Page 52 of Aftertaste
SALé
MAURA ELIZABETH STRUK— no longer haunted by Hunger—wakes in the walk-in of Saveur Fare, between exquisite trays of house-made custard and the frozen body of the man she loves. She trembles, both from cold and from the toxins in her blood. Her breath comes in ragged puffs, tracing cirrus clouds through freezer air. Her tears freeze solid to her lashes. She isn’t ready yet to leave this place, to leave him behind, and either way, she’s paralyzed, so she stays staring at his face, committing it to memory, recalling the taste of Konstantin’s last kiss.
In time, the steel door of the walk-in swings open, and strangers rush in, all doctors’ bags and sterile tools.
“Pufferfish?” they balk, examining Konstantin, trying to help what can’t be saved, and she only blinks once, very slowly, to confirm. Pufferfish , they write on his death certificate, though it was so much more than that, really.
One of the paramedics gives her a look. Frowns.
“Hope it was worth it,” he says, venomous as the fish, as he moves her to a gurney.
She tries to be.
SHE GOES BACK to school. Gets her degree. Codes a dozen games.
There’s one about the Food Hall, a mission where you help a Chef remember. It wins awards, sells out its copies, but she’s proudest of the way the gameplay screens for suicide, the many lives it’s saved.
She lives in Tokyo awhile. In Melbourne. In Tangiers.
She learns to cook.
She eats. A lot.
She loves but never falls in love again, although this doesn’t feel like loss. Only like waiting.
Mostly, though, she remembers. She takes him along.
Salt reminds her. She tastes it in everything, minuscule pyramids of Maldon, coarse grains of Kosher, perfect pink granules of Himalayan Sea, black flecks of Kala Namak, plain old crystals of iodized Morton’s, the little yellow salt girl on the label. Her favorite is always fleur de sel , its delicate flakes like petals, and as they melt across her tongue she can feel him, their bond unbroken even in death, and in her mouth he lives again, is right there, his aftertaste.
He isn’t here, she knows.
But he’s not gone.