by Lisa Samson
Oh, and she smiled so beautifully with her frosted, tousled hair and her sandwich tray there, and I prayed, I prayed, “Oh, God, show the doctors the way on this one. The world needs smiles like that. And if hers goes, I have a feeling his will too.”
I turned my head and met the gaze of my mother, and I prayed some more. I didn’t know what to expect other than the usual indignation, but she simply held out her hand and said, “Oh, Lark.”
And I ran to the bed, sat alongside her, pulled her into my arms, and she wept, groaning as though giving birth to the world.
And so, therefore, did I.
Oh, Mommy. Mommy.
PRISMA
I’LL NEVER FORGET THE TIME we all traveled down to Greenville, South Carolina, one May for the dedication of a shelter for battered women that Days of Summer helped fund.
May down there blows warmer than May up here. Lark, still in high school, slipped on her little swimsuit and flip-flops and headed down to the pool. Of course it was just a Sheraton, and Mrs. Summerville was having a fit! But that’s another story.
Lark and this other boy whose father worked for the organization just swam around in that outdoor kidney-shaped pool. Splashing, diving, doing those flips under the water, don’t ask me how! She had that sleek seal head when she’d come up out of the water, and I admired that. My Jimmy and I sat by the pool, drinking ice tea and just conversing and making sure she was all right because that sign on the fence couldn’t have been any clearer.
Swim at your own risk.
Now that’s true pretty much wherever you find yourself.
Neither Jimmy nor I could swim, but letting Lark go down there all alone with that boy who, and I tell you the truth, had that womanizer-waiting-to-happen glint carousing in his hazel eyes, would well have fallen into that category of “knowing to do good and doing it not.”
After about twenty minutes of this swimming, a hotel employee rushed through the glass door. “That’s last year’s water!” he cried. “The pool hasn’t been cleaned yet this year!”
See what I mean?
One minute Lark was swimming in the muck, happy to be there, oblivious to the fact that it was muck, because, well, it seemed clean enough. It didn’t stink. It didn’t hurt. The next she was practically screaming she felt so “grossed out.”
Well, it’s happening to her again, I can say. Only God has chosen me to be that hotel employee screaming about uncleanness and last year’s water. Let’s just hope she has enough sense to get out of the water this time too.
I checked my watch, my dad’s old watch. Five P.M.
They’d better let Mrs. Summerville out soon. I’ve got supper to make.
Bypass surgery scheduled soon. My goodness. I have no idea what to cook now. “Heart smart” sure bombed. Maybe we need to just throw in the low-cholesterol towel and have us an old-fashioned chicken barbecue like Mama’s family on the Eastern Shore! Let me tell you that nothing compares to barbecued chicken from the Eastern Shore! None of that heavy, syrupy red sauce. It’s light and just right.
That just about describes me, too.
Flannery
TONIGHT WE ARE SITTING around the kitchen table, all of us women of Greenway. It feels like it’s been three days since the cath even though it was just this morning. Prisma stands at the stove brushing her sauce on the chicken halves. She’s making twice as much because tomorrow night we’re going to have chicken salad with hard-boiled eggs in it and real mayonnaise. “Honest to Pete, Mrs. Summerville,” Prisma says as she glazes, “that heart-smart plan didn’t do one thing. How much more can happen between now and your heart surgery in two weeks? I say let’s live a little.”
Grandy sits and pretends to work on that photo album. She’s really just looking through pictures. But she’s had a big day. “Why not, Prisma? I haven’t eaten whatever I’ve wanted since … well, since even before I can remember.”
What Grandy doesn’t say was that her own mother was a real kook. She doesn’t think anyone knows about Libby Lee Strawbridge, but my grandfather once told me that it took him five years after they got married to get Grandy to eat more than dry toast for breakfast.
Now she adds jam.
Woo-hoo!
I’m telling you, these Strawbridge-Summerville women are oddballs, Libby Lee, God rest her soul, as the leader of the pack.
