The joys of fear

I can think of nothing so good as to live forever in the company of one who does something exquisitely unique and plainly familiar with their food.

My sister eats her burritos in such a way (always bean burritos with no onions or red sauce) where always the beans seem forward and dry, always about to spill out, always just too dry to break tension. She will eat only part of one, or one and part of another, and leave the burrito on the plate opposite a small puddle of mild sauce. This satisfies her, and the residue in that state on the plate will stay, forever that way if she did not eventually discard it.

I have not known anything so familiar as that plate, with a partial burrito almost spilling with refried beans, beside a puddle of mild sauce. To see that plate often, regularly, reliably, is the most palatable of joys. It is the warmth of a home long lost, a portal to days much missed. Days when we three, vagabond siblings of a father we feared and a mother we protected without provocation, ventured in the bounds of home and city, learning what it meant to be alive.