Beyond - Legends Saga Saga - PT Saltnut Butter Sandwiches (Intergenerational Oneshot Featuring Anakin, Luke, and Ben)

Title: Saltnut Butter Sandwiches

Author: devilinthedetails

Characters: Anakin Skywalker; Shmi Skywalker; Luke Skywalker; Owen Lars; Ben Skywalker.

Genre: Family; General; Drama; Was supposed to be fluff and mush but turned into something sadder.

Timeline: First section is set when Anakin is a little boy prior to TPM. Second section is set when Luke is a little boy growing up between ROTS and ANH. Third section is set in the Legends universe after Mara Jade's death when Ben is a teenager.

Summary: Three generations of Skywalkers make saltnut butter sandwiches.

Author's Note: Originally was going to be written for the Monday Mush Challenge #5-What's on the Menu? But it morphed into something that felt too sad to be classified as mush. So although it was inspired by that prompt, I don't consider this a true answer to that prompt. It just laid the groundwork for this story that went in a less fluffy direction than first envisioned...

Saltnut Butter Sandwiches

Anakin (Sick on a Sleep Mat)

Mom was confined to her sleep mat with a sore, scratchy throat and a fever that seemed to blaze as hot as either of Tatooine’s twin suns when Anakin pressed his hand against her forehead. She was, he thought, seeing the dazed cast to her eyes, in no fit state to be bustling about their tiny kitchenette, attempting to prepare a dinner from the scant food they had available in the cabinets and miniature cooler.

That was why Anakin had assured her that he would make a dinner for both of them and bring it to her sleep coach while she rested after a long day’s work (with Watto, sickness wasn’t an excuse for a slave being unproductive). That was why he was rummaging through the cabinets and the small cooler on a desperate hunt for something that his limited culinary skills could transform into a halfway edible meal.

After several minutes of searching, he uncovered an almost empty jar of saltnut butter and four slices of Tatooine flatbread on the cusp of staleness in the back of a cabinet. Paired with a remainder of a jar of bluefruit jam on a shelf in the cooler, the saltnut butter and flatbread would make saltnut butter and jam sandwiches for his mom and him, one of the handful of dishes that Anakin was capable of creating.

Grabbing a knife from the cutlery drawer, he spread the last of the saltnut butter on two slices of flatbread. On the other two slices of flatbread, he applied a coating of bluefruit jam with the aid of a spoon from the cutlery drawer. He smashed together the sandwiches with a satisfying squish like a damp kiss of saltnut butter meeting jam.

Saltnut butter and jam sandwiches were dry as sand, so Anakin poured Mom and him each a small glass of expensive, precious water.

With a strange mixture of pride at the meal he had made with his own hands and shame that he couldn’t provide his mom more water and better food, Anakin carried a sandwich plate and glass of water into Mom’s room.

“Annie?” Mom’s head stirred from its pillow as he entered.

“Dinner is ready, Mom,” he told her, placing the plate and glass on the roughly carved nightstand beside her sleep mat.

“It looks good. Thank you, Annie.” Mom gave him a faint smile as propped herself against the wall and took a tiny bite from the sandwich he had made her. “Tastes even better than it looks.”

It didn’t look as good as anything Mom could make from the little food that they had, and he was certain that it tasted worse than most things she made (except nasty vegetables that Anakin would’ve avoided if he wasn’t hungry enough to eat sand most of the time). It also had to be dry despite the glass of water he’d served alongside it, he thought, watching Mom’s jaw work overtime without pay (like a slave) as she struggled to chew and swallow the sandwich.

“It’s dry.” Anakin hung his head, embarrassed by how he had failed to provide anything to Mom who always cared for him when she was sick. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry.” Mom cupped his chin with a palm that felt like sunburn on a weatherbeaten face. “It tastes delicious. I haven’t eaten a saltnut butter and jam sandwich in a long time. What a treat!”

Saltnut butter and jam sandwiches were a treat, Anakin tried to comfort himself--to believe what Mom said. The saltnut butter was rich and creamy. The bluefruit jam was sweet and delightfully sticky. It was the perfect food to be served when sick on a sleep mat.

Luke (Thought that Counts)

A hungry Luke gazed around the kitchen in search of inspiration for what to eat for lunch. Normally, Luke wouldn’t have to worry about deciding on or preparing his own lunch, because Aunt Beru would pop it before him with a gentle smile on her face.

Today was different, however. Today Aunt Beru was lying on the sleep couch she shared with Uncle Owen, all the lights in the room switched out even though it was past noon, a damp cloth pressed against her forehead. She complained of having a migraine that threatened to split her head in half like lightning cutting through a cloud (at least that was how Luke pictured it in his mind).

Luke hoped he hadn’t given her the headache. He didn’t think he had. It was usually only Uncle Owen who would massage his temples and scold Luke for giving him a headache by playing too loud or asking too many questions.

