Love, Loss, and What We Ate

by Padma Lakshmi

  These peppers were not for Teddy. He never liked his food very spicy, even at his healthiest. These peppers were not for Krishna. Most were way too hot, even if she did eat much spicier food than others her age. These peppers were for me, shiny and ready to unleash their power into some otherwise bland dish. One of my favorite pastimes was to bring home a big haul of different peppers and experiment, making up new chutneys or blending them with fruits like green apple or hard green plums for a sweet and sour relish. My mother has always been the condiment queen of our family, whipping up sauces in her blender or with her mortar and pestle, with magic in her hands. She could turn any boring lunch or dinner into an intensely tantalizing experience of hot and sweet and sour flavors exploding in your mouth at once, by just adding a sauce or relish on the side. I had inherited the same itch, if not yet honed a subtlety of palate like hers. I liked the jagged spike of fresh salsas, and the mellow depth of slow-cooked chutneys, too.

  But in those days what I was most interested in was pickling. I had been around the grand ritual of pickle making when I was young, of course, in my grandmother’s home. And when we first moved to Los Angeles and stayed with my uncle Bharat, my mother made many pickles with the citrus in their backyard. But those were Indian pickles. They were very complicated to make and often perfumed up the house for days with the aroma of mustard oil and frying spices. Some Indian pickles have a laundry list of ingredients that runs for miles, including many you could never even taste anyway. My foremothers assured me that every ingredient was essential, whether I knew why or not, and considering the heat of the chilies involved, nothing should be omitted because you needed these ingredients to buffer the stomach. Regardless, all that alchemy and the array of items to achieve it were not in the cards at that strange juncture of my life. What I got very interested in was simple preservation.

  Pickling is a great activity. It requires very few ingredients besides the vegetable you are actually pickling. A handful of seeds, herbs, and twigs thrown into salted vinegar and you are in business. Simply submerging your favorite summer vegetables or early fall chilies in liquid and seasonings takes mere minutes, and bestows months of good bottled heat in the dead of winter.

  Krishna immediately fell in love with pickling. Pickles were the first thing we made together. She had seen me add pickled chili peppers to countless dishes. She was fascinated by the ceremony of it. We filled the lids of spice bottles with coriander seeds, oregano, and black peppercorns, arranging them in an assembly line on the counter. Then I poured clear vinegar into a large pickling jar, adding enough salt and a spoonful of sugar. It delighted her to see these dissolve, disappearing with every stir of her wooden spoon like magic. She tried to not stir too swiftly while I coarsely sliced some onions and carrots on the bias. We added the spices to the jar one by one. She loved to watch them swirl around, sticking her little fingers into the vinegar to taste. We tossed the cherry peppers with the other vegetables into a bowl, and she mixed them with her hands. While I tried to gently plop them into the jar, she laughed, plunging her whole hand into the cold, salty vinegar.

  krishna’s pickled peppers

  Makes a dozen pickled peppers

  2½ cups distilled white vinegar

  ¾ teaspoon kosher salt

  ¼ teaspoon granulated sugar

  1 medium carrot (2 to 3 ounces), cut into ¼-inch-thick slices on the bias

  ½ small yellow onion (2 to 3 ounces), cut into ¼-inch-thick crescents

  12 medium fresh jalapeños or other chili peppers (approximately 14 ounces)

  ½ teaspoon whole coriander seed

  1 teaspoon Mexican oregano

  In a measuring cup, mix the vinegar, salt, and sugar until completely dissolved. Set aside.

  In a large bowl, combine the carrot, onion, jalapeños, coriander seed, and oregano. Toss together with your hands to mix evenly.

  Fill a 1-liter glass jar with the spiced vegetables, taking care to scrape any remaining spices from the bowl to the jar. Carefully pour the vinegar mixture into the jar, pressing the vegetables down with a wooden spoon if needed.

  Cover the jar with an airtight lid. The pickled peppers will be ready to enjoy in 2 to 3 months.

