Friday Dinner

It was nearing five o’clock, and the three kids were in the kitchen searching the cabinets even though there would be no surprises. The youngest stood on the counter and shook a box of mac ‘n’ cheese. “I’m hungry,” he said as if he were asking a question.

The oldest one found a hot dog in the fridge. She was nine. “Dummy,” she said, “it’s Friday. Mac ‘n’ cheese is Mondays.” She speared the hot dog with a fork and ran it under hot water.

The middle one dragged a chair into the kitchen. “Roz hates our dinners,” he said.

Roz was their mother. They’d always called her by her first name because that’s the way she wanted it.

“No, she doesn’t. She likes pretzels and spray cheese,” the oldest said, and handed the warmed hot dog to her little brother. “Sink dog,” she said. “Eat it.”

“Pretzels and spray cheese is not dinner.” The middle set the chair before the fridge and climbed onto it.

“Get down,” the oldest demanded. They weren’t allowed in the freezer.

He opened the door anyway, and breathed in the shroud of cool air, so much empty frozen space. His belly tightened with something that wasn’t hunger and which, only years later, he would recognize as a gut yearning.

“It’s Friday, the weekend,” he said, then reached into the freezer.

“Don’t do that,” his sister warned, but he was already stepping down from the chair, the thing in his hand, flat and circular and wrapped in plastic.

They gathered around. Every few weeks they pulled a chair to the freezer to look into the box which was always empty except for the pizza.

The ice had built up under the plastic, and now the middle one tapped his fist against the top to knock the ice loose to reveal the patchwork of red discs on a bed of white shards. They had never gotten this far—none of them had ever even touched the pizza much less removed it from the freezer—and now they looked at each other as if there was no turning back.

“It is Friday. She likes surprises,” the oldest one said, and in this way, it was decided.

The oven was off limits, but the oldest knew how to turn it on having seen her use it to make French fries. They had already cleaned the bathroom and swept the floors, and now as the pizza cooked, they decided they’d pick flowers for the table.

The eldest led them to the empty lot where there were always good dandelions, but today there was nothing but bald seed heads, a few fuzzy seeds clinging to the stem.

“Dummy, I knew there wouldn’t be any here,” the middle one said, and led them to the field at the edge of the park where something wild was always blooming. They gathered the white balls of flowering clover, purple pincushions of garlic chives, and clownish white flowers that trumpeted off of long green vines. They walked back, the flowers cradled in their shirts.

The moment they stepped inside, they knew. Something was burning, and under that, a sharp, sour smell.

When they opened the oven, a hot wave of dark smoke spilled out, and their noses stung. Something glistening dripped off the side of the pizza and sizzled when it landed near the orange element. There was a film over the top of the pizza which was dark brown and bubbling. Smoke curled from the oven, and the oldest one pushed her brothers back and slammed the door closed. 

Her eyes searched about their heads, and then she blinked once and let out a sigh. “Oh,” she said. “We didn’t take off the plastic.” She reached past her brothers and turned off the oven, then wandered from the kitchen and lay down on the couch, just as their mother always did when she arrived home from work.

“What do we do?” the middle one asked. “We can’t just leave it in there.” He opened the oven door, then quickly shut it. “What do we make her for dinner?”

“Find some crackers. A can of soup.”

“We have flowers,” said the youngest.

“Don’t be stupid,” his brother said, then frowned, regretting it.

That night, the three lay in their beds listening to the accusing hiss of car tires, wet by a thin rain. The windows open throughout the apartment, the sting of burned plastic still gnawed at them.

The youngest started to cry. “It’s my fault,” he said.

It wasn’t true, but the middle one said nothing. He was the one who’d taken out the pizza. If only he’d let the thing be, let the years encrust it in ice with only a memory of cheese.

“You didn’t do anything, dummy,” the oldest said.

“I could have picked better flowers,” the youngest whispered.

“None of our flowers were any good,” the middle one said. “It’s stupid. Who wants a bunch of dead things anyway?”

Outside, a cat yowled its sad, cat song and then was quiet. The three waited for an answer.