Grandy nods. “Yes, that’s it. I’m giving myself two weeks of dietary enjoyment.”
“Well, Mother. Whatever weight you gain, you’ll take off during your recovery from surgery.” Mom darts her pencil like a flickering graphite sword at the Sunpaper’s crossword puzzle. When did she start doing those?
James is working the Mary Lewis skipjack for a private cruise, so it’s no date for me. But that’s okay. Like, we’ve come to the point where when you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do, the other misses you, but life is still moving all around us.
“What else are we having for dinner, Miss Prisma?” I lightly fork a bowl of Bisquick dough. I learned to make drop biscuits at college.
Prisma eyes my attempt at bread making. “As I am supremely wary of whatever it is you’re making, Baby Girl, I believe another starch is definitely in order.”
Mom loves potatoes more than any kind of food. “Mashed potatoes?” she asks.
“With barbecue chicken?!” Prisma looks as if someone suggested she walk nude down the middle of Patterson Park.
And Grandy sits there and smiles. “There’s nothing like your potato salad, Prisma.”
“The red bliss kind or the regular old-fashioned egg kind?” Prisma asks.
Grandy picks up the scissors. “Which one has the most calories?” She crops a picture of a cute photo of Mom wearing an Easter outfit.
“The old-fashioned kind.”
“Then let’s have that.”
Prisma nods, smug. “Well, all right then. This jar of mayonnaise is almost done. Baby Girl, go to my pantry and get another jar while I get the water on and start peeling the potatoes. Yes ma’am, we’re gonna have us an indoor picnic!”
Grandy looks up suddenly. “It’s a nice day, Prisma. What do you say we pack up this food for dinner under the stars?”
Mom drops her pencil. Prisma turns around and says, “Are you sure you’re feeling all right, Mrs. Summerville?”
“I am. I’ve never had a picnic dinner under the stars. Let’s eat in the backyard, right by the little fishpond. There are still fish in there, aren’t there?”
“Yes,” all three of us say.
“Now, see there? I am the chief resident of this house, and you all know about the goldfish, and I don’t.”
“Well, there you go then, Mrs. Summerville, a picnic under the stars it is!” And Prisma starts humming “Victory in Jesus.”
Lark
THE PHONE RANG AT TEN THAT NIGHT, and I dove for it in my bedroom in case Bradley had decided to surface again.
“Lark?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Newly.”
No way!
“Oh, hello, Newly.”
“It’s been awhile.”
“Yes, it sure has.” I quickly calculated. “Has it really been two years since we’ve spoken?”
“That’s what I figured too, so it must be the case.” Don’t get into the whys, Lark. “Did you call to speak to Mother?”
“No, actually. I figured she’d be abed by now.” Abed? Who uses the term abed anymore? I doubt if people in England even use the word abed anymore. “You’re right. She had the heart catheterization today.”
“I know. Flannery called this afternoon.”
“She did?”
“Oh yes. She keeps me posted on things.”
Well, good for Flannery. I wish I were as mature as my daughter.
“And I do call Mother,” he said.
“Does she know you know about her heart troubles?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it amazing, Newly?”
He sighed, and Newly rarely sighs. “Un
fortunately, I understand all too well about keeping private.”
I was about to say, “No kidding, Newly.” But something stopped me. I immediately took stock of my own privacy pantry and found all sorts of moldy, dried-out, and tasteless items that nobody in my family knew about.
So keep quiet then.
“So is there something else you wanted to speak to me about?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact there is. I ran into your friend Marsha last week at this jazz club down on Lombard. The Eleven O’Clock.”
My skin crawled. “My, you were slumming it.”
“Oh yes. But at least I get out of the house.”
Wow. Typical sibling exchange. I’d forgotten the joys. I could either go back and act like an adult or continue. If I continued, however, I might not find out why my brother had ventured a call. “You’re right. So what happened at the Eleven O’ Clock?”
“Marsha told me you had a visitor a few weeks back.”
Oh no. That big mouth!
“Yes. I did.”
