Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs

by Cheryl Peck

  What made making jam particularly appealing to me, that first year—that is, after I recovered from sticker shock after pricing a pint (not a quart, a pint) of black raspberries in the produce section—was the realization that I knew where to get them for free. I went immediately to my father’s garden, only to discover he had vanquished his mortal enemy, the black-shelled pesky berry beetle, by tearing every berrylike bush, shrub and plant out of his garden. He doused them with gasoline. And then he shot at the escaping beetles with his twelve-gauge as they tried to fly away. He is not a violent man, but he takes his gardening very seriously. This was not a horrible setback to my independence: black raspberries grew wild in the gravel pit, and they were mine for the picking. They could have benefited from my father’s benevolent pruning. It was a pain to dress like I was going to a mosque on the hottest day of the year, just to keep my flesh intact. I resented the chiggers for weeks after that. But within perhaps two hours I had enough black raspberries to keep myself in jam all year.

  I had never actually made black raspberry jam before, nor had I ever watched anyone else do it. I was not terribly clear on the difference between jam and jelly. Fresh out of college, perpetually strapped for cash, I could have used a little dental work that I could ill afford. I made a substantial batch of jam to see me through the cold, hard winter, but it lasted considerably longer than that because raspberry seeds are plentiful (one might almost suspect they are the point) and they are small only until they get wet. Nothing will locate a cavity in a back molar quite like a swelling raspberry seed. The following year I did a little more research on how to avoid being chigger-bit, and I learned how to make seedless raspberry jam. And then I moved farther from home and therefore farther from easy access to free raspberries, and I never made it again.

  Many, many years went by.

  I met my Beloved.

  I said, “I don’t cook.”

  My Beloved cooks for relaxation. My Beloved cooks for emotional gratification. My Beloved cooks because she’s good at it and people admire her for her cooking skills. All of this positive reinforcement incites her to invite great herds of people to her house or public parks or even more exotic arenas where she can display her cooking skills. When my Beloved is bored or irritated with her day job, she turns to our friend Rae and says, “Let’s open a restaurant.” Watch my Beloved’s partner jump for joy at the idea of waiting on people for a living. Keep watching.

  The year before last my Beloved, our friend Rae and I jumped into a car and toured southwestern Michigan, looking for inexpensive black raspberries. We learned that there is no such thing. First of all, not all that many people grow black raspberries. (I suspect the cost of all those twelve-gauge shells is prohibitive.) Those who do are apparently former diamond-miners trying to recoup their losses. I believe we may have paid about a dollar a berry that year—seeds and all—and once we’d removed the seeds we had this minuscule little supply that made my Beloved’s habit of giving away small jars of jam to people who just happened to wander into her house something of a heart-stopper. Black raspberry is my personal all-time favorite jam.

  Last year I said, “Raspberries grow wild over half of southern Michigan—let’s forage.” And forage we did. Up and down roadsides, out behind the cemetery, we spotted every unguarded, unwanted, untended raspberry patch in three counties and we picked and we bled and we waded and stumbled and met more wildlife on a cooking expedition than I’ve met on most wilderness hikes. We brought our booty home, washed them, crushed them, de-seeded them, jammed them … We had black raspberry jam right up through mid-December. It takes a heap of pickin’ to make a batch of jam.

  In fact, we spent most of last summer preserving things. We made strawberry jam, peach jam, raspberry jam and plum jam. We made pickled beets and three kinds of pickled pickles (one dill and two sweet). We stuffed peppers, we canned tomatoes, and made two kinds of salsa (mild and hot). We made sweet pepper rings. (This is, of course, the use of the royal “We.” I personally washed things and cut up things and shouted encouragement from my stool. I’m in training to have my knees redone.)

  This year I thought, “I’m lobbying for more black raspberry jam.” But since I am the weakest link, I could lobby quietly without drawing undue attention to myself simply by picking more berries. I thought I was prepared.

  Echoing across the state line, plaintively, like the cries of a lost child, came the legend: “I want to make jam with you this year.”

  My Beloved’s girlchild—Our Daughter—is a wonderful woman and I love her dearly, but she is six feet of red-headed ambition and meeting her for the first time is not unlike walking into a set of spinning airplane propellers. Like her mother, she radiates energy. Her entire body emits a low hum reminiscent of power lines and those of us who are less innately driven have a tendency to wander off after some shared time and take a little restorative nap. The two of them together can shift a simple little jam-making project into a one-day campaign to save entire continents of children from starvation. The two of them together fondle the word “compulsive” as if it were their firstborn child.

  At the onset of my Beloved’s jam-making project, therefore, we had our usual crew—my Beloved, Rae and me—my Beloved’s mother (Big Momma), a spare granddaughter, my Beloved’s girlchild, her partner, and the girlchild’s exhausted baseball-playing son all gathered to make jam. Since the kitchen is not all that large, it only made sense to send the shortest generation into the conservatory to watch videos. The girlchild’s partner and I declared ourselves survivors of previous energy bursts and moved ourselves to areas least likely to be sprayed by stray fire.

