Free Simple Recipes by Madeleine Thien Page A

it from beginning to end, upside and down, in every direction. You’ve pictured it until it’s made you sick
     and dizzy. Your husband has never been unfaithful to you, but something in your life is loose now. A pin is undone. When he
     came home and lay down beside you, you told him, “We’ll work things out,” and he, ashen-faced, nodded.
    His skin was pale in the white sheets and you hovered above him, kissing his skin, trying not to miss anything. You have never
     been unfaithful. That’s what you were thinking every time you kissed him. Look at me, you thought. I have never been unfaithful,
     and here I am, kissing you. You looked straight at him. Your husband’s heart was broken and it wasn’t you who did it. That’s
     what you thought, when he pushed his face against your chest, his body taut and grieving.
    There’s a memory in your mind that you can’t get rid of. The two of you in bed, lying next to one another like fish on the
     shore, watching images of Angola. Out on Oak Street there’s the white noise of traffic, endlessly coming. Catastrophe. Your
     husband said that line again, “Too many cameras and not enough food,” and the two of you watched a woman weep.She wiped her eyes in her dirty handkerchief. And you, on the other side of the world, on another planet, watched soundlessly.
    Instead of writing your book, you are watching the midday news. Like some kind of teenage kid, you’re lying on the couch,
     the remote cradled on your stomach, hand in the popcorn. The world is going to hell in a handbasket. You think this but never
     say it aloud because it’s terrible to be so cynical. But look at the world. While your city works its nine-to-five, bombs
     detonate, planes crash, accidents happen. You sound like your mother. While your marriage stutters on, revolutions rise and
     fall, blooming on the midday news like some kind of summer flower. There’s dinner to be made. Lately you have discovered your
     weak heart. Instead of sitting at the kitchen table writing your book, you’re watching flood waters in Central America, you’re
     watching Dili, people in trucks with rifles strung on their arms. You’ve never even heard a shot fired. You know you think
     about your marriage far too much. You know that, given the chance, you will sit all day on your couch like this, watch what
     happens in another country. There is a woman clinging to a rooftop. A flood in Mozambique. A lack of supplies, everything
     coming too late. By morning, the water may rise over the spot where she sits. You want to get on a plane. You who have always
     wanted to pleasepeople, you want to sandbag and work. You know what you think of this woman on the rooftop — she did nothing to deserve this.
     But what would she think of you? She would look at you with disbelieving eyes. She would look at you with only the faintest
     expression of pity.
    Through small-town Ontario, the three women snap photos of water towers. While you watch from the background, Charlotte climbs
     through the passenger window, her body swaying recklessly out. When she ducks back in, her hair is wild, blown frizzy around
     her head. She smiles a lopsided grin.
    Past hockey arenas and high-steepled churches, blue sky over dry fields, they’re singing along to the radio. Looking forward
     to night, when they will pitch their tent under cover of stars, break out the beer bottles which clank in the trunk. They
     can see themselves dancing carelessly in the hot evening. Charlotte, drunk and spinning, saying, “Girls, I’ve known you all
     my life. What would I do without you, girls?” How bittersweet it is, when she says that. How she wonders what it would be
     like to be nineteen again, or twenty-one. But she’ll settle for this, curled up with her friends in front of the fire. When
     they arrive in Vancouver, her life will return to normal. Headinghome to Saskatoon again, catching up on all the time she’s missed.
    You’re afraid of why it comes