La Cantina … A bar?  No.          A gift from a man to encourage me.          

 He sat at my kitchen table and drank his espresso, his cap on a chair. He was staying a while.

 He looked around at my messy counters and the pressure cooker rattling at full blast.

“Spanish bean soup. Making extra,” I said.

“Si? Why?” He arched his brow.

I checked the food to make sure nothing would burn and came to sit by my father.

“Someone’s sick at church. Going to take food to the family.”

His forehead wrinkled. “You did, last time I came. Again?”

I poured some espresso for me in a demitasse. Should I tell him?

He put his small cup down. “Why?”

I turned to face him. “Remember when we lived in the $30 apartment in New Haven?”

My father nodded and moved his chair to face me too.

“Every day I came from school to that empty apartment. Every day going up those steps to the apartment I knew there wouldn’t be anyone to greet me. My sister and I alone, ‘til you and Mami came home late at night from your second job. Cleaning offices.”  I paused to search Papi’s eyes. His eyes looked soft. Interested.

“I know you had to do it. To bring Abuelo and Abuela here.  But I miss Mami being there like she was in Cuba.”

My dad pushed back his chair a little and leaned back.

“I got a gift, Papi. What I wanted. To be able to be with my children when they come home from school.  And I’m so grateful. I wanted to give back something since I have the time. So I cook and bring meals to sick people from church. It’s my way of saying thanks.”

My dad stared at me for a minute or two, then, he looked around at the pressure cooker and at counters cluttered with groceries for the meal to be made.

He smiled one of his big wide smiles. “I know. I know what you need!”

The next week my father came with bag in hand and a déjà vu smile.

“Mira. Aqui. La Cantina. You do good for people,” he said, as he drew out of a bag a tower of metal pans, stacked and kept together by long metal bars. La Cantina, a Cuban icon from my childhood. My parents used to take food to my grandparents in one of those cantinas, a Cuban way of transporting food, a treasured memory from the land of azure seas and royal palm trees.

I gave my dad a kiss and held back tears till he left. Did I ever communicate to him the great encouragement of his words and actions?  I look back now and think, not enough.

But the story doesn’t end there. Today I made food to bring to my daughter who has three children and a new baby. A mom who well deserves a rest from chores.   

I often call her house asking for her and one of my granddaughters answers, “Mom’s not here. She cooked food for someone at church who’s sick and went to deliver it.”