By Crystal Rodrigues
Silver tin plates filled to the bowl’s brim with Farina. A tight, thick skin stretched over the grains, making them shake like jello to the rhythm of Mama’s hips as she walked them to the table.
Someone told me to start by scraping the edges with my spoon—to peel away the white skin from the tin, because the plate sucks up all the heat and leaves the sticky Farina cool. I went along scraping the edges, making a smaller and smaller dome.
I have a faint memory of Papa sitting at the head of the table. He was in a mood. Mama’s voice, like a bird flitting in and out of the kitchen to where we quietly sat, sounded exasperated, snippy. She often spoke to herself. She set a plate in front of Papa and chirped instructions. I hardly understood his response because his words always crumpled together into a deep grumble when he was in this mood.
And the only times he wasn’t melancholic he was laughing with eyes like slits.
But after a while he was quiet and slow—only to be addressed by Mama.
I remember my brothers sitting next to me. Quiet as we usually were in Apartment 20J. I watched wisps of Farina exhale, leaving our plates and escaping to the streets of New York through barred windows.
Plates of Farina were always the same. They start out fulfilling but end overwhelming.