  Big Momma was sent to the market to purchase the berries (straw). There had been some discussion between the dispatched and the dispatcher concerning exactly how many berries might be needed, but Big Momma did some recalculations while she was shopping and she returned to the home front with twenty-four quarts of strawberries. This was deemed insufficient and she was dispatched again. This time she returned with two more cases of strawberries, giving us a total of forty quarts. We needed a few left over, she explained, for our shortcake.

  We hulled forty quarts of strawberries.

  We had enough five-pound bags of sugar to stop a small flood. Rae and the girlchild’s partner took turns doling out sugar in seven-cup increments while the girlchild ran forty quarts of strawberries through the food processor, and then Big Momma gave stirring lessons to all who hoped to achieve the high honor of becoming a Pot Mistress. We dragged out three dozen big pots because otherwise we would still have had counter space left in the kitchen. We were ready to begin.

  One batch of strawberry jam: bring five cups of mashed berries and one box of jelling substance slowly to a boil. When the berries reach a full rolling boil (this is a technical cooking term, by the way, “full rolling boil”), have Big Momma solemnly approve a precise measurement of butter to be added to the pot (to reduce “foam”). Only Big Momma can recognize the exact amount. Add seven cups of sugar, stirring constantly, and boil for one minute. Remove the pot from the stove, skim off the foam, and quickly decant the jam mixture into scalded glass jars and add one boiled canning jar lid to each jar. Wait patiently for the “pop” of the can lid to tell you it has sealed. This is making jam. We made jam two batches at a time for three hours. We made twelve quarts and a few stray pints of jam for the girlchild and her partner, and untold pints for ourselves. Jar lids were pinging from the dining room all night.

  We then all gathered around the table for a serving of hot biscuits under strawberries and whipped cream. We discussed the issues of the day: Can fresh strawberry jam be eaten with non-crunchy peanut butter? Should jam be eaten on bread, English muffins, or a naked spoon? What exactly is the “foam” that has been skimmed off, and does it really taste “funny” or do we just expect it to? What does the butter do? What would happen to peace in the Middle East, the price of tea in China, and global warming if a meal were served without the proper display of
napkins?

  And now: about those continents of starving children …

  star bright

  You go on hold

  waiting

  last minute consent forms

  operations in the dead of night

  waking at two in the morning

  in an alien waiting room

  to greet a doctor in green

  who needs sleep

  “She’s recovering nicely

  the prognosis

  of course

  remains the same …”

  WHICH WILL EVENTUALLY CAUSE Chemotherapy, maybe

  Radiation

  (“She may have already had

  too much …”

  Yes. And you lied about what

  it was for.)

  Six phone calls to make

  for every new decision

  Six other people

  love her

  Six different approaches

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  The prognosis

  —of course—

  remains the same.

  Can you cure cancer?

  Sitting on the edge of her bed

  holding her hand

  teasing her about her bandage

  around her head

  which holds her skull

  which holds her flesh

  which is all her flesh

  which is growing

  rude, impudent flesh

  arrogant cells, fighting for life

  as she fights for life

  crowding out the host life

  which is hers

  WHICH WILL EVENTUALLY CAUSE

  She is recovering nicely.

  She plucks wistfully at strings

  in the air no one else can see

  tidying her space

  searching for words

  words wrapped in growing flesh

  smothered

  lost

  amputated

  by malignant, irreverent cells.

  I am a writer because my mother

  loved to talk

  talked endlessly

  skillfully

  Playing with words

  like a kitten weaving herself

  in among balls of string.

  The word she is searching for now

  is my name.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  She is aggravated: a stupid question

  to ask a woman whose head is wrapped

  in gauze

  she conceived me

  she birthed me

  changed diapers and hemlines

  wrapped me in her image

  we are one

  snarling, turning on each other,

  straining at the umbilical cord

  that never breaks between

  WHICH WILL EVENTUALLY CAUSE

  mother and firstborn

  HER DEATH

  no way in hell, Jack: you go on hold

  waiting

  of course she knows me.

  “What is my name, Mom?”

  She fingers invisible strings

  like a lover caressing hair

  Tips her hand to one side, defeated

  “What is my name, Mom?”

  Strangled.

  By cells that are her cells

  life turned malignant

  irrevocably changed

  crushing the life that gives life.

  I can cure cancer.

  I will go in there with a spoon

  and dish out those cells

  one by one

  like scooping fish eggs

  from the belly of a bluegill.

  I will cut them out

  with a razor and tweezers

  like my sister removed

  her plantar’s wart.

  I will cure it.

  Burn it out.

  Tear it out.

  Drown it.

  Crush it.

  Strangle it.

  She is my mother:

  I am not done with her

  yet.

  I will not give her up.