  There was so much tactile pleasure in pickle making, and little she couldn’t participate in. It gave her a deep sense of pride to display the bottles on our counter, which was right opposite the front door. Whenever a new person entered the house, she would indicate that she had made them herself by running over to where they were and pointing upward, saying, “Look my pickles! I made pickles!” She kept asking when they would be ready, the glowing red orbs in ever amber-colored water. That they were most likely too hot and she would never be able to eat them herself did not curtail her suspense and anticipation. I kept telling her they wouldn’t be ready for months, because at first she would look at them every day, shaking them at the base with both hands in such a way I feared they would slide off and come crashing down over her head. “When, Momma, when?” “When it gets really cold, and you wear the heavy coat for the snow,” I said. It occurred to me then that by the time I took my first bite of these pickles, so lovingly made and impatiently waited for by Krishna, Teddy might not be around. I wanted the next days to go slowly as much as Krishna wanted them to speed up. Outside our window, I saw the first leaf fall from the maple tree, turning and swirling hopelessly toward its death on the ground below.

  It was almost Halloween. Krishna was a lion. She had a costume that looked exactly like a child-sized replica of the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. It was the perfect costume, furry and soft and warm. Her rosy cheeks and dimpled chin smiled from ear to ear with self-satisfaction. Teddy had been sleeping a lot that weekend since we got to the house on Meadow Lane. He hadn’t been up at all since going to bed early the evening before, but he could feel me in the bed with him. He held and squeezed my hand when I slipped it into his. He interlaced his fingers with mine. He was pretty weak then. He had to use the wheelchair at all times, and he hated it. And he was thin. So very thin. When I turned to hug him, pressing my body up against his back, I could feel his ribs on my breasts, the bones of his arm and shoulder, even his tailbone and pelvis against my front.

  Krishna and I had gone apple picking with Maggie down Route 27, and I was making applesauce for her and Teddy, with lots and lots of cinnamon and butter. Teddy loved cinnamon; he had it in his coffee every day. But he no longer drank coffee. When the thrush and chemo made his throat sore, it became hard for him to swallow. He began to choke on simple soft roast chicken. He just couldn’t be bothered to chew, either. But I knew he loved my applesauce. It was warm and wet, and sweet. It would go down, if anything could. Krishna loved it, too. It was her favorite, neck and neck with Tha-Tha’s banana payasam. The house smelled of brown butter and cinnamon and stewed apples. There was enough so that Maggie and I put some in containers to cool on the counter. And even a portion for us to take back to the city. There was a definite chill already and the autumn leaves were rustling in the wind from the sea. None of us had walked on the beach for quite a while. It was too cold. I hoped what had been bubbling on the stove would keep us all warm.

  Judy was there, too. Judy doted on Krishna, and Krishna loved her. They even shared the same birthday. And they had similar dispositions. Judy had brought Krishna a set of fairy wings that were delicate, gauzy, and pink, with a wand and crown, and they delighted Krishna. I also got her a mail-order white tiger costume, which was for indoors. We had just seen a live white tiger at the Ringling Bros. circus also named Krishna, while I was filming the show in Texas that summer, so she had wanted to be that for Halloween. But I couldn’t resist getting the lion. It would keep her warm on its own if she went trick-or-treating outdoors. She looked fantastic in all of them.

  The late-afternoon sun was getting low. Krishna wanted to show her poppy her Halloween getup, and she wouldn’t accept that he could not be awakened to look at it. The bed was almost as tall as she was, but she had recently lea
rned to wedge her toes deep into the crevice between the box spring and the mattress to hoist herself up. She sometimes pulled on a sheet for leverage, though at times she pulled on Teddy. I walked in and saw this small brown animal creep up and startle poor Teddy, who let out a low groan. “Poppy, wake up. Wake up now, Poppy!” She had been waiting patiently way past lunch and now she couldn’t stand it any longer. I was afraid she would hurt him or herself. I came up from behind and carried her up into the bed. I told her to be very careful because Poppy wasn’t feeling strong. Teddy had some random purplish bruises on his forearm from all the treatments and I pointed them out to Krishna, to always be careful where she grabbed Poppy. She was so used to being rough with him, to just climbing all over him at will. I put her carefully on my side of the bed next to him. He happened to be turned inward toward where I would sleep. She was as careful as it’s possible for a toddler under two to be. I was moved by how her little hand rubbed his forearm. She put her face right up close to his, as much as the woolly mane would allow her to. “Poppy, wake up! Look, I’m a lion.”

