The Salt We Keep for Winter

How it begins

Declaration

At the border they ask whether I am carrying food. I think of the jar in my suitcase, wrapped in the shirt my father no longer wears. Salt, I say. Origin? The question seems simple until I try to answer it. The salt came from a shop, the jar from a neighbor, the shirt from a factory whose name has washed away. My father filled the jar at his kitchen table. I am taking it to mine. The officer writes something down. Behind me, a wheel catches in the seam of the floor.

A Winter Substitute

There is no herb exactly like the one he means. I send a photograph of the supermarket shelf. He says no to each green possibility with the conviction of a man refusing bad suitors. At last I buy parsley. The soup is edible. More than edible: it is good in a direction we did not agree on. I do not tell him immediately. I eat two bowls beside the window while the snow revises the street. The next day he calls to say his usual shop has closed. Neither of us mentions the photograph. We discuss what might grow in a pot.

The Lid

Years later, the lid will stick. I will run it under warm water, tap its rim with a spoon, ask a friend who has stronger hands. None of this will open the past. It will open a jar. Inside, the salt will have gathered into one stubborn white landscape. I will break it gently, enough for dinner. There will be people waiting at the table whose names my father never learned to pronounce. They will ask what I have cooked. I will tell them the dish's old name and the thing I changed, and someone will ask for more.