And then, when Newly spoke, a note crept into his voice I’d never heard. He said, “Lark.” And I heard regret and sadness and an apology and even admiration in that single syllable.
I inhaled, and he must have heard that and counted it as a response, for he said, “Flannery doesn’t know, does she?”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“I have to.”
“Yes. You’re probably right.”
“Bradley’s coming back in three weeks to renew the relationship.”
He paused. “Do you think she’ll want to?”
“Has Flannery ever turned away a needy human being?”
“Never. Most chief of them all being yours truly.”
Now that was steak for thought.
“I’m not sure how to tell her, Newly.”
“I don’t know, Lark. I’ve thought about it many times since, and I’ve weighed it over and over, and I thought that maybe if you knew someone else knew, it might help.”
“Oh, come on, Newly. What do you take me for? Why do you really care so much?”
“I know we haven’t had an even passable relationship, Lark. But I do love you, you being my sister and all. And what happens to Flannery is of supreme import to me.”
“I can’t fault you in the uncle department.”
“Well, good.”
As good a start as any.
It’s like this. You can go on for years and years and years, and life seems the same. But then one thing will happen, like your house burning to the ground, taking away almost everything you own, and it leaves you even more vulnerable, and you find yourself willing to look upon the same old vistas in a way you never allowed yourself to before.
Next week Flannery and Prisma leave for their lighthouse photo safari to the Outer Banks. Just Mother and me here on Greenway. Surprisingly enough, she said nothing like, “Oh, don’t worry about me, Lark. I’ll make do.” She only said, “Well, let’s make sure to order dinner in each night, Lark.”
And I didn’t blame her one bit. My cooking reminds me of a cheap vinyl chair. It doesn’t look good, and it sticks to you so thoroughly the only way to separate you from it is under conditions of extreme discomfort.
The cookout at Marsha’s house, first of all, bore no resemblance to what she originally proposed. That’s Marsha for you. When she said hot dogs? Well, she actually meant kielbasa, bratwurst, knackwurst, and all those other wursts that people in Highlandtown still eat regularly.
And the crabs? I skipped the real food and zeroed in on the good stuff.
Johnny, having only arrived a few minutes before due to Marsha’s invitation, not mine, sat down beside me at the picnic table, one of those piled-high plates threatening to buckle in his hand. Mother sat with her feet up on a lounger under the patio umbrella. A plate of food rested on her lap, and though she took a long time to eat it, she appeared to enjoy every bite. Marsha’s husband, Glen, talked to her, and they nodded together about something. Don’t ask me what. Mother has the talent of being a social chameleon. For all I knew, they discussed lawn mowers or motor oil.
Johnny smiled at me. “So, Lark. I’m surprised you’re actually eating those bottom feeders.”
“Gee, thanks. That’s just what I needed to hear.”
“Hey, the crabs haven’t changed since I made that remark.”
True. I pulled off a claw and dragged the meaty end between my teeth.
“Nice spread,” he said. “Arranged pretty, too.”
“Marsha does it right.”
Please, God. Don’t let him make the infernal Martha Stewart joke.
“What are you going to do with that lot in Hamilton, Lark? Seriously?”
I threw down the empty claw shell. “It’s pretty much all I have in the world.”
“I figured as much.”
I wasn’t about to ask him how.
“I have a suggestion.”
“Okay.” I mean, I love Babe and Deke, but so far they’d come up with nothing worth considering in the idea department.
“Why not hire a contractor to build a house there?”
“Maybe because I can’t afford a house?”
“No. But once it’s done, you can sell it right away.”
“In Hamilton? Who’s going to buy a new house in Hamilton?”
He picked up his corn on the cob. “You may be surprised.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Hey, it would give you something concrete to think about these days.”
Oh my word! I didn’t remember hiring him as my psychiatrist.
“Do you mind if I go over and meet your mother, Lark?”
I reached for the roll of paper towels and started wiping my spice-covered hands. “Why not?”
