An Almost Perfect Moment by Binnie Kirshenbaum

Author:Binnie Kirshenbaum [Kirshenbaum, Binnie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780061972706
Google: zwqcZq0UCHYC
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2009-10-06T07:00:00+00:00

Joanne Clarke opened a can of Chef Boyardee cheese ravioli and dumped it into a pot. Turning the flame up high, she gave it ten minutes, which might have been five minutes too long, and without bothering to transfer the ravioli into a bowl, she set the pot, along with a spoon, on the place mat in front of her father, who was wearing nothing but his bathrobe. He peered into the pot and then recoiled, backing up as far away from the table as his chair would allow. “What is that?” he asked.

“It’s ravioli,” Joanne said.

“What’s it for?”

“It’s for dinner. It’s for you to eat.”

Her father shook his head vigorously from side to side. “I’m not eating that. I’m not.” Then he started to cry. Snot bubbled at his nostrils.

“Then don’t,” Joanne said, and she picked up the pot by the handle and dumped the piping-hot ravioli on her father’s lap.

Never ever before had she done such a thing. No matter how much he’d tried her patience, no matter how she, all alone, had to care for him as if he were a baby, no matter how sometimes she wished he’d hurry up and die, never before had she hurt him. And apparently he was hurt. He was screaming, and not only because she’d frightened him. The ravioli, cheese in particular having a high heat capacity, scalded his thighs and his privates.

She should’ve been ashamed of herself for having done such a terrible thing, but she wasn’t. She should’ve felt positively awful, but she didn’t. She should’ve been filled with remorse, but instead she was filled with nothing but resentment. Bitterness had taken hold of her as if it were resolve.

When she could no longer stand one minute more of his screaming and crying, she called 911 and said to the operator, “I need an ambulance. My father burned himself. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow he managed to dump scalding-hot ravioli on his lap. It looks pretty bad.”

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