Bestiary

Feast for the Living

72 Feast for the Living I dream my father is alive, preparing the Ocean Drive house for a dinner party. Together we walk down the aisles, my father steering the cart, selecting favorite foods: dark chocolate, crisp baguettes, smoked salmon, buttery Chardonnay, chickens, romaine. At home, he clips basil and thyme from garden, pulls on his chef ’s apron and improvises, reigning over the stove. Throughout our dinners he would declare,“Let the wine flow,” and we, his family and friends, would travel down a garnet river, bubbling, rippling, clinking under the wind-blown stars, swapping the stories of our shared adventures, the tales of places he had navigated across the globe. My father shows me how to poach, sauté, and whisk, as he conjures from scratch this dinner for his wife, my mother. “What’s the occasion?” I ask. While stirring he explains, to prepare my mother for his departure, so she will make new friends, once he is gone. ...