Aurora Magazine 2018

mother smiled sheepishly. I gave an internal sigh, figuring this would be the moment I was sent to bed. It was, after all, a school and work night. “Well, we’re all up now. Who’s hungry?” he asked. Like little kids who got caught and were proud of it, we smiled and said we were. The light from the kitchen burned our eyes as my dad flipped the switch on and headed to the refrigerator. Squinting her eyes against what seemed the light of the gods, my mom groped for the stove and turned on the stove hood light and motioned me to turn off the overhead light. Dad pulled out a can of Pillsbury biscuits and a block of Velvee- ta cheese. We waited for an explanation, but none came. He held out the biscuits to my mom and I seeing if either one of us were brave enough to open the adult jack-in the box. Nei- ther of us were. He smiled and popped open the can silently laughing as my mom and I gave a small jump. He handed my mom the block of cheese and told her to cut it up into sugar cube size cubes and handed me the biscuits to cut into quarters. While we set to our tasks he brought oil to boil. The smell of the oil and raw biscuit dough wafted over me. A smell that would, from that night on, smell like memories and laughter. Finally, after the oil was ready, my father told us he was making fried cheese-puffs. As my mother and father rolled and fried the would-be cheese puffs, stories began to flow from the two of them. First with recollections between the two of them. Then it morphed into stories from their child- B O Y E R

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