'The Sunday Lunch' — a Short Story
Feeling homeless despite having a home is a dangerous business.
Alma didn’t mind the awkward silence surrounding the dining table apart from the clinking of the dishes. She spent her days around noisy, hungry people, so she welcomed silence like an elixir for her mind. Sitting on the sunny side of the round table, as an actress in the only spotlight of a dark stage, she was devouring that Sunday’s meal. She knew that those weekly lunches wouldn’t last much longer, but she promised herself she wouldn’t get carried away by last week’s events. At least not during the Sunday visit to the home of her boyfriend’s parents.
Her boyfriend Matias sat on her left, slumped on the high back-rest chair, knowing that Alma’s less-than-great state of mind was because of him. Exactly a week had passed since they had the conversation that would change things between them. They had talked about moving in together, in Matias’ flat. Alma’s ever-present nausea had started to fade away at the prospect of finally building her own nest. Feeling homeless even with a roof over her head, made her body react in strange ways. When Matias backed away, overpowered by the risks of cohabitation and how they could damage a relationship, Alma’s nausea came back strong.
Matias was furiously mashing the already mashed potatoes in his plate, frowning his eyebrows into a unified line as he did that. He felt like a jerk, but he knew he couldn’t offer her more.
Alma wore one of her two dresses, picked that morning from her side of the cramped wardrobe she had to share with one of her roommates. She had decided to dress up for that Sunday’s lunch to cover up in bright colors her growing feeling of despair.
The nauseating feeling appeared a few years back when she started sharing a flat with a bunch of people who weren’t her friends. She felt robbed of any privacy in a flat that was also hers according to the rental contract. But she was a stranger there. She felt like she couldn’t unfold her life among walls that didn’t hold her pictures, and shelves that didn’t hold her books. In the optimistic moments when she dared to see that place as her own as well, she was hit by a bunch of surprises. A mysterious woman sat on her toilet. An alien man sat on her couch, eating out of her own claimed plate with her own claimed spoon. The sister of the mysterious woman, an even more remote stranger, was taking a shower in her own bathtub, looking in her bathroom mirror, walking in her hallway. When Alma dared to see that place as her own, those daily episodes brought her back to the nauseating reality that the space was anything but her own. To top it off, the door of her room stopped closing properly, so she had to sleep with it partially open. When you share the living space with a bunch of people you picked on a roommates app you feel the roof over your life dissolving shingle by shingle, homelessness settling inside your soul.
Matias’ father helped alleviate that feeling as he had offered to go by and help Alma fix the door of her room. Matias’ father sat on her right at that Sunday lunch table, looking down into his plate. Meatballs with mashed potatoes again. His wife loved preparing that dish, it gave her a sense of belonging, of continued tradition, of home. Everything Alma desired but couldn’t seem to get a grasp of.
Alma tried to hide her heavy heart that Sunday, concentrating on cutting the meatballs drenched in a thick tomato and garlic sauce without splashing anything on her dress. She preferred the sauce to the meatballs, but she ate everything. The way she held the fork and knife in her hands revealed a set of would-be pianist fingers, delicate and flexible. No one who didn’t know her would suspect that she served burgers and fries for a living. The vapors of the dish, giving off a roasted garlic smell, reminded her of many a Sunday lunch at that very table. Sometimes filled with laughter. Sometimes with deep conversations. And other times simply with empathetic looks of approval and understanding, like it must have been in any loving family.
The recipe for that meatball dish was Matias’ mother’s staple. She now sat to the right of the father at the Sunday table, cutting the deafening silence with a cheerful hum. Sunday was a time for joy and for family. She wouldn’t let the petty quarrel the young couple had over moving in together ruin her traditional Sunday lunch. Mother thought Alma made a bigger fuss than necessary over it. Her hum and self-imposed joy were also meant to hide her own sour state. She waited patiently to see how long it would take for the Father to reveal the secret between him and Alma. It was too early for her to say anything yet. Perhaps the appropriate time would be during dessert. Flan de huevo plus a spoonful of disclosure. She slapped on her hostess smile and asked Alma if she wanted more meatballs.
Alma secretly wished she could cook just as well for Matias and had asked for that recipe before, but never got around to trying it out. Now she wondered if she would ever get to cook for Matias, the way things were going between them.
