Inheritance

lyz pfister

I came home late last night, hungry.

The fridge was nearly empty, the process of getting ready to leave for longer being close to done. First the yogurt, then the cheese, then the last peppers and lemons disappeared until there wasn’t much left but those eternal fridge things. The Dijon, the Lillet, a jar of pickles. But there was some leftover takeout still – not much, but at nearly midnight, you don’t need much. Because probably you shouldn’t even be eating at all.

I dumped it into a skillet – the small, heavy copper one my mother gave me; it had been a wedding gift – hers, not mine. Without thinking much, muscle memory guiding my bone-tired hunger, I reached for a spoon from the thrifted red vase in which I keep all my most-used kitchen utensils. The first one I grasped had once been my grandmother’s. I’d found it a few years ago in my grandfather’s cutlery drawer, nestled between the dulling knives and corkscrews – and it had made me laugh.

It’s not much use as a spoon. All that’s left of it now is the wood worn smooth, and what was once a cupped head looks like a flat, wilted leaf torn from a three-leaf clover. The handle has been polished by palm sweat and bent, warped from the heat of a pan. I have nothing of my grandmother’s except my name, and that too is shared with my other grandmother. But now I have this spoon.

It was probably once longer, and straighter, and more useful to use. And yet, this is how a wooden spoon should be – well worn, paced, serving until it disappears piece by piece into the dishes it stirs, and these hereditary splinters connect us.

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