Her daddy bought artichokes whenever they were fresh and young. They had to be compact, with the leaves all tight together and not spreading out, or else they weren't tender, like he liked them. He only bought one of them to share, because Mom did not like them. They would cook for so long, filling the air with the bitter, tangy scent and a hint of the lemon pepper; so full of flavor that if she opened her mouth and inhaled right over the pan, she could taste the bitter part of the leaf that she got if she scraped too far up with her teeth. While they were cooking, she and her daddy would talk about all kinds of things like what was happening in their life. They had a lot in common because she had grown up so close to him that she picked up many of his habits, likes, and addictions. She had gone to all the secret parties where everyone was so happy and the air smelled sweet. She had seen her daddy do all kinds of foolish things, like drink and smoke cigars, and smoke those pretty pipes that he carved out of wood or deer antler. Her mom didn�t know about all of that. She kept it a secret from her mom because her mom was so fragile that she wouldn�t be able to handle knowing about those secrets.
Finally, they were ready and she dug real mayonnaise out of the jar with a rubber spatula and plopped it on a plate. They lifted the artichoke out of the olive green water and sat on the plate, and then they had to wait for it to cool down before you could eat it. When it was at last cool, she could start to eat it. Father and daughter never spoke much when they ate, only concentrated on dipping and eating, scraping the tender flesh off of the leaves with their teeth. There was time enough for speaking later. Now, this time at the table when the food was hot and tender was for eating.
They peeled away the first few leaves without eating anything off of them. They were large and sparse, with not much good meat to enjoy on them. She thought about how little there was to enjoy when you got old as she tore them away, and hoped never to grow up. Then came the first leaves with good pulp on them, just at the tips. She had to be careful not to scrape too far up on the leaf so she wouldn�t bite into the bitter green part. She sometimes missed some of the sweet white meat in an effort to avoid the bitter green meat.
In her mid-life, she looked back and thought about all of the opportunities she had missed by avoiding the bitterness of life, and wondered why she bothered. Sometimes she was very bitter about her life anyway because of the directions it had taken that seemed out of her control.
Next came the small, tender leaves that she could eat almost all of, and she could eat many of them at a time. The best times of her life, her years as an upper-classman in high school and her college years- she saw them go by so fast and enjoyed them thoroughly, and they were over far too abruptly.
When she shared an artichoke with her daddy for the last time, she didn't even know that it was the last time. She was a wonderfully happy high school senior, ready to go off and face the world with the support of her daddy and mom behind her. Then, she knew that she would always have him, always be able to come back and share with him. She had no idea.
Finally, her daddy scraped away the protection layer of fuzz over the most tender and delicious part of the artichoke, the heart. It almost melted in her mouth as she ate it, slowly savoring each bit. Without her daddy, she never would have had such a wonderful childhood. Her memories were full of times she had spent with her daddy, and the things they had done together. Bit by bit, her daddy had scraped away the protection around the bliss of childhood, and as she remembered it, she remembered refusing to scrape away that stubborn layer of fuzz herself, choosing to forego the pleasures of eating the most tender and succulent part of the flower rather than go to all the trouble to strip away that protection.
She wondered where she would be if her daddy had never scraped away that protection that he had always provided, if he had left that to someone else to do. She decided not to think about it.