Alma felt incapable of cooking in her shared flat. She tried once to boil a few potatoes, but her stomach tightened and nausea surfaced as she had to use one of the strangers’ pots. It wasn’t that they were dirty or decaying, they were simply so permeated by unfamiliar smells and dents that it plunged her heart down into her stomach, reminding her she wasn’t home. She got attached, as a baby does to her favorite stuffed animal, to a certain coffee spoon or knife, desperately looking for it in the dishwasher when she didn’t find it clean in the drawer. The scent of cooked food, that invisible thread that infiltrates through the walls of a house and makes it a home, was something Alma could not produce there, remaining a stranger to the place.
The young woman nodded politely at the Mother’s question about seconds, perfecting with every move her role in that family. She wondered for how long she would still be invited to those Sunday lunches, with the way things were going with Matias. She knew that the Mother was content when they took seconds, that was her cue that she was a successful hostess. And even if you didn’t take seconds, she would find a way to stuff a bit more into you, with the indisputably logical pretext that she needed the pot cleared up. Mothers like her found their life’s purpose in cooking good meals for their families. And Alma was happy to oblige, for as long as she could still do it. She enjoyed the ritual of being asked for seconds, of seeing the look of satisfaction for a job well done on the Mother’s face. Everyone’s place in the world was right. The Mother as a successful cook and hostess, and Alma as an enthusiastic eater at a family table she was happy to be part of. Often she would forget she was just a guest there. They were her family in the city, since her own was far away down South and incomplete, without a father ever since she could remember.
The Father’s offer to fix Alma’s bedroom door in her shared flat, came accompanied by the proposal to also get lunch. He was fond of his son’s girlfriend. Alma was happy to accept the offer, as she loved eating out, always filling the painful void in her stomach with delicious food. He let Alma choose any place she liked. She already knew of a restaurant she had spotted but hadn’t tried yet. It was an Asian fusion place. The Spanish owner and chef had lived in Tokyo for 7 years and returned home to create a blend of his two favorite cuisines. Father had never stepped into an Asian restaurant before, and he needed extra clarification on what Asian fusion was. He was firm about not trying any insects or pets. Eating out was a pleasure he almost never had fulfilled as the Mother insisted on cooking every day. Eating out was a whim that wasted their money she said. Mother also thought that wanting to eat out was an insult to her own cooking skills. If she wouldn’t cook for her husband anymore, letting him go out to eat, then what would it be next? Hiring a cleaner for the house? Her permanently reddened hands and unpolished nails were standing proof of her commitment to him and the family.
The first time they went to lunch together was a first for both of them. Growing up without a father, Alma never had the chance to experience feeling protected in the presence of her progenitor. Matias’ father was like a sentinel next to her, helping her stand up a little bit taller, making her feel she belonged to the special father-daughter unit. Her nausea dissolved when they were together. For the Father, Alma was the daughter he always longed for but never came. When Alma would tell a joke at the Sunday table, Father would be the one laughing hardest. When there were meatballs for lunch every other Sunday, they exchanged quick glances and sly smiles. It had been 30 years since he disliked that dish; it had been just two for Alma.
The first time they went to lunch together they didn’t know it wouldn’t be the last time. After the initiatory Asian fusion, Father tried out other foreign cuisines the big city had to offer. He was giddy about innocently breaking a 30-year-old rule of not eating outside the home. Innocent was not how he was seen by a couple of his wife’s friends, as he was enjoying a slice of pizza with Alma in Plaza Diamant one sunny Tuesday. Alma watched closely to see if he got it right that time. Head tilted back, his mouth was open as he let the pizza triangle fall into it, melted cheese sliding down first. The mouths of his wife’s friends involuntarily opened as well in shock.
That Tuesday morning, when Father had learned about his son’s and Alma’s sudden dispute, he immediately called her. He wasn’t wrong guessing she’d appreciate it, but he underestimated how hard she’d be hit by Matias’ change of heart. She had put so many of her hopes of making a home with Matias, that once again she fell into the pit of despair, no hope of ever getting a roof over her life. The Father’s call saved her from a morning spiraling into painful memories about leaving her family when she was 16, about always sharing flats since then with many a stranger, about never truly unfolding her entire life somewhere. She felt like her own father had called her for support. That brought Alma even closer to him and hoped that they would still see each other if she and Matias would split up.
