A sharp knife is safer than a dull one.

A sharp knife is safer than a dull one,

He tells me as he sets up the cutting boards

And places a wet paper towel under them.

It’s to keep them from slipping,

He explains as I watch with growing excitement.

I’m going to get to chop things.

Sunlight streams into the spacious kitchen.

Dad and I are cooking eggrolls.

Just us, not my brother.

I sway to the boppy Cooking with Kids playlist he has.

I pay no attention to the ingredients he orders me to dice,

But I take the edge of my sharp knife against them just the same

I’m very slow at chopping,

Yet not a single cross word leaves his lips.

It’s just a random afternoon.

We’re out of school or work with nothing to do.

And so we make eggrolls.

Just the two of us, no one else.

Soon the ingredients are diced.

A large pot simmers over the stove.

I mix while he puts everything in.

Pork, cabbage, carrots, invisible spaghetti.

Invisible spaghetti? He asks.

Invisible spaghetti, I say.

I assure him that I am right,

And he laughs it off, accepting my word.

The heat from the mixture melts my yellow polished nails.

I blow on them nervously,

Pretending not to do so when he’s looking.

I don’t want to stop cooking.

It seems a long time before the pork is fully cooked,

But soon the filling is finished.

We have to let it cool.

We pass the rest of the day idly.

Homework or painting or reading.

I think back with pride at the time he

Praised me for finishing a Paint by Numbers.

You always finish what you start.

I wish that were still true,

But the memory still serves to make me smile.

After school the next day,

We’re both ready to finish our task.

It’s time for the fun part, the best part.

Dad grabs the bowl of filling from the fridge

And lays out the materials.

Eggroll wrappers and a bowl of egg whites.

He reminds me how to take a small ball of filling,

Enough to fill my small palm.

Put the ball at the center of the wrapper.

Dip my fingers in the egg whites.

Coat the edges, fold the corners, and wrap it tight.

One roll done, and then another, and another.

Time passes peacefully.

Occasionally the cat comes sniffing curiously,

Or the dogs bark up at us.

We make kissy noises at them, but they don’t disturb us much.

Yet again it’s just me and Dad,

No pesky brother or busy-body mom.

Just the calmness of working with my Dad.

He asks me about school,

So I give him a lodown of my day.

I don’t ask how his work is.

I’m too young to care.

After all the rolls are wrapped and ready,

We stick most of them in the fridge.

Food for later, he promises.

He keeps a few out to fry.

I watch as he fries them, enjoying how the wrappers brown.

One of the badly wrapped ones separates in the oil,

Spilling its precious guts everywhere.

It was probably mine,

But Dad doesn’t say a word and pops a new one in.

He takes a container of sweet and sour sauce from the fridge.

Homemade in a tupperware.

I still don’t know how he made it.

We sit excitedly at the table.

I wait impatiently for the rolls to cool,

And I try to eat them too early.

Careful not to burn your tongue, he says.

He laughs at my antics, though.

The eggrolls are perfect.

Lots of meat, lots of flavor.

The sauce is the cherry on top.

Good things never last

And eventually we eat the last roll.

We’ll have to make another batch soon.

We won’t anymore, not after that day.

It wasn’t even an eventful day, but

Bad news has no foreshadowing in real life.

The days of cooking languidly to my dad’s

Cooking with the Kids playlist are a thing of the past.

I never found the recipe he used.

I could find a decent one online,

But would it really be up to par with my memories?

It never hurts to try, I suppose.

It used to be just the two of us.

Now there’s just me.

A sharp knife is safer than a dull one.