It is a rupture in the present tense.

She is eleven, suspended in the amber wash of late afternoon, watching her father rinse rice beneath a thin stream of water. The grains whirl in the bowl like minor constellations.

Her mother is humming off-key to a song neither of them can quite remember. The radio crackles. Something about summer.

And suddenly she knows.

This is a memory.

Her father tilts the bowl. “You’re staring,” he says.

“I’m not,” Her words fall too soft, like sand.

“Then what is it?”

“Why does it always look like this?” she asks.

“Like what?” her father says, tilting the bowl again.

“Like…something I’ll remember later. Even if I don’t want to.”

Her mother laughs softly, drying her hands on the towel. “You’re thinking too much, niña. It’s just rice.”

Her father glances at her, shaking his head while he holds out a bowl. “Try, eat.”

The girl takes the spoon to taste, chewing slowly. She watches the sunlight catch the edges of the bowl, the gloss of the rice, the fine scratches on the table. She knows she will remember every crease of the towel, the way the steam rises, the hum in her mother’s throat.

Her father lifts a spoon, tasting the rice himself. “Well?”

“It’s good,” she whispers.

The warmth of the rice settles in her stomach, and she wonders if the moment is ending, or if it has already ended without her noticing.

Everything is ordinary.

She lifts her spoon once more and takes another bite.