Last Thoughts on my Mother

I never hated my mother, although it probably seemed like that at the time. She was a strong woman, and I admired her for that. She was beautiful too…she knew that, I think. She had this long blonde hair. Mine was a dingy brown. I was always jealous of her for that. She smoked cigarettes, Camels…lights I think. I threw them away once. It was second grade and my teacher told us that smoking could kill you. I came home and spent an hour looking for all her cigarettes. My grandma was outside talking on the cordless phone to her boyfriend. When my mom came back she was furious, but she didn’t punish me or anything. I don’t know why. If my kid ever threw out my cigarettes they’d be grounded for a year.
Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration…I always exaggerate like that, to the point that it borders on lying. I lied to my mother all the time, but she always knew when I did because I’m a terrible liar. My eyes get all big and my palms get sweaty. One time she caught me in bed with my boyfriend. I was fourteen at the time and thought I was in love because he said he loved me. We weren’t having sex or anything, but we had been fooling around…you know, kid stuff. My grandma would have called it necking…as a kid that really confused me about what the whole business entailed. I pictured these people rubbing their necks together and moaning. When it happened, the thing with my boyfriend, I tried lying, but of course it was obvious that I was full of shit. Anyway, she caught me and immediately assumed the worst. I mean, I would have thought the same thing probably. I don’t blame her for that, but she completely flipped out. She started screaming at me to put some clothes on. I thought for sure she was going to kick me out of the house or something. The whole memory sort of blurs together, but after he left she sat at the table drinking rum and coke and smoking a cigarette…maybe they were Winstons. Anyway, she’s sitting there and looks at me and says, “What are you doing?” Just like that. “What are you doing?”
I was really pissed, thinking she had ruined my life and so I went into my room and grabbed my bag. I always had a bag packed just in case I ever had to run away. I still have one for old time’s sake, but I’m pretty sure I’ll never use it. I mean I have a family now and I’m pretty happy with how my life has turned out. Sometimes I get a little bored, and I like to take off for a weekend. Anyway, back then I didn’t have a suitcase -- just a little duffle bag with some clothes, a toothbrush, and three hundred dollars I’d saved up from baby-sitting. I was always a terrible baby-sitter. I really hated kids. But that’s beside the point. I grabbed my bag and I climbed out a window and I took off.
I didn’t really go anywhere. I just walked around for awhile and thought about how terrible my mother was. She didn’t come looking for me. At the time I thought she didn’t even know I was gone. I thought she wouldn’t even care if I did leave. I don’t know why I thought that. She never gave me a reason to think so. I just thought it for some reason.
It’s weird to think about now. I wonder why I was so mad at her. She loved me. I’m sure of that…I know some people aren’t sure if their parents really love them, but I always knew she did. I wish now that I had been more supportive…or just easier on her at least, but I was a kid then. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, only that she was sad or something. I never thought of her as a person or anything. She was just my mother, you know? I don’t know, but I think probably most kids are like that. I know mine are anyway. They can’t imagine that I’m a woman with hopes and dreams and feelings and all that. I guess maybe it’s partly my fault. As a parent you put up a wall you know. You’re supposed to protect them from things, and inadvertently I think you shut yourself off from them in some ways. I mean not that you don’t love them, but just that you never let them really get to know you. I don’t know why that is.
I never knew my mother all that well. I knew little things about her like how she always listened to Reba McEntire when she was feeling lonely, or how she really loved orange sherbet. Mostly though she just loomed in the background of my mind, like a bad dream you can’t get rid of. She never really told me what to do or anything. I mean sometimes she would sort of let me know she disapproved, but mostly she just kept her mouth shut and watched what I’d do next. It’s just that I can’t get all that mess out of my head. “What are you doing?” It’s just…I’m still really not sure. What am I doing? Anyway, I told you that story so that I could tell you what happened next.
My grandma heard all the noise I guess and found out I’d taken off. She started yelling at my mom and stuff, saying she shouldn’t let me do whatever I wanted. My Mom screamed back that at least I had a little freedom which is more than she ever had…or something like that. I forget the exact way it went. I heard about it years later at a family dinner. It was my Grandma’s seventy-eighth birthday. Everyone was still together then. My husband, me, and our three girls. My mom. And Uncle Steve…I never saw him very much, but he came up for that party. I remember because he had been sober for three months. That was before he had his accident. A few weeks later he got drunk, I guess, and hit a family in a car. It was real tragic. Everyone was hurt except for him. I guess everyone made it, but he never did seem right again. He died a few years later due to “complications.” I’m not really sure what that means. His whole life seemed pretty complicated to me. Anyway, we were all at this party and for some reason we started talking about that night and I found out my grandma ripped my mother a new one and then came out looking for me. She looked for hours. I had never known about that. I’m sorry, I know I’m kind of rambling, but what I mean to say by all of this is that I’ll miss her.

The Kitchen

I have read somewhere that the apple is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits. I don't know if this is true. I wonder how widely cultivated peaches are, or oranges. Do apples adapt better to varying climates, allowing them to be more widely cultivated? I am not a botanist. I actually have little interest in plants or trees or fruits of any kind. I pull an apple out of the fridge. I like the weight of it in my hand. It is like balancing a small child on your shoulders or carrying a cup of coffee to your chair. There are certain weights that are more satisfying than others. Rolling the apple back and forth in my palm, I think I should wash it before I take a bite. My mom would tell me, "You don't know who touched that or what chemicals they used." I think about pesticides and migrant workers and big crates full of apples. I think about huge trucks filled entirely with apples traveling across the country. I do not wash it. I do not want to wash it. This is probably disgusting and sentimental. I'm not sure. I sit on a wooden chair. It's a normal chair with four legs and slats in the back, a wedding present from my mother-in-law. I should buy cushions for these chairs, cushions with flowers, but maybe he wouldn't like a floral print. Still, I would like some cushions and also two place-mats for the table. I press my lips to the fruit and hear it snap as I tear off a piece. The sound is nice. Nice sounds don't exist in sad books. Only tragic sounds exist in tragedy -- the shutting of a door, pale notes hanging in the air, the chug of a train as it leaves the station. Empty sounds. But I guess everyone knows that. I'm not being profound.