Ari Koontz, Issue 03 | Nonfiction

I am in the kitchen chopping vegetables, broccoli and shiitake mushrooms and cabbage and carrots, the smell of soy sauce perfuming the air, when my mother comes in and starts crying. She sits at the small table near the doorway and she is wearing her favorite sweater and I can hear her chest heaving with the sobs before I turn around to see her lips pressed together while the tears prick the corners of her eyes.