Some time before he and Uncle Owen starved and became skeletons buried in sand for Aunt Beru to find when she rose from her sleep couch, Luke supposed Uncle Owen would remember that they had to eat something to hold body and soul together. Luke was hungry enough to eat a bantha now, though, and waiting would only make it worse. Besides, he dreaded to see what food Uncle Owen would cobble together to serve them for lunch. Probably some miserable leftovers dug out of the cooler and overheated in the tetrawave. Uncle Owen might have been a good moisture farmer, but he was a poor chef who could find a way to burn water given enough water and time with a tetrawave.

Noticing a fresh, sliced loaf of bread Aunt Beru had made yesterday before her migraine had felled her, Luke thought it might form the base of a delicious saltnut butter and jam sandwich. Crossing over to the pantry where they stored their dried goods, Luke pulled out a jar of saltnut butter and then walked over to the cooler to grab a jar of bluefruit jam.

He slathered generous amounts of bluefruit jam and saltnut butter on two slices of fresh bread, which he brought together with a squish that brought a wide grin to his cheeks.

Deciding it would be nice not to leave Uncle Owen to fend for himself in the kitchen when he had no idea how to cook an edible meal, Luke made a second sandwich for his uncle.

He poured them each a glass of cool muja juice to wash it down and stepped out of the kitchen into the bright, blazing sunlight of Tatooine.

His uncle was busy repairing a vaporator, and Luke called out as he ran to him--somehow managing to avoid dropping the sandwiches from their plates--, “I made us lunch, Uncle Owen.”

Uncle Owen eyed the sandwich plate Luke was holding out to him with the same wary look he wore when the Jawas tried to sell him a droid that had obviously seen better decades or even centuries. “So you have.”

“It’s a saltnut butter and jam sandwich,” Luke said, so that Uncle Owen would stop staring at the food as if he had no clue what it was.

“So it is.” Uncle Owen grunted, snatched the sandwich from the plate, and began to eat. He chewed in silence for awhile before scowling down at his hand. “My fingers are covered in stickiness. Did you bring out napkins?”

“No.” Luke shuffled his feet, feeling awkward and clumsy as he always did when his stern, sharp-tongued uncle called attention to yet another thing he had forgotten in his eagerness. “Sorry. I forgot.”

He bit his lip, telling himself that he wouldn’t cry, but even if he wouldn’t cry, he would wish that he hadn’t brought the sandwich out to his uncle, after all, and given his uncle another thing to lecture him about.

“It’s okay.” Uncle Owen must have observed Luke’s dejection because his voice now sounded as it did before he complimented Luke on a well-drawn bantha that was actually supposed to be a house or a sand dune. Uncle Owen never asked what was in his pictures before he commented on them unlike Aunt Beru, so he couldn’t speak from a position of knowledge and authority like she could. “It’s the thought that counts.”

“But I didn’t remember to bring out napkins.” Luke shook his head, not feeling any better at his uncle’s words.

“You remembered to bring me out a sandwich.” Uncle Owen looked as if he might have ruffled Luke’s sunkissed blond hair in his ultimate gesture of affection if his hand wasn’t sticky with bluefruit jam. “That showed plenty of thought.”

“I could get us napkins now I think.” His happiness restored, Luke placed the plates and glasses on the ground and skipped back toward the kitchen to get the napkins needed to clean sticky fingers.

He was, he decided, glad that he had brought his uncle the sandwich after all. It had almost earned him a rare gesture of affection from Uncle Owen, and that made his heart sing and his feet skip.

Ben (Always Remembered)

With Mom dead, some days it was hard for Ben to remember to eat because he didn’t want to eat. His adolescent appetite that should have been ravenous--eating anything that wasn’t toxic--had died with her, he was sure.

Whenever he recalled that some nourishment was necessary for sustaining life, he would wander listlessly into the kitchen and stare vacantly at the mostly empty shelves that echoed the bleakness he felt inside him.

Frowning into the cupboard, he saw something that reminded him of Mom. A simple jar of saltnut butter. Chunky the way he liked it. The way she had liked it.

She had been the one who had first introduced him to the culinary marvel that was a pure, uncomplicated saltnut butter and jam sandwich. It was she who had toasted the bread for him so that the saltnut butter became extra gooey and melty against his tongue. It had been she who cut off the crusts because she said it tasted better without those.

The memory of her made him smile as much as it made his heart tear inside his chest, and, on a surge of nostalgia, he took the jar of saltnut butter from the cupboard along with a loaf of bread that was probably dangerously close to moldering. From the cooler, he retrieved a jar of bluefruit jam.

As Mom had taught him so many years ago, he toasted the bread before coating it liberally in chunky saltnut butter and bluefruit jam. Then he cut away the crusts.

It occurred to him as he finished making the sandwich that Dad had been even worse than him at ensuring some food entered his stomach, so Ben decided that he would make a second sandwich for his dad.

Once he had finished making that second sandwich--toasting it and cutting off the crusts because that was the only way to eat a saltnut butter and jam sandwich according to Mom--he put both sandwiches on one plate and knocked on the door of his dad’s room.