  I will not grant her permission

  for her leaving me.

  I will not

  will not

  will not

  give her up

  to mindless

  ill-bred

  thoughtless

  self-destructive

  cells.

  Sitting on the edge of her bed

  holding her hand

  teasing her about her “bonnet”

  willing her life

  offering mine

  willing her strength

  willing her words to come

  ACKNOWLEDGE ME, DAMNIT

  She looks at me, startled

  HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN WHO I AM?

  DO YOU KNOW ME?

  DO YOU LOVE ME?

  DO YOU NEED ME?

  CAN I HOLD YOU HERE WITH ME?

  Can I keep it, Momma?

  Can I kill it?

  She pulls her hand from mine

  frowning that baffled, injured frown

  unlacing her fingers from mine

  searching through the gauze that surrounds

  her mind for lost words

  I KNOW; YOU DON’T; DON’T ASK ME

  I NEVER LIED TO YOU

  SOMEDAY WHEN THINGS ARE CLEARER

  I WILL CONFESS THE THINGS

  I HAVEN’T SAID

  She looks at me, betrayed

  scolding

  she says,

  “Hurt.”

  Astrocytoma: wish upon a star.

  Glittering lights in night skies

  that see me home

  the crests of Christmas trees

  the guiding light

  “You could have told us the first time.”

  “We don’t like to tell a patient

  they’re terminal

  it has a tendency

  to change their lives.”

  Astrocytoma: the star that kills.

  The damage is done.

  From here we wait

  while twinkle, twinkle

  little star

  sucks dead

  the host.

  “We’ll make her as comfortable

  as we can.”

  You go on hold.

  DON’T ASK ME NOW—

  I NEED TO TALK IT OVER

  WITH MY MOTHER.

  You wait.

  Try not to crush her hand

  wishing on stars.

  IT HAS

  A TENDENCY

  TO CHANGE

  THEIR LIVES.

  it has …

  I’ve saved the pieces for you, Momma.

  Someday when we’re older

  we’ll sit together, thinking back

  and I’ll share my crooked irony:

  “We never told you you were dying, Mom,

  because we didn’t want

  to change your life.”

  God knows, we didn’t.

  “Is there anything we can do?”

  You can give her

  give me

  our God-given right

  to change

  our own damned lives.

  mother’s day

  THIS YEAR ON New Year’s Eve, as we are ushering out the old and in the new, my family will celebrate the anniversary of my mother’s death. We won’t gather to acknowledge this milestone. There will be no big dinner. Each of us—each quite alone—will at some point during the day remember that something happened that changed the sense and texture of New Year’s Eve forever. She died. The most vibrant, powerful—and occasionally exasperating—force in our lives lost her fight against cancer at the age of forty-nine on December 31, 1976.

  I was, therefore, somewhat surprised to find her backstage with me last night. It has been a while since we did anything together.

  My mother loved to perform. She was driven to achieve something with her life, to break out of the ordinary into the extraordinary. She wanted—n
eeded—to be The Best at something and she wanted—and needed—the recognition that comes from that kind of success. Everything I know and feel about her, including my relationship to her, is colored by the sheer power of that single driving force. She was happiest when she was performing. When she gathered with her friends, it was my mother who gravitated toward the center of the room where, a little bigger than life, she starred in the joke or the tall tale or the anecdote she was telling. For twenty-five years she was a square-dance caller. When an image of her flashes through my mind, as often as not she is wearing her triple-tiered square-dance dress and holding a microphone in her hand as she shows her dancers a new step or call.

  I remember her sitting on the living room couch facing her sister as they told each other stories about their lives and things they had seen and done since they last talked. They were both storytellers. The graceful, dramatic telling of the tale was at least as important as the tale itself.

  I remember her sitting on the living room floor, laughing until tears ran down her cheeks as she read about the “nitch snitching nutchs in hutchs” of Dr. Seuss. To this day when I pick up a children’s book and read to a child, it is my mother’s cadence and rhythm the child hears.

  I was spoon-fed my mother’s love of words and language right along with my baby food. I spoon-feed my niece oatmeal with the same nonstop, nonsensical flurry of words and images that my mother fed me, as if words are food and language is sustenance.

  I have never liked performing. Or, more accurately, I have rarely performed. There are a variety of reasons, none particularly well thought-out. First and foremost, you cannot be the very best at something without beating out all the competition and my mother was an intensely competitive woman. As her firstborn I was somehow destined to be her successor. I don’t remember ever not knowing, in however childlike my way, that my mother was involved in some intense, not necessarily rational competition with me. I didn’t know how to stop it or even what caused it. I didn’t know how to ease her mind, so I called the only truce I could devise—I almost never attempted to excel in a field where she had shown an interest. I don’t believe I ever sat down and made up a conscious list of Ways to Get Mother Off My Back— it was just some intuitive thing I did. She loved—and needed— to be center stage, so I stepped back and let her.