The Last Meal

The smell of beef drifted through the kitchen, and even before the buzzer sounded Sharon knew it was done. She put down her nail file—they’d been breaking more easily these days, her nails—and went to the stove. She turned the buzzer off and then the oven, though she knew the dish inside would need a few minutes still to sit. She stirred the contents of the front saucepan and turned the heat to Low, then removed the pot containing the broccoli from the back burner to the cool tile counter. She turned off the heat from the broccoli, and drained the green water into the sink.

She’d need to clean the oven tonight, as she hadn’t cleaned it in awhile and dishes at hotter temperatures were starting to smoke. She’d let it run overnight, and make sure all the dishes were washed and put away—Lisa, her cleaning lady, was coming tomorrow and Sharon wanted her to do more than just wash dishes. She wished that John would come over after Lisa had been in to clean, but due to his busy work schedule, it couldn’t be helped. As it was, he’d asked her to make his favorite beef casserole, one that Sharon had developed herself. He told her he’d pick up some wine on the way, and perhaps a loaf of bread. She’d told him to avoid the bakery on 8^th street, as the last time she’d had bread from there, she’d found maggots in it.

Sharon plucked a few loose hairs from her face and flicked them away, watching them drift slowly to the floor. She put the broccoli in a serving bowl and set it on the dining room table, shifting place settings and the occasional dead sowbug aside in order to make room. The sounds of the radio could be heard faintly in the living room, mostly static these days. She’d been asked why she didn’t just turn it off, and her answer was always the same: she found it soothing.

Turning back to the kitchen, she glanced briefly out the window, at the brown, dead grasses and naked, skeletal trees. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen, the same sickly yellow as faded wallpaper in a smoker’s house, or of old black-and-white photographs of long-dead people. Dust swirled lazily in the sunlight, glinting like tiny prisms. Sharon stirred the sauce on the stove, the spoon scraping against the pan with a sound like a tireless wheel rim rolling over an empty gravel road. She turned the burner off and moved the pan to the side, which would allow the sauce to thicken. She reached into the oven and picked up the casserole dish with her bare hands—she knew it would be cool enough to touch.

The gas had shut off a week ago.

Sharon stared into the casserole, a formerly white ceramic pan with chips and brown stains, and a clump of hair fell into it. She flung this, too, to the floor, and set the casserole on the counter.

She walked into the living room to wait.

She sat on the moth-eaten couch and casually, without fuss, began to pull out her teeth.