Dinner Time

~ Donna-Louise Bishop

It’s not quite the same now. Three plastic plates rest on the kitchen worktop with a single porcelain one, where once there sat two.

Even when he worked shifts, you would still make him a meal and cover it over with cling film, ready for when he eventually arrived home.

Now there’s no need.

It’s just you and the boys this meal time. Every meal time.

Dinners aren’t quite as glorious as they once were. It’s mainly freezer food and convenience based now. Quick. Easy. Everything a divorce isn’t.

Gravy has become a missing ingredient. That had always been his job. Your version had lumps. Still, the boys seem okay with a ketchup substitution.

Despite the absence of the second adult, dinner time has become a happier occasion. You no longer sit across from a stranger, who ate his meal in record time and removed himself from all talk about the day.

Your eldest dominates the conversation without fear of being told to be quiet. The middle child eats at his own pace. The baby is focused on what vegetables he’s going to be presented with. Really it’s the same, but it’s different. Calmer.

And while you stare at the walls, consumed by an unwelcome loneliness, you allow yourself to be comforted by the relief of it ending and the giggles from your children enjoying an extra scoop of ice cream

Published by Donna-Louise Bishop

Mum-of-three and writer based in Norfolk, UK.

14 thoughts on “Dinner Time”

  1. The comparisons in this worked well — the tempest and the calm. You also did a lovely job of conveying heavy emotions without overwriting them — simple sentences describing banal events was a really good way of showing the depth of loss and sadness. The last paragraph could have used a little tweaking to clarify what “it” was (“by the relief of it ending”). Even though the reader can easily figure it out, spelling out that you meant an end to the tension and stress of family meal times would have strengthened this.

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  2. I liked how simply you told this story, and the contrasts.
    One question: Is the omission of a full stop (period) at the end deliberate?

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  3. It may have been my reading of it, but I felt like “Three plastic plates rest on the kitchen worktop with a single porcelain one, where once there sat two.” didn’t quite flow like the rest of the piece. The detail was lovely, but I stumbled to get the meaning. Maybe it was the construction of the sentence or where it was – I didn’t know then about the children and divorce? But that’s really nitpicking. This piece felt very calm and personal and emotional, but it didn’t hit me over the head with them. It was perfectly balanced – soothing somehow.

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    2. Agreed. With this image did you intend to show that there are 3 kid plates and 1 adult plate instead of 2 adult plates? I think pointing out a missing person via missing objects works, but from my particular family experience, I don’t catch the specifics/nuance of what’s missing by the material of the plates (plastic vs porcelein), so it’s a bit distracting.

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  4. This piece feels like a sigh, like decompression. So many images and short sentences at the beginning, and then they slowly lengthen and unfold a bit more at the end, as you process what you’re going through. Thanks for sharing. Sending long-distance hugs against the unwanted loneliness.

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  5. Wow, DL! First, love the blog ❤ Second, you showed so well that sense of an exhale. Like how dinners once were one long inhale until your ex walked out of the room and now you and the boys are able to breath, so to speak. Wonderfully told, lovely! ❤

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  6. I totally got the dinner plate thing. I remember those plastic plates and sippy cups. I think you expressed the confusing emotions of divorce so well – the peace and ease the kids feel and the loneliness. That line- “everything a divorce isn’t” – was perfect.

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