This post is part of StoryADay May (https://storyaday.org/) #StoryADay #StoryADayMay @storyadaymay #freeshortstory #FoodTuesday #vegetarian

Mushrooms For Two

“Just try one,” Jake said, poking a fork-speared mushroom slice at my daughter’s face.

“She doesn’t like mushrooms,” I said.

He didn’t take his eyes off her as he told me, “She’s a big girl now. She can make her own decisions. Right, Babe?”

She cut her eyes at me, begging me not to judge Jake harshly, struggling between validating my care for her and Jake’s demand for her total loyalty and obedience.

“You know what Jake?” I said. “You’re right. I’ve helicoptered her long enough. Now that she has you, she doesn’t need me anymore.”

He withdrew the fork to his own plate and gave me a searching look.

I drew a deep breath and met his eyes, ignoring my daughter.

“When her dad went off with that secretary or whatever, I just sort of took over being both parents. It isn’t fair to any of us. It’s time she got out from under my wing and got under somebody else’s.”

“Mine,” Jake said.

I avoided my daughter’s eyes, but I could feel her confusion. For over a year, I had been pointing out the warning signs of Jake’s obsessive control and she had been both arguing with me and reporting the worst of him. I was through trying to figure out what she wanted me to do.

“Let her eat her old boring pasta with pasta. That leaves more for us, right?” I divided the mushrooms, redolent with onion and garlic, piling them on Jake’s and my plates, giving him noticeably more, as was his due.

I lifted a forkful as if waiting for a toast. He lifted a forkful, touched it to mine, and we each took a big bite.

Jake and I had our first companionable chat over that meal, with my daughter relegated to the status of possession transferred from one hand to another.

Later, after they had left and I had cleaned up the kitchen, she called me to see if I was cramping and sweating like Jake. She was worried about food poisoning, although she felt fine. Maybe the mushrooms?

I told her I felt fine, too, although I didn’t.

She wondered if she should take Jake to the ER, although he was refusing to go.

I told her not to worry about it.

She might as well not, since there was nothing the doctors could do at this point. Jake was bigger than I was, but I had given him more than I had taken for myself. Still, we would both probably be dead within hours of each other.

Well worth it for my baby girl. Well worth it.

No poison was involved in the making of this dish. It’s pasta, Portobello mushrooms, dried tomatoes, spinach, Penzeys Tuscan Sunset herb blend, a little pasta water, vegan margarine, and Parmesan cheese.

MY PROMPT FOR TODAY: This pasta thing I made.