Banana Sandwiches -- The Recipe I Reach For When the World Hands Me Something I Cannot Hold

Baby, I have something to tell you that I've been holding for two days because I needed to hold it before I could say it.

A letter came on Wednesday. Handwritten. Four pages. From DeShawn Morris.

You know who that is. The boy who was driving the car. The boy who was texting. The boy whose hands were on the wheel when my Marcus got hit. He's twenty-four now. He found me through the church website. He sent the letter to the church and Sister Beulah brought it to me Wednesday afternoon and put it on the kitchen table and said, Loretta, I'm going to sit with you, and I said, no Sister, I need to read this alone, and she said okay and went to fold the dish towels in the dining room because she wasn't going to leave the house and I didn't argue with her.

I read it three times. He said he's sorry. He said he thinks about Marcus every day. He said he's gotten sober — he was drinking that night too, a thing the trial didn't cover but a thing I already knew because mothers always know. He said he's in school now. He said he doesn't expect anything from me. He said he just needed me to know.

I sat at the kitchen table for an hour. Then I went to the stove and made mac and cheese, because that's what I do when the world hands me something I cannot hold. The macaroni boiled. The roux thickened. The cheese melted. The dish went into the oven. The smell came up. I ate one bite standing at the counter and I cried in a way I had not cried in two years, and Sister Beulah came into the kitchen and held me without saying a word, the way Black church women have held each other for four hundred years, the way Bernice would have held me, the way I have held a hundred other women in this kitchen.

I wrote him back Thursday. I told him I forgive him. I have to. My God requires it and my son deserves a mother whose heart is not eaten by hate. But I told him forgiveness is not the same as peace. I forgive him every morning and I grieve every night and both of those things are true at the same time. I put the letter in my Bible, in Lamentations, because that's where it belongs. I do not want to see him. The letter was enough. The letter was everything.

A late spring cold front. The greens in the garden held. The peas are up.

I drove to the grocery Saturday morning early. The greens, the buttermilk, the cornmeal, the salt. The list was the list. The kitchen would feed by Sunday.

I talked to Bernice at the stove. I told her the week. She listened. She always listens.

Mr. Henderson across the street brought me a bag of pecans Friday. I will make pecan pie on Saturday. Half goes back to him. That is how this works.

Bernice's Table held this week. The food was the food. The work was the work.

Sister Patrice called Saturday. She thanked me for the meal I had brought her last week. She said her husband is recovering. I told her I would bring more food this Tuesday.

Calvin asked me Friday how I was holding up. I said, baby, I'm holding. He said, that's all the Lord asks. We sat in silence the way long-married people sit in silence — full, not empty.

Sister Beulah called Wednesday. We talked about the table. We talked about Sister Patrice's husband. We talked about the choir's robe order. The work continues.

I made the mac and cheese that Wednesday because I had to do something with my hands, but it’s these banana sandwiches that have always been the quiet thing — the food that asks nothing of you and gives everything back. Marcus loved them as a little boy, plain and sweet and needing no occasion, and some weeks when the grief is fresh again and the forgiveness is hard-won and my hands need something simple to hold, I come back to this. The list is short. The making is quick. That’s enough.

Banana Sandwiches

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 5 minutes | Servings: 2

Ingredients

• 4 slices soft white sandwich bread
• 2 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
• Pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Prep the bread. Lay all four slices of bread flat on a clean surface. Spread a thin, even layer of mayonnaise across one side of each slice.
2. Layer the bananas. Arrange the banana slices in a single, slightly overlapping layer across two of the bread slices, covering the surface edge to edge.
3. Season. Sprinkle a pinch of salt — and the sugar if you like a little sweetness brought forward — over the banana layer.
4. Close and cut. Press the remaining bread slices on top, mayonnaise-side down, and press gently. Cut each sandwich diagonally and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 280 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 46g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 320mg