Its funny that even now my thoughts turn towards you, Dad. Thousands of miles away, in my own kitchen trying to salvage my latest lunch creation, I recall how you used to hover over the stove and curse.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!" You'd say, lifting the lid and throwing in innumerable spices.
During the worst years, the results were always the same. Either oversalted or overcooked, barely palatable. I would sit and stare at my bowl of spicy squishy mess, until you got angry. Sometimes you got so frustrated, you would smack the table with your wide palm, causing all the dishes to clatter and distress. I would get scared and eat, or sometimes Mom would excuse me. I would run upstairs to hide in my room while you two argued. I can hear how Mom berated you, her voice like a high speed automatic machine gun, or a bird pecking at your head.
You were umemployed then, and Mom had just gotten her new job, the one with the salary twice your former combined incomes. We just got our new house in the suburbs, large and cavernous, with the open foyer and crown moulding. These were supposed to be the happy years.
Afterwards, you would wash the dishes. Sometimes it would take you over an hour. Mother said you were lazy and slow, but I think that perhaps, you just had nothing else to do for the rest of the evening. You would return to your room; your own room, since you no longer shared a bedroom with my mother, your day exhausted by the only task on your agenda: make a meal for your family. You had failed even at that woman's work.
That wasn't always case. You used to whip up savory, steaming dishes: Shitake Mushroom with Pork and Tofu, or Bok Choy with Vinegar, or Beef and Green Peppers in Garlic Sauce. And this was after you worked all day, illegal labor in the back kitchen of the local Chinese restaurant, while Mom went to school. You would be sweaty, in a white wifebeater, and jolly. You say your culinary decline is due to your loss of your sense of taste. But your tastebuds are fine. It's everything else that is not.
My situation now is similar to yours in the past: I am unemployed and bored. I can see how cooking for us was your sole vehicle of expression of love, self, and manhood. I have to believe that you were never malicious. I hope I'm not just making excuses for you.
You were always the nice guy, the neighbors used to compliment us for your being friendly, helpful, and bighearted. You would always help the neighbors move heavy furniture or tinker with their broken appliances. That's why I can't believe you could help beating her, splashing her blood all over our new white kitchen, waking me and baby brother up with her screams. You could not help destroying our family more than you could salvage your cooking more than you could save yourself.
Eating now, I realize I've overthought a dish as simple as fried rice, and put in too much pepper. Too much pepper is why my nose is runny and my eyes watery.
We are a lot alike, you and I, old man. I would get comments on how much I look like you. Mother says that I act like you, pensive and questioning and emotionally reserved. That's why I have to believe you were never malicious, that you are a good guy. That is why I still love you. Even now, when I do everything in my power not to remotely resemble you. When I work doubly hard to be successful and gain other's respect, and to strangle the inherited beast within.
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