As he approached her in Plaza Diamant, he saw a child with big sad eyes, a little girl who had to mature too soon, a lonely young woman who’d rather sit on a bench in a plaza under the blue sky than go to a house where she felt like an uninvited guest. Plaza Diamant was one of Alma’s favorite places in Barcelona. She spent many evenings there, watching families pass by, children play and people crisscrossing it alone. Entering his role as a daughter’s father, a role he longed to perform, the Father advised Alma to take those places she liked and bite-size moments of joy as pieces of her home. He reminded her how the artist Antoni Gaudí had built entire building facades from small pieces of broken tiles, a technique called trencadís. She could make her home in a similar way. Collecting fragments of happy episodes, like tiny shards of colored chinaware, she could build the home her soul longed for. Father was becoming part of her home too, and vice versa. Four walls, a roof over one’s head, and a lifelong marriage, like his own, were not always home. That kind of 35-year uneventful, downright stale domestic life, despite the comforting routine and tradition, becomes suffocating for a soul longing for more.
Alma’s shoulders relaxed and she started to feel her stomach again, together with a looming hunger. That’s when they decided to go in search of a slice of pizza. The Father mentioned that if things fell apart with Matias, he probably wouldn’t be able to keep spending time with her. But that she had so many other little pieces of tiles to build her mosaic of a home with. Her face went a little bit whiter, despite the sun warming it, as she tried to sustain an anxious smile. His role as a daughter’s father was evolving fast, the Father felt like he was already speaking with a grown-up daughter ready to take off. It had been a short but heartfelt experience. Like snails carrying their entire home above their backs, as humans, we carry our home in our hearts. Alma had a few things to think about after that conversation. Her frantic desire to build a home with Matias and escape her current living situation was simmering down. Maybe it wasn’t just about four nicely decorated walls. Maybe what drove away homelessness was feeling safe.
The Mother dropped the large serving spoon into the empty pot with a loud noise. Another successful Sunday lunch. The bang seemed to wake up everyone from their personal contemplations. Matias stood up straight from his slump, impatient to finish the dreaded Sunday meal in which silence had taken over the table. Alma looked up and involuntarily smiled, the politest guest any hostess could ever wish for. The father was happy the meatballs dish was past them and was looking forward to the upcoming flan de huevo. The egg custard was one of his favorite desserts. After the Mother gathered all the dirty plates and the meatballs pot, she took a moment in the kitchen to prepare the surprise side dish before bringing out the dessert. Recalling the moment her friends told her about Alma and the Father’s sneaky meetings brought a wave of heat up her spine once again. But she took in a deep breath, slapped on again her hostess smile, and made her grand entrance, dropping the jiggly custard and the scandalous news on the table.
Matias was the one most surprised, confused as to what the Mother was really implying. He knew his girlfriend got along with his father from the Sunday visits, but that extra piece of information made him doubt what else he didn’t know about the woman with whom he almost moved in. Alma got flushed and prayed for a hole to open up under her chair. She realized how the Mother had interpreted what she had heard, and wondered how she would prove it was nothing like that. It’s not what it looks like, madam. That line would sound like coming from an actress playing in a bad play on a neighborhood stage.
The Father looked at the egg custard but saw a can of worms. His wife brought to the table a discussion topic he knew they’d spend long evenings arguing over, plenty of hostile words would be said. This time he wouldn’t be able to avoid it anymore; he’d have to mention the letdown of not having had a second child, possibly a daughter. Feelings left unsaid needed to come out of his heavy heart no matter how late it was. He recalled Alma’s rather stubborn conviction on feeling homeless and thought there was a shard tainted with homelessness in each of us. Every time we don’t feel safe enough to express who we are and what we want our heart breaks a little, letting in that alienating fiber.
The Mother’s showdown marked a before and an after at the Sunday lunch. Alma knew she wouldn’t be able to go there anymore and enjoy pretending to be part of that family. But she also knew that feeling at home was not about four nicely decorated walls and a pot of meatballs. Feeling at home was about all the little pieces of trencadís in her heart.