“Come in.” Dad sounded tired. As if he hadn’t slept in days.

“I made you a saltnut butter and jam sandwich.” Ben was scared by how exhausted, frail, and pale--apart from dark smudges under the eyes--Dad looked. The two of them might not have always been close, but they loved each other, and Ben couldn’t imagine losing both his parents in such swift succession. With Mom gone, he needed his dad around a lot longer.

“I’m not hungry.” Dad’s gaze was distant. Fixed on the blinds shut over his viewport, blocking out the light so that his room remained in a mournful twilight. “Thank you anyway.”

“You should eat even if you aren’t hungry.” Ben stepped forward so that his growing body covered the blinds and the viewport. Inserting himself in his dad’s field of vision. Forcing his dad to look at him. To emerge from the shell of grief long enough to notice and respond to him. “You look as if you’re trying to become a Force Ghost, Dad.”

Perhaps not the most sensitive or respectful way of communicating his concern, but since when had teenage boys been known for their sensitivity or respect? Ben probably deserved a shiny trophy just for making his dad a saltnut butter and jam sandwich now that he thought about it.

“You’re right.” Dad seemed to see and hear Ben at last, and relief almost as sharp as grief stabbed in Ben’s heart. “I should eat even if I don’t want to.”

“Wish I’d caught you saying that I’m right on holotape.” Ben smirked at his dad, striving for a levity he didn’t feel. “I’d replay it over and over for you and for posterity.”

“Disregarding all context in doing so, naturally.” Dad picked up a sandwich.

“I made it just like Mom used to,” Ben found himself saying in a rush as he lifted his own sandwich to his lips, which suddenly felt beyond his control, because why was he babbling about the way Mom had made saltnut butter and jam sandwiches to his grieving Dad? What in the Force was wrong with him? “I toasted it and cut off the crusts and everything. She said that was the best way.”

Regaining some semblance of control over his rogue tongue, Ben flushed flame-red as his hair, and why was his hair so red anyway? It seemed only meant to embarrass him by drawing further attention to his flushed cheeks whenever he said or did something humiliating, and who had ever heard of a teenager who didn’t say or do something embarrassing on a daily basis? Adolescence was one protracted stage of humiliation as far as Ben could tell.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, lowering his head in the vain hope that maybe Dad wouldn’t see his burning cheeks. “I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know why I remembered that.”

There were tears pricking at his eyes now as if he’d eaten too-spicy food, and the sandwich he was chewing felt chokingly dry in his mouth. He wished that he’d poured glasses of quintberry juice or something to accompany their sandwiches. Mom wouldn’t have forgotten the glasses of quintberry juice, he thought. She would’ve remembered the quintberry juice and everything else. He was a pale, sad imitation of his mother, and wasn’t that the truth?

“Don’t apologize. I’m glad you said it. I’m glad you remembered it.” Dad reached out a gentle finger to lift Ben’s chin so their blue eyes met. Ben could see the enduring sorrow but also the unflinching honesty and unending love in his father’s gaze, and that made him feel safe and warm as if he were tucked under a blanket during a thunderstorm. “We should talk about your mother. We should remember her, son.”

“I don’t want to forget her.” Ben wondered why his voice had to crack like punched, broken glass, and why his mouth had to tremble. “I want to remember and honor her always.”

“Just by living in the light, you honor her.” Dad pulled Ben into a hug.

“I love you, Dad.” Ben hugged back with a fierceness, a desperation, that surprised him, his saltnut butter and jam sandwich forgotten.

“I love you too, Ben.” Dad planted a kiss that really should’ve embarrassed Ben on his forehead, but somehow, just this once when he wanted the comfort of being a little boy again, it didn’t.

He realized he was crying into his dad’s robes.

“Sorry,” he muttered again, and observed with an inner eye roll that he had to stop saying that. It was getting boring, apologizing over and over. Not too mention embarrassing. “I got your robes all wet with tears.”

“Don't worry about it.” Dad wiped some tears from Ben’s cheeks before they could drip onto his robes. A truly wise decision befitting the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Ben thought with a resurgence of his dry humor. “Tears are cleansing.”

“Your robes must be squeaky-clean then.” Ben emitted a strange noise that might have been meant as a laugh. “Now that I cried all over them.”

“I meant cleansing for the soul.” Dad ruffled his hair. “I didn’t mean they took the place of laundry detergent.”

 

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thank you so much for commenting! I'm so flattered that you found this beautifully in character since I really thought of this story as a very character-focused piece centered on the three generations of Skywalkers: Anakin, Luke, and Ben. And I did hope that a sense of tenderness unique to each family's situation would shine through, so I'm so happy that it did for you. Writing these gestures of thoughtfulness and genuine affection did warm my heart, and remind me of how nourishing an act preparing even the simplest of meals can be if there is love behind it. This story turned into a sort of nice meditation on love and family and simple acts of kindness