  I lay down on the other side of Krishna to make sure I could buffer any sudden movements she made. The remaining hair that was not shaved off on the side of Teddy’s head had been shorn to a very short quarter-inch of salt-and-pepper stubble. And it made him look strangely like a little boy sleeping with his hands under his stubbled chin. He did not open his eyes. “Mmm,” he moaned, clearly disturbed. “Poppy, I’m a scary lion, arrg!” Her poppy was not getting up. “Poppy, Poppy, get up!” She squealed right into his face. “Let him sleep, kanna.” I tried to gently pull her away by the waist. “Just open your eyes,” she cajoled. “Open. Poppy. See?”

  I didn’t know then that it would be the last exchange between Krishna and her poppy, but what I saw scared me. “Hey, if you can hear us, Teddy, blink,” I said quietly. He did not blink. But then the corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. And then he slowly opened his eyes and shut them again rapidly, as if to say, “Not there yet, Junior.” Without opening them again, he said, “Hey, kiddo.” Now Krishna became emboldened and lunged her face back closer to his. “Look! I’m a lion.” “You are a lion.” “You’re not looking,” she accused. Teddy with great effort opened his eyes again. They stared at each other for what seemed like a long time. All I could hear was Teddy’s breathing, slow and heavy. Krishna couldn’t stand the silence. “I love you, Poppy. Oh yes. I. Do.” Teddy closed his eyes. “I love you, too, kiddo. Have fun.”

  Before he could finish, she was already scrambling down to the wooden bench at the foot of the bed. From there she could make it to the ground easily. She scampered off to find Judy or Maggie. I stayed there for a few minutes. I moved closer to Teddy and tried to put my arm around his waist, but after a few seconds felt the weight of my arm was too much on his torso. “You okay?” I asked him. “Yeah, just tired. She’s a lion.” That night would be the last night Teddy and I would sleep in that house together. Or share any bed again.

  It was very early in the morning of November 20 when the call came. So early that it was still dark in the bedroom, with not even a sliver of light peeking through the space between wall and window shade. Krishna shifted slightly at the first ring, but the soft rumble of her nostrils did not break the sleepy rhythm of light snoring. She had woken up a few hours before, crying out. I managed to pat her back to sleep. I thought then that she’d had a bad dream. By the second ring, I was out of bed. When I got to the phone, charging in the kitchen, the ringing had stopped. Bleary-eyed but awake, somehow I knew. He was no more.

  The night had been uneasy from the start. After a supper of peas, carrots, shrimp, and rice noodles, Krishna and I got into the bath later than usual. I could feel her bum bouncing on my thigh as I soaped her neck and shoulders. Along with the yellow duckies and other tub toys, a few noodles and peas bobbed in the soapy water, stowaways in the many folds of her belly. I washed her hair with one hand as I fished for the stray pea, the odd noodle, with the other. I ladled water over her head with a plastic mug. As I washed her, an alarm began to ring in my head, faint at first, then louder and louder.

  I felt fingers scratch at my torso. I looked down to see my heartbeat pulsing visibly, wildly, and her open mouth reaching for a nipple. I parried her attempt, guiding her lips away. “I want . . . ,” she whimpered. I had already weaned her, but she still wanted her way. I needed to find my phone. “No more Mommy’s milk, kanna,” I said, spinning her slippery frame to face forward, then pulling the drain. I got out of the bath and reached for my phone. My hand dripping and now shaking, I dialed his home. Cursorily wrapped in a towel, I stood in the doorway, watching her in the tub.

  “Hi, Padma.” His housekeeper, Sandy, answered before I’d spoken. My throat tight, I asked if everything was okay, if I should just bundle the baby up and come over. A cab, the FDR, I could be there in ten minutes. Something was wrong. I could feel it. “They’re up there with him,” she said, referring to his siblings, who had by then come in and taken over his care in the last stages of his illness. “Let me check.” I had dressed by the time I heard Sandy’s voice again. Water from my hair dripped down my spine beneath my sweater. I kept my eye trained on Krishna’s glistening back as she sat in the now-empty tub with her toys strewn around her, humming softly and coloring with bath crayons on her newly enlarged canvas. Two ducks, run aground, were nestled against her lower back, beak to beak as if kissing. How strange this looks, I thought, how arranged.

  “They said to tell you there’s no change.” I had known Sandy for more than four years by then and could tell how tired she was by the strain in her Bosnian accent. The next time Sandy and I would speak would be at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home.

