Dinner

8 Short Story

Iplaced the sack of rice in his hands. We had traced many miles of backward paths to find homes that would welcome us, sit with us, be with us. We found many. I had never encountered these village plots in my sum of travels, just a jog from the pot-holed highway we frequented during the week. The stench of voodoo coiled in the air, married with the smell of rotting mangoes along our tracks. Both called my attention.

A friend to my right offered a sack of brown beans to the frayed man while children scattered out of a mud-sealed house. The young eyes studied us and giggled at our differences. Somewhere in the mixture of shy smiles on cracked skin and murmurs of English and Creole enclosing me, I mumbled a blessing for the man holding armfuls of rice and beans and the household holding many mouths. His family extended beyond his lineage, offering grace and shelter to those with none. Prior to this encounter, we felt like we had been heaping scoops of rice and beans into plastic grocery sacks, but now it seemed we had come with far too little. Even after my lips ceased moving, my prayers echoed in the chambers of my mind.

Multiply, oh please, multiply. I looked up at him, my hand still extended in our parting benedictions. I felt anxious for the things I should say to him, but in my hesitation he spoke to me first. The words I could not understand in his native language I translated through the grammar of his eyes. He spoke validation. The rice and beans were more than two sacks; they were twelve basketfuls. Many will be satisfied.