If I thought Mother would disdain this big, older guy in a medical supply T-shirt and old surfer shorts and flip-flops, I thought wrong.
“Mother, this is Dr. Johnny Josefowski.”
Her eyes widened, and she stuck out her hand like a frog’s tongue after a horsefly. “What a pleasure to meet you, Doctor.”
“Oh, call me Johnny, please.”
“All right then. And I’m Leslie.”
“Lark’s busy on the crabs. Care if I join you here under the umbrella?”
“I’d love it!”
She’d love it?
“Go ahead, Lark,” Johnny said. “Finish up your crabs.”
“That’s right, dear. We’ll keep each other company.”
Yet another conspiracy seemingly begun. Marsha’s web grew every week.
“Lark!” Marsha came out with a boom box blaring “In the Mood.”
“Get it? In the mood?”
I wanted to slide under the picnic table right down between that dark crack that bifurcated the patio.
Johnny and Mother just laughed.
Maybe the two of them should get together.
Leslie
I HAVEN’T ENJOYED MYSELF THIS MUCH IN YEARS!
So far this week Prisma has lived up to her word, and next week looks good with Lark and me planning to tiptoe night after night among the Take-Out Taxi’s garden of delights.
We’ve enjoyed, of course, the barbecued chicken. And for breakfast the next morning, I ate Prisma’s creamed eggs, a dish I’ve secretly longed for ever since Charles and I married.
I even nibbled on a piece of bacon.
The next five dinners, after the cookout, of course, were these:
Corned beef and cabbage, with potatoes, carrots, and Parker House rolls.
Rib-eye steaks, baked potatoes with butter, sour cream, and chives, steamed asparagus. Key lime pie for dessert. And my stomach surrendered before my taste buds.
Chicken à la King. Now, I know that reminds one of a TV dinner–type of offering. But it is truly one of Prisma’s specialties. And she actually makes her own puff pastry. I watched her do it. “Prisma, don’t you get tired of putting it in and out of the free
zer?”
“Gotta be done, Mrs. Summerville.”
The next night we enjoyed a slab of barbecued ribs, greens, and corn bread. Baked beans as well. And Prisma doctors them up with onions, brown sugar, a little extra ketchup, and bacon. She lays the bacon strips on the top, and by the time the timer dings, it’s bubbling, and the bacon is cooked.
And here I took food preparation for granted all of these years. I’m having a lovely time.
Finally, last night we sat around the picnic table out on the screened porch and ate steamed crabs. Lark has been giving me grief all week because I failed to have some at Marsha’s house. Which, of course, made Prisma start the ball rolling, traipsing up to the attic for the steamer.
Now, Charles tried and tried to get me to eat these spidery crustaceans, and I refused. How ghastly when you achieve seventy years of age and you realize you’ve deprived yourself of something as absolutely wonderful as steamed crabs because you had a mother with strange ideas about food and you let it color your habits for decades.
Not to mention those baked beans.
Extremely ghastly.
Now you may think I’m a foolish old thing. “What’s this woman’s problem? Getting excited over baked beans and such? I’ve been making baked beans like that ever since I was old enough to turn on a stove.”
And you’d be exactly right.
I haven’t lived.
But let the change begin! And it starts, first and foremost, with my daughter. And even Newly. In fact, I think that I’ve warmed the bench long enough.
Yes, yes, yes!
Baked beans are only the beginning!
Flannery
PRISMA SUGGESTED WE EXHUME Granddad’s old convertible Mercedes out of storage for our drive down to the Outer Banks.
Well, cool.
Thanks to her foresight and keen planning prowess, she did it two weeks ago in plenty of time for the three-thousand-dollar repair bill. When Asil pulled it around the night before we left, Grandy cried. “I almost want to hug that old thing!” She cries a lot now, and it’s a beautiful thing.
The drive is wonderful. I’m wearing a straw hat with a cherry silk scarf looped over it and tied under my neck. With my sunglasses and a neat little yellow cotton twinset, Capri pants, and espadrilles, the look is perfect.