  Early that next morning, after I’d felt my way in the dark to the phone, I saw who had called. I took the phone to the living room and sat down on the green velvet couch. I dialed his sister’s number for confirmation, though I needed none. She wouldn’t tell me the exact time of death. But I knew when in the middle of the night he had chosen to go. Even the baby had; it seemed she had woken up to say good-bye. I couldn’t go back into the bedroom. I couldn’t bear to lie down next to her, my body now filled with this irrevocable information. I wanted her to continue sleeping in a world that still contained her poppy, for as long as she could.

  For months I had known this day would come. From the moment seven and a half months prior when the surgeon, still in his scrubs, had told me and Teddy’s children of the large, voracious tumor in his brain. Throughout the sweet heartbreak of watching Krishna learn the names of his nurses, seeing her gradually grasp the purpose of the IV they tended, which, as she put it, was meant to cure “the big boo-boo in Poppy’s head.” Still, despite my almost daily rehearsal of the inevitable, the event itself, the blow to the gut, was no less startling than if his plane had fallen out of the sky. When I heard the news, for a moment I saw my life without him, the many lonely years ahead of me. I sat motionless until a wave of grief toppled me sideways and my tears soaked the couch. Sometime later, dawn broke over the East River, and the living room glowed with gentle light. My heaving sobs and tears had stopped. I lay there, very still, until the bedroom door clicked open. Krishna shuffled out and stopped, blinking. “Mommy, I’m scared,” she said, the first time she had ever used that word. I stood up, took her in my arms, and held her, thinking but never saying, me too.

  I ached for him now, for his “dashing man” smell, for his booming voice as he called out to me as I primped in front of the mirror: “Hurry up now, Junior, we haven’t got all day.” Indeed, we hadn’t had enough time at all.

  applesauce for teddy

  Makes 4 cups

  10 medium mixed apples (approximately 3 pounds), cored, peeled, and cut into 16 pieces each

  Juice of 1 medium-sized lemon (approximately 2 tablespoons)

  ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

  ½ cup cane sugar

  ¼ teaspoon kosher salt

  1½ tablespoons gro
und cinnamon

  ¼ teaspoon ground clove

  Put the apples into a bowl and toss them with the lemon juice.

  In a deep pot, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Once the butter is evenly melted and slightly brown, add the apples with their juices and stir. Cook for 1 minute.

  Add the sugar, salt, cinnamon, and cloves, sprinkling evenly throughout, and stir vigorously to distribute.

  Raise the heat to medium and cover. Cook covered for approximately 25 to 30 minutes, depending on how chunky you like your applesauce. You’ll need to cook longer for smoother applesauce. Every 5 minutes, uncover and stir briskly, breaking up the chunks of apple with the side of your spoon, then replace the lid.

  Serve warm.

  chapter 17

  The world had changed. It had dimmed. It was as if my eyes had been traded for some other lenses, ones with a darker filter through which less light got through. I was fine with this. I wrapped my grief around me like a cloak. I took comfort in it. I went out into the sunlight of the outside world only when my work or Krishna required it. I focused on just three things: Krishna, work, and Teddy’s being gone. He had entered my life and in so doing had altered it completely and ineradicably, and now his death, his exit, altered it anew. My cocoon of grief became so familiar to me, so safe, so cozy, that I did not want to venture out. This is how life will be, I thought.

  In January 2012, less than two months after Teddy’s death, I would enter the Supreme Court of the State of New York for the first day of the custody trial. I was on autopilot. There were opening statements. A couple of observers sat in the back of the courtroom listening. And then I took the stand. I remember thinking how shiny Adam’s shoes looked, how big his feet appeared under the table he sat at with his lawyers. My attorneys had prepared me by instructing me to be concise in my answers and to tell the truth. Answer only the question asked of you. Do not get rattled by the other side, they had warned. I felt as if nothing could rattle me again. After two hours of questioning, we broke for lunch. The Dell lawyers had done their best to find some fault with my parenting in their opening statement and realized they could not after I took the stand. And so Adam’s side asked for a recess over the weekend to negotiate out of court. I was never cross-examined. And Adam would not take the stand. By that Monday, we reached a settlement. I walked away numb but with no significant change to what was in place before the litigation. In the end, Krishna’s last name would be hyphenated to include Adam’s surname. She would now be called Krishna Thea Lakshmi-Dell, a small price to pay for an end to the meaningless and expensive anguish.