Sunday Sancocho | Sancocho Dominguero
"A traditional Colombian Sunday dinner brings together two people who thought they'd never love again"
Sunday Sancocho
Sancocho Dominguero
Every Sunday, my mother made sancocho. And every Sunday, she invited everyone from church, the neighborhood, and any single man she could find.
"Mami, please stop," I begged after the third awkward setup this month.
"A woman shouldn't be alone at forty."
"I'm thirty-eight."
"Exacto. Almost forty. Tick tock, mija."
The man she sat next to me this Sunday was different.
"Sorry about this," he said immediately. "My sister made me come. Something about 'getting back out there.'"
"Your sister is friends with my mother?"
"Unfortunately."
"Then we're both victims." I extended my hand. "I'm Alejandra."
"Tomás." His handshake was warm. "Want to pretend to like each other so they'll leave us alone?"
"Best plan I've heard all month."
We talked through the entire dinner—about his divorce (two years ago), my widowhood (three years), our overbearing families, our shared exhaustion with being set up.
"You're the first person who hasn't asked me about having children," I said.
"You're the first person who hasn't tried to fix me." He smiled. "It's refreshing."
"Should we give them something to talk about?"
"What do you mean?"
I leaned over and kissed his cheek. "There. Now they'll think their plan worked and leave us alone."
It didn't work. My mother invited him back the next Sunday. And the next.
"She's not going to stop," I warned.
"Neither is my sister." He shrugged. "At least the sancocho is good."
"You're just coming for the food?"
"I'm coming because you're the only person in this city who doesn't make me feel broken."
"Why would you feel broken?"
"My wife left me for my best friend. Everyone looks at me with pity." He stirred his bowl. "But you just look at me like I'm a person."
"Because you are. We're all just people trying to survive our stories."
"What's your story?"
"Husband died. Cancer. Fast and brutal." I was surprised how easy it was to say. "I thought I'd never want anyone again."
"And now?"
"Now I'm sitting at my mother's table with a man who makes me laugh, and I'm wondering if maybe the universe isn't as cruel as I thought."
"That's almost hopeful."
"Don't tell anyone. I have a reputation."
He kissed me properly the following Sunday—in my mother's kitchen, while she very pointedly looked the other way.
"I want to see you outside of Sundays," he said.
"That sounds suspiciously like dating."
"Would that be terrible?"
"It might be wonderful. That's what scares me."
We dated. Slowly, carefully, like two people who'd learned that hearts break. We cooked sancocho together, his recipe mixed with mine. We talked about our lost loves without jealousy, honoring them while building something new.
"I thought I was done," he said one night. "With love. With hope. With all of it."
"Me too."
"I'm glad we were both wrong."
We married on a Sunday, with sancocho served at the reception and both our families crying enough tears to salt the soup.
"Mami was right," I admitted.
"About what?"
"That I shouldn't be alone." I kissed my new husband. "I just needed to find the right person to be not-alone with."
Sunday sancocho—where healing is served in bowls, and second chances taste like home.