Dear Tofu Triangles from that Thai Restaurant on Thayer Street,
We were there for lunch and yes, I was inexperienced with both tofu and Thai food but that wasn’t the biggest point. The biggest point was that you were her absolute favorite dish, and she used to leave the campus of her boarding school to order you for lunch or dinner all through high school and I was trying to imagine that freedom, that indulgence, that agency while comparing it to my own experience, which seemed so drab, so prescribed. She was so happy to tell me about you, to pay for lunch, to clap her hands excitedly when you arrived at the table. The sun fell in through the large windows. It was the middle of the week. That was my first introduction to a meal with her. Life was full of promise.
I heard your restaurant is gone now. It was a fire? Or construction? I rarely went back after I graduated and especially not now.
I guess I should tell you that she is gone too. I don’t know if you’ve heard that. In the end her freedom wasn’t real.
But that day we shared with you – that was something to hang on to.
Thank you,
-e.