Canned Salmon

One opened can of salmon sat in the middle of the kitchen table. Cole grabbed the can opener and cranked open the second can while I dumped the contents of the first onto a serving plate. He did the same with the second and we used chopsticks to cut and flatten it. Pale pink salmon meat and the crushed edible bones mixed together into an entirely unappetizing meal in front of our eyes. Yet, as my dad poured on the unbeatable sauce of hot oil and shoyu and garnished the platter with chinese parsley, the tantalizing feast took shape on our kitchen table. My mom came to the table with paper plates and a serving spoon.
“You know, your father and I used to eat this all the time in-” she began, setting it all down.
“Yes, Mom, we know,” Cole said exasperatedly. “You and Daddy used to live off of this. You tell us every single time we eat canned salmon.”
“She does?” I asked vaguely.
“Yes, Ming,” he said.
“See, Cole, I do not!” My mom argued, laughing.
“Yes you do...” he insisted.
“Fine then, we used to live off of this all the time where?” she asked.
“When you lived in New York,” he answered.
“Oh...”
“Ha, owned!” he exclaimed. “Ok sorry...”

Over a table of hot dinner; helping out with housework on the weekends; listening to the radio on the way to school; these were the times when my mom liked to break the silence with a memory. When the occasion arose, my brother and I often learned of my parents’ lives in New York, before we were born. I know Mom worked at a small radio station as my dad went through school at Columbia University. In the pictures I see of them in New York, my dad is wearing enormous square glasses and my mom’s hair is shoulder length. Yet all the small details- the ones that shaped their everyday lives- remain a mystery. How did they go through their everyday lives back then? Did they wake up every morning in a small apartment, walk to a café for morning coffee, and catch subways in opposite directions for their day? Maybe they met at Sbarro’s for lunch, bought slices of pizza and walked through the busy streets, eating it folded in half, New Yorker style. I came into their lives not until the last year and a half of their stay in the City, and the stories my mom tells my brother and I are the only clues I have to their past.
Perhaps, all those years ago, Mom had a proper studio and enough time to paint to her heart’s desire. Waking up on her days off, she could look forward to time just to herself. On the walls of the apartment she shared with my dad hung her artwork; oil paintings of lotus flowers and abstract masterpieces. On blustery autumn days, she could go down to the corner restaurant in a sweater and jacket and order a falafel and hummus with pita; eating it slowly and watching busy people rush by through the large glass windows. Back in the apartment, in the studio which was her own, she mixed colors to the vibrance of dragon fruit and the calmness of dry leaves in the wind. She made emotions fly onto canvas to the melody of a Beethoven Symphony playing on NPR’s Evening Concert. And outside, in the brisk New York air, days closed with the swift, invisible setting of the sun.
Maybe, for my father, days began early. Coffee was 50 cents at the small café just before the subway station. Days always began with a tall house and a seeded bagel. On weekends, maybe a trip to the New York public library was the excursion, or to Central Park. Walking for hours through the city, discovering detours and getting lost; that’s what Daddy liked to do. For lunch, there was hot seafood chowder in a bread bowl waiting at the bistro. Taking off his heavy, warm, leather jacket and sitting down to enjoy, he’d watch the squirrels dash around in the park. On the way back to the apartment, maybe he’d stop at an old bookstore and find a book of poetry for my mom. Sometime early in the evening, he’d climb the stairs up to the apartment. Walking through the kitchen to my mother’s studio, he’d admire all the artwork on the walls. Seeing him, my mom would put down her paints and turn off the radio.
Perhaps, some words were exchanged then; Maybe jackets and sweaters were hung up, paint brushes were washed and tables were cleared.
And then, perhaps, concealed from the New York life, the two of them would sit down to share a plate of canned salmon.