A Simple Distance by K. E. Silva

for ten or twelve people at a time.
    The first obstacle I encountered that morning, during my attempt at preparing a lunch of ham sandwiches for the ten of us, was a dull carving knife, a knife I had to share with Valerie, my grandmother’s maid, as she chopped the chicken for dinner. The bread, thank God, was pre-sliced. There was mayonnaise and mustard, Dijon, in the fridge. The ham itself, my second obstacle, a giant thigh of pig, and I was a vegetarian. The fridge at Tours was probably older than I was and had decided to be weak along with Uncle George. Its main section wasn’t cold enough to keep the meat from going bad overnight, so the ham had been put in the freezer. It was frozen. Solid. There was nothing else for lunch. My healthy uncles had been up all night carrying their brother’s body to and from the toilet, cleaning his soiled skin and night clothes as they laughed with him about almost anything they could think of, so he wouldn’t feel sad, or humiliated. And I, in the kitchen in the middle of the day, couldn’t figure out how to make a ham sandwich. I got them coffee to hold them over, that alone taking me thirty minutes because I had to share the outlet with Valerie.
    I’ll just eat bread and mayonnaise if it takes much longer, Jean, said Uncle Charles, the physician from Canada, who suggested only then that I employ the microwave under the towel in the corner to defrost the meat once the electric socket was free.
    I was able, with the dull knife I told Valerie she could not have back until I finished the sandwiches, to hack off chunks of pig thigh and heat out the ice in the microwave. I had no trouble at all with the microwave, thank you very much. Two by two, I got them sandwiches. The men went first because they were up all night. Susan second, because she was a guest. Then Granny. Then my aunts. It took me an hour and a half. But I had succeeded in giving Uncle George something else to laugh about. And I had succeeded in making a friend of Susan.
    Later, I sat on Uncle George’s good side. He asked me whether I thought he was ready to walk as yet. I told him, maybe soon, maybe just then it was a little too ambitious.
    What evidence do you have for that statement? asked the barrister.
    Well, none. It was a political statement, rather than one based on evidence . I was just trying to make everyone happy.
    And I’d succeeded. Smiling back, he reminded me, You are talking to someone who has been an excellent politician. As he sipped the grapefruit juice I squeezed and strained special for him out of his spill-proof children’s cup, Uncle George told me it was the best juice he’d ever had, and thanked me. He said I would make someone a wonderful wife some day. I was not to listen to the others.
    Susan returned several hours later. We piled into Uncle Martin’s Four-Runner at a quarter past 6:00, just the five of us: Susan, my mom, Uncle Charles, Uncle Martin, and myself. Still time for a quick sea bath before dark, Tours Beach so close, its red clay path just across the street and down a couple hundred feet from Granny’s.
    Uncle Martin climbed into the driver’s seat wearing slacks, said he’d swim in his briefs. It would give the women a much-awaited chance to laugh at him, he said. A pleasure far exceeding any embarrassment he could possibly experience.
    He was joking. A trial lawyer, Uncle Martin had long been untroubled by personal feelings of embarrassment, his daily subjugation to the wrath and ridicule of judges having dulled the most unnecessary layers of his self-respect, leaving him with only those closest to the nerve.
    Martin! Don’t drive through Mama’s garden! Uncle Martin drove out Granny’s yard, crossing against some imaginary boundary between driveway and garden Granny thought proper, but which was really just a big space, plenty wide enough for a truck to drive through and leave no trace of its passage.
    On the street, tall palms blocked our view of the ocean, parting