutter. I had a long day, there was nothing excitingly different from it from all the other days, but perhaps they each bear their weight onto the next day.

“How are you? Where’s your sister?” I didn't bother to answer the first question.

“She’s at her piano lesson, I think.” Dad's face deflates a little but bounces back to his soapy smile.

“Listen,” he says, “I just got back from Belgium and bought you guys some chocolate, tell her to try the white chocolate one with the coconut on it, I think she’d like that.”

No, she won’t; she’s allergic to coconuts like mom. I take the box from him, fully planning on throwing it away as soon as he leaves.

I thank him and watch as he disappears into the kitchen. He explores it like it's an alien planet, good. He stops at the pantry door to examine it and shakes his head condescendingly at the few notes it has collected. He returns with one of those honey-filled energy bars he used to like.

“She claims she hates me, but then buys shit I like.” He punches my shoulder like we're in on some inside joke.

Mom still buys them sometimes out of habit, and we end up tossing them away because no one eats them anymore. Her face when she throws them away brings on a wave of anger that hits me so hard that I clutch the arm of my chair to stay still, but I envision myself taking that energy bar and shoving it down his throat. I can picture the honey sticking to his esophagus as he tries to breathe while I hold his mouth closed and then—stop, Aden.

Before he leaves, he tells me, “Something smells back there by the way, something bad. You might want your mom to check it out. Anyway, I have to go, but we should plan something to do together soon.” I don’t answer and he doesn’t wait for one.

Later, before bed, I noticed that he had added a sticky note to the pantry door.

Thanks Talia. Can always count on you for certain things.

I throw it out like I throw out mouldy bread; disgusted and disappointed. And I hope mom went straight to bed after work but the hot water in the kettle proves otherwise.

-

A harsher rotting smell rolls around the house. I think it’s the overflowing garbage and spray some air-freshener. I post another note to the pantry door.

Mom, something gone bad,

When is compost day?

- Aden.

-

Frank came to our house with some tools. I don’t know why he brought them all, but he seems like someone who is always prepared.

“Here’s the problem.” He says as he investigates the vent.

My sister crowds around him to peer into the open cavity of the wall, she was talking to our neighbour Wendy about the smell in our vents when Frank, our other neighbour, overheard and offered to look.

“Rats?” She screams and jumps onto the kitchen counter.

“No, not rats, just one rat. One very dead and very smelly rat. This is the reason for the smell.”

“Well, what if there are more?” She asks.

“Have you heard any scratching or pattering coming from the walls or the basement?”.

“No. But I’m not home enough to realize,” she turns to me, one of her eyebrows perks up accusingly.

I shrug, “I didn’t hear anything.”

“Of course you didn’t, Homer.” She rolls her eyes.

Homer as in Homer Simpson. We used to watch that show as a family. One day I was helping dad carry in a new couch that he got from an old friend, when my sister turned on the TV and the volume was all the way up. Startled, I dropped the couch and what was a broken spring sticking out of the couch cut me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She lets out a frustrated sigh, “Well you aren’t the most observant guy in the world.” Her eyes drift to the small scar on my chin.

My hand goes to the raised skin in habit, red hot shame fills me as I remember how dad found it amusing, he says it served as a reminder for him to not bother asking me for help. Homer, he called me, and it stuck.

“I’ll talk to your mom about getting an exterminator here. In the meantime, I have some rat traps if you’d like?” Frank senses the tension and tries to intervene.

“Live rat traps, right?” I don’t know why she cares, especially after her reaction.

“I think so. Say, do you guys have any baking soda?” Frank starts to pack up his tools, “We’re having guests over and my wife tends to overdo the desert.”

“Oh, yeah.” my sister says, leaping off the counter, “Though as dad says, there is no such thing as too much desert.”

I remember something a little different from what dad has said; the way he’d look over to mom and comment under his breath, “Well, for most of us.” I also remember a time when mom used to love baking, but one day replaced all the junk food with herbal teas and supplements.

The wooden faces are almost all covered now when my sister goes to the pantry and finds two unopened boxes of baking soda to give to Frank, they’ve been sitting in the back for a while now.

