My father stood in the doorway to the main kitchen, near the shelves filled with copper pots and pans of every size and shape. Beside him stood Mrs. O"Brennan, the assistant chef, taking pots down, putting others up. When she looked up, looked up at my father, I saw something that chilled my heart. She looked at him with familiarity and fondness.
I couldn"t see my father"s face, but I didn"t have to. He spoke to her with such gentleness; he spoke to her in English. God grabbed my entire world and shook it until everything fell in different places, wrong places.
Many of his words were wrong. Mrs. O"Brennan only smiled and gently corrected him. When she didn"t understand him, or him her, a look passed between them, a wordless communication. It troubled me more than their words, as much as
