I cried every night after date night, had my eyes soured and squeezed when I drank my lime water, counting the crêpes on the dish and dividing it by two each moment she stayed absent from the swinging door.
“What a big baby you are!” My mother used to scold me every time after date night. The mango pudding aftertaste sucked my tongue dry of the kisses cherried on top, her coos melting away all whipped cream, champagne headaches and melted mozzarella cooking my throat medium well.
“What a big baby you are!” She said after date night, peppering my child - our child - with kisses before drizzling another boy up with them. And that moment, as the restaurant cooked up with steamed blood and molten rings, mother chased her out, leaving me to cry, me to cry, me to cry.
She’s gone… she’s gone… she’s gone… Mother’s shadow dampened the crust of her apple pie, left three days old in the stove, staled hour by hour the longer she stayed absent - with that other woman, in the aftertaste of champagne hangovers, soured with the absence of her apple pie, cremated with the oil of her Granny Smith lip balm.
Every date night, every date night, “get better, darling! It’s the girl, not your mom!” Every date night, every date night, “when are you coming back to me? When are you coming back to me?” Every date night, every date night beer hung over my head, alcohol drinking away my senses, the apple pie untouched - a funeral of pudding pies and tomato words.
She loved another man that night. The peppers of his French accent drizzled down the lilt of her lips and down her honeyed chin, the same that night. The same as my new lover, the same as newly bought wine, festering and filling the creases of my lips, his velvet cake and macarons, which buttered the recesses of my mind - a rotting plate of macaroni and cheese. She loved another man that night, as his tongue fermented my syllables, stutters, trembles anew to cocktails of strawberries with the pulp of her, her who staled on my plate. Her, whose funeral only my memories attended. Her, whose bones festered for seeds of a vineyard, land for a slaughterhouse. All for me to drink and eat in the midnight snack of a dinner.
Oh her, oh her. He proposed that day. Could she believe it? Swallowed by the sparkling booze of silver, an apple of a diamond shoved straight in the mouth of my ring. Could you believe it? That date night, that date night. I cried again, ring wafting fresh and steaming from the velvet of its casket, over the corpse of her pie, her pie, her rotting corpse of a pie.
“I’m so happy for you, darling!” My mother would cry and whisper and echo as tears continued to pour out of me, choking drunk cries and smiles out of my overflowing bottle of drizzling words and my slurring lilt of a voice.
I was recovering. I was recovering. She was out of date night, that moment she rotten out on the streets, ran over by those hungry ants. I was recovering, holding our rings together instead of the pie, smiles carving out of me instead of maggots crawling and eating it all away.
I was recovering. I was recovering as our children slept in my bed and me in my mother’s hollow stove, wafting with his scent instead of her cookies and pie. In my wedding dress, his bow tie knotted my lies she prepared the rope for. She, the woman who cremated that pie, left it to be eaten alive in the gutter, and walked free with more candy to chew on. She had the fondant for me to sculpt another pie, another menu where I could hide the last, those scalding words which burnt my tongue cosy and bittersweet, the mother who bore my life budding in the seeds of her pumpkin pie.
He feeds me with what I cook for myself, a mere layer over which I meld from fondant - over the cakey crust of a cremated pulp, gone and left to fester away at the seeds beneath. I was happy - I am happy, as his perfume wafts over the last of that forgotten cemetery, waffling over the H in ‘happy’, sprinkling chocolate drizzle on the date night strawberries. I was happy. I was happy as another entrée wiped clean of the last - the pumpkin pie preserved in my tears, meshed in his baked potatoes, still pulped with her memory, mother’s memory.
After date night, I miss my pumpkin pie. I cry for her. My mother.
Angie Yeung is always here to geek out about every artistic field known to mankind, from classical music to poetic novels. Despite her stage fright, she enjoys playing the piano and violin to an audience. Still a full-time student from Hong Kong, she hopes to study creative writing in the future on the side of publishing the coming year. You can find her on Instagram: @angeryed._
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