The pantry looks like it sighs in relief as it closes without too much resistance.

-

Later that night, the smell still lingers in some parts of the house.

I toss out some rotten fruit from the fridge.

The pantry hasn’t been restocked yet, but I don’t mind. The next flavour of tea I try is mint. I do not particularly like it..

Mint tea was eh. But I liked the peppermint one

- Aden

-

I found an old box of hot chocolate mix hidden at the back of the pantry. I remember mom used to make this for my sister and I when we were younger and wouldn’t go to bed. It was loaded with sugar, so mom always hid it out of view from us. It was hiding behind a jumbo pack of dried ramen at the moment.

I smile as I turn on the kettle, an old note of mom’s hangs on the tiled wall behind it.

Best temp for green tea = 180

Best temp for Coffee = 200

Her handwriting was smooth and flourished—it was warm and inviting like the smell of browning butter, and her playfulness showed from how she wrote her words in cursive, but the numbers in funky bubble-letters. She signs her notes always the same, with a quickly drawn on heart at the end.

My gaze travels around our old-fashioned kitchen, it is relatively normal and clean, but something is wrong…something feels missing.

The dishes my sister and I alternate as a chore, dinner we usually have separate because of my late classes, my sister’s activities and mom’s two jobs. On the pantry door are our sticky notes, a mosaic of our conversations, really the only interaction we have with each other. Bread gone bad, no more water bottles, protein bars—NOT the peanut butter ones, berry flavoured green tea please and thanks, Oreos, Spicy Doritos, chocolate chip cookies—my sister added the word mint in front of that note of mine—coke, juice, dip, chips, granola, oatmeal, cereal, banana bread—out of bread, milk gone bad, dip has mold, can you throw it out? Its gross, my sister signed that with a smiley-face.

Empty letters and words, meaningless instructions, this conversation happening within this web—this chaos of colours and handwriting and bad grammar…and a thought strikes me… someone is missing from the conversation…where’s mom? I can’t see the faces on the wood anymore neither can I see any doodled letters or messy hearts drawn.

My breathing becomes faster and shorter, the kettle beeps three times, steam bursts out of the nozzle and when I’m finally at my breaking point, the door chime rings, and I hear the voices of my dad and sister get closer.

“Oh hey! Did you get a chance to eat the coconut chocolate I got you?”

“Coconut chocolate?” I hear a thud, maybe my sister’s gymnastics bag.

I hear dad’s disappointed sigh, “I see. Ol’ Homer must’ve forgotten to give it to you, huh?”

“No. Dad I—” they walk into the kitchen; I see dad shake his head and place his arm around my sister’s shoulders.

“No worries. Just means I have to go back to Belgium, or should I try Switzerland next?” His laughing halts as they see me standing alone in the kitchen and come to a stop. “Son, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Dad laughs.

“You alright there, Aden?”

“Have you guys—or have you seen, by any chance—”

“Come on Homer, stop stammering, what’s got you all bothered?”

“Have you guys seen mom?” I almost didn't want to ask.

“Shouldn’t she be at work?”

“She doesn’t work the weekend.”

“Sleeping?” Dad suggests. Though what he doesn’t know is that she has made it a habit to wake up every day at 5 am, something she read in a book called The 5 am Club. “Maybe she’s out with friends finally doing something fun, though I hardly think she knows the meaning—”

I don’t know what takes over me, but the next thing I know is my wrist feels broken and dad’s nose is bleeding.

“Aden!” My sister runs to our dad, but he only lets out a half-hearted chuckle.

“Finally, some action around here. That feel good, Homer? Huh? Make you feel like a big strong man?”

“Dad.”

“No. He’s right. I do feel like a man.” I take him by the collar and drag him towards the front door. He doesn’t fight me, just grabs on to my wrist hard enough to bruise.

“Listen here son.”

“I’m not your son,” I pin him to the closed front door, “I’m mom’s. And I have had it with your disrespect towards her. You wanna talk about big strong men? How about her strength for having to put up with you for so long, you miserable bastard.”

