The kitchen is warm in every way. The sun is shining through the our window, highlighting my mom’s oak brown hair. There’s a pot of chicken broth on the stove, chicken and onions boiling in it. I see her hands cutting up dumplings, delicate and precise. Her hands were covered in flour, but you could still see their history. You could see the same care that she gave to me as an infant in the way that she handles the dumplings, treating them with a gentleness, an underlying protection as well. She cares for them. She cares for me.
Ever since I was little, I was different from the other boys, who seemed to know this inherent difference just as much as I did. I would always get teased relentlessly, getting called anywhere from girly to faggot. My mom would always tell me to never pay attention to those who said those mean things. She told me, my hands in hers,”People can’t stand it when someone dares to be special, and God made you special.” At night, I would put on my sister’s night gowns to dance around the house. I laughed and my smile was always wide.
My mother was my mirror. When I smiled, she smiled. When I cried, she cried. She was my rock. I could always depend on her to be on my side, one hundred percent of the time, for certain. I was always baffled by that, and I always wondered how long it would last.
“Jakie, you wanna pull apart the chicken for me?” I’m brought out of my daze. I cross the kitchen to come to my mother’s side, stepping over our black lab. He looked at me and I at him, his eyes looked worried. He could probably tell that there was something going on in my head. He always mirrored the emotion in the room.
I was in fourth grade when we got him, that little black ball of fur that would turn out to be my lifelong companion. He was in a group of little black lab pups, running around among his siblings. They were all obviously adorable, but Pheonix came right towards me and sat in my lap for a nap. I was sold. I had to go home to convince my parents before I could adopt him, but I remembered which one he was due to his little white streak on his chest. He was special. He had an innate difference like me. I loved that about him.
I reach down to scratch that white stripe that isn’t so little anymore before going over to the counter to join my mom. As I’m shredding chicken with my fingers, the warmth in the kitchen becomes more evident. I feel the blood rushing to my face with the help of my increased heart rate. My chest pounds. My heart wants to come out of my chest. It demands to be released. It’s tired of living in hiding, and it wants to be out of my ribs. My heart forces my mouth to move, “Mom, can I talk to you about something?”
She responds, “Of course, honey,” with her gentle smile, placing dumplings into the pot. I gulp, tears well in my eyes. I see a flash of the impossible, of my mother hating me for my innate perversion, seeing not her son but an abomination of man. We never make another batch of chicken and dumplings. I never see her warm smile again. My dog barks at me, motivating me to do what he knows I need to do. He’s crying. My dog is crying. I’m crying. I can’t breath. I can’t do this. She’s looking at me now, seeing my deterioration. I am a dumpling, and I’m boiling. I feel like I’m going to explode.
And she places her hand on mine. She doesn’t take this feeling away completely, but she does it enough for me to croak out that cliché phrase that I hate saying. I feel nothing, it all releases, and I weep. My mother, a 5’6″ woman, takes her 5’10” son and all his 160lbs in her arms. I couldn’t stand, but my mother caught me. She always catches me. I feel nothing more than love and appreciation. And warmth. The kitchen is warm in every way.
(Comments)
- maybe make it about trust and family and what that means (blood is thicker than water)
Composing Self - J. Carpenter 
The opening paragraph is mixing past tense and present tense. Example: I see her hands cutting up dumplings, delicate and precise. Her hands were covered in flour, but you could still see their history. (Revise to: Here hands are covered in flour, but I can still see their history.) Better to narrate in “I” (first-person) than “you” (second person”).
Also, it is typically preferable to narrate memoir in past tense because this is what allows the retrospective voice of reflection to enter. Creating reflective narration remains possible in present tense, but then the perspective of the reflection is limited in its point of view to the present situation being narrated.
It’s also possible to create the immediate situation in present tense – your mom preparing chicken soup in the kitchen and how that makes it “warm” [this is a beautiful idea] – and then intersperse segments of context to unfold the backstory in past tense. You would have to keep these present tense segments and past tense segments very separated by white space breaks.
The story needs to include what it is you talk with your mother about – or somehow allow us to understand what it is that you talk with your mother about on that day in the kitchen, while making chicken soup and dumplings together.
The dog, by the way, could be a witness of sorts to your past. Maybe the dog already knows, on this day in the kitchen, what you are wanting to share with your mother. You say the dog had an innate difference, just like you. The story can expand right here by explaining that difference.
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