“Aden, stop!”

“Is that what you think? Have you ever considered that maybe I was the one doing the ‘putting up’?” Suddenly his hands were a mirror of my own, pulling my collar tighter, but my breathing remained steady though, and my eyes lit with a concentrated fire. In the distance I hear my sister dialling someone on her phone.

“She will make every day the same,” he seethes in my face. I hear a ringing in the house and then the basement door squeak open . “The same breakfast, the same kiss goodbye, the same lunch and dinner and snacks in the pantry, the same TV show every night, the same laugh, the same kiss goodnight—” a startling scream interrupts him, for a moment we stare at each other confused, but when we look around at the empty entrance to the kitchen, dread settles deep in my gut, weighing me down.

“Pippa.” I recognize my sister's voice; I scream her name again as I run to where the sound came from.

The basement door is ajar, and I try to reach for the door handle, but my hand can’t stop shaking. But then I hear whimpers and pattering and tiny choired squealing, and I book it down the raggedy steps, vaguely aware of my dad following.

What we see makes me nauseous, and so does Pippa because she is throwing up all over the ugly pink carpet.

“Oh my God.” I hear dad whisper before his booming steps back up the staircase echo around us.

“Pippa, come here.” I try to coax her. She wipes her mouth and takes in the scene again; a scene I try to ignore. But it’s hard to ignore a rotting corpse, much less the rotting corpse of your mother being feasted on by rats. “Pippa,” I make slow but wobbly steps towards her trembling frame.

“Mom, she-she's—”

“I know Pippa, look at me. Please, look at me.” She finally does, and I catch her as she falls apart.

-

I cover her eyes when they take our mom away in a black body bag, that my mind intrusively compares to a garbage bag full of left-over take-out.

-

The police wouldn’t let us back in the house. Dad wasn't answering his phone, but Frank and his wife met us at Wendy’s house.

Wendy offers to make us all tea, my sister hides in the space between my bicep and chest, and when Wendy goes to her pantry and asks what flavour we want, I answer for both me and Pippa.

*

When I was younger, our dad took us all camping after a friend bragged about something or another and he challenged himself to compete—our tent never went up and if my mom didn’t know how to start a fire, the camping trip would’ve just been a long hike. Anyway I remember a conversation with my mom, I don’t know how it started, but she said this:

“Aden…You know why we named you Aden?” she struck her switchblade against a jasper rock she’d found. Little me had shaken his head. “The night you were born, a really bad blizzard hit us in the morning,” her focus was on her striking the rock, a lock of honey-brown hair fell over her eyes that she tried to blow away, she was so beautiful, “We were snowed in, our power had gone out and we couldn’t call anyone for help. We ended up at the hospital by the time you came along, but the thing that kept us going? That kept me going?” a spark flew off the jasper and knife and kindled the wood, her eyes turned to mine, reflecting warmth as I basked in the safe scent of her vanilla bourbon body wash “a little fire. That’s what Aden means. And when you have a little fire, it can be a powerful thing.” We made s'mores on that camping trip. Pippa made hers with leaves she found and insisted were ingredients for her “potion”, I replaced them discreetly with some mint leaves mom kept in her purse for nausea.

*

The police had found a box of chocolates and a note. I refused to believe that it was hers despite the handwriting.

She wasn’t on the page; I couldn’t see her in the cursive letters...Until the very end and at the bottom. My tears smudged the words, but I stopped them from getting too close to the carefully drawn on heart.

I'm sorry, the note read, I burned it in our fireplace a few weeks later, along with the pantry door I had taken an axe to, there were no more trapped faces in the wood, they were free, and so were we.

-

Pippa handed me an assembled s'more, honey graham crackers, rich dark chocolate, a soft sweet marshmallow—we had gone shopping together the other day—we ate in silence as we watched the fire burn, no where close to chocolate covered smiles, but one step closer.

THE PANTRY.

hello readers :) this is my attempt at a short story, any suggestions or criticism is welcomed. I still feel like this story is missing something. and if you know what it is, let me know, thanks!

- harleen