by Sasha Martin
“Oh, no, that wouldn’t be …” she paused, then brightened, her voice picking up cadence as she thought of a more neutral meeting point: “Why don’t we go out? There’s a nice Chinese restaurant halfway between us in Cambridge.”
John offered to come with me to dinner; what’s more, he helped me pick out my outfit—an oversize blue button-down shirt, a skirt, and strappy heels. I wore my hair in a high ponytail.
When we arrived, the parking lot of the Golden Dragon was dark and mostly empty. Yellow streetlights pooled over a few scattered cars. After a quick check inside the restaurant, I realized Mom wasn’t there yet, or she’d given up waiting.
I made a beeline for John’s SUV, but he reached for my hand and pulled me firmly back onto the sidewalk.
“She’ll be here, Bean. Just wait.”
“This is ridiculous, John. She’s not coming.”
But John wasn’t listening. I followed his gaze just in time to see a small white car slip quietly into the other end of the parking lot. The driver, invisible in the darkness, made her way slowly around the lot before finally stopping in front of us. When she reached across the seat and swung the passenger-side door open, I caught a glimpse of her small, slender hand; the skin was smooth and distinctly olive, even under the garish streetlights.
The shadowy figure leaned farther toward us, and a mop of salt-and-pepper curls bounced into the light.
“Mom!”
She returned my look with an openmouthed smile. Her brown eyes shone out from behind a pair of spring-green cat-eye glasses.
“Oh, wow … Hi!” she said, “You look …”
Every time she opened her mouth to speak, her foot floated off the brake pedal and the car lurched forward. Finally John ran around to the driver’s side and escorted her to the curb. While he parked the car, Mom and I stood across from each other for the first time since I was 12, at Michael’s bedside. We didn’t hug; we simply drank each other in like two thirsty wanderers. I felt unshackled in her gaze, as though she was seeing my spirit, reading me, downloading the past several years of my life.
I took in her trim capris, her soft rose lipstick, brown cashmere sweater, short blue crocheted neck scarf, and brown leather handbag, which gleamed under the red, blinking “open” sign that hung crooked in the restaurant window behind us. I’d never seen her with lipstick on before.
“I thought you’d be wearing a babushka,” I said, shyly. Without it she almost looked like a different woman.
“A babushka? It’s been nearly a decade, Alex. You’re not the only one who’s changed.”
I considered reiterating that I preferred “Sasha,” but the thrill of seeing her suddenly made the detail feel unimportant. She glanced at my heels and plunging neckline, which suddenly felt two inches too low. The last time she’d seen me, when Michael was in the hospital, I was prepubescent. Now I was almost 20—a woman. I pulled at the back of my shirt, covering up as best I could.
Once inside, the three of us looked over our menus. Mom and I kept peering over them at each other, grinning foolishly in the dim candlelight. A slip of a waiter walked up and began to share the specials.
Mom glanced sideways, up at him and then back to me.
“Here, Alex,” she said, cutting sharply into his recitation, “I want you to have this. Can you use it?” She slid a small, silver camera across the booth to me.
I gave the waiter an apologetic smile, “We need a minute.” He retreated with a nod.
Mom sat back and announced, “I hate when they do that. A real waiter knows when his customers need him and when they don’t. Why interrupt our conversation?” She shook her head, then tapped her fingers on the camera. “I can’t figure those things out. Can you?”
Digital cameras were all the rage in 1999, but I didn’t have one. “Uh, John, will you take our picture?” I asked.
When I put my arm around my mother, she felt papery thin in my embrace. I was half a head taller than her. My thighs looked plump next to hers. The once familiar scent of eucalyptus surrounded her.
“So how have you been, Mom? I can’t believe you’re still in the same apartment.”
“Actually, I’m in transition. I’ve been living in a hotel for several weeks. My landlord wants to evict me, but I told him that after almost 20 years, he can’t do that.”
“I guess not,” I said faintly. “Speaking of transitions … Did you know I’m not staying with the Dumonts anymore?”
“Right! You’re in school.”
“It’s more than that. Things were difficult in Europe. I think they’re just tired.”
“Nonsense! They’re your parents. They love you.”
“Yeah, well, you’re my mom,” I said quietly, looking back down at the menu.
The waiter approached us but none of us looked at him, and he slunk back behind the bar without a word. John got up and followed him.
“I got the invitation you sent for your high school graduation,” Mom said brightly. “That was so nice!” She pulled the envelope out of her purse, and handed it to me, indicating the postmark. “But the ceremony was already over when you mailed it?”
“You would have come?” I looked up, genuinely surprised.
“You never know,” she shrugged.
“No,” I muttered. “I guess not.”
John popped back in his seat, his smile fading when he saw our pained expressions. I shifted in my seat and tried to think of something else to say, but came up blank. A few minutes later, the waiter delivered a steaming platter of General Tso’s Chicken.
“I didn’t know what else to order,” John offered meekly. He always ordered General Tso’s.
Mom pulled two small plastic bottles out of her purse. One contained olive oil, the other apple cider vinegar. She misted the chicken with a cloud of vinegar. Sharp fumes filled the air, causing John and I to cough violently.
Mom watched us with detached amusement, then handed John the olive oil.
“This is the good stuff. First press,” she confided, “You never can tell with these places, so you have to come prepared. The vinegar will kill any germs.”
“What’s the olive oil for?” John asked.
“Flay-vah.”
“Oh,” he looked at me briefly, then obliged, drizzling a line of olive oil over the chicken.
He was the only one who ate.
Back at the car, John didn’t start the engine right away. “You look just like her, Sash.” He grinned.
“You think? My hair’s not quite as big, though …” I giggled. “I can’t believe it finally happened. I mean, it was a little intense, but …” I paused, watching as her car slipped back into the stream of taillights. “I have a mother, John. That was my mom.”
I’d finally looked into her eyes again, sat next to her, spoken with her, taken a photo. Heck, I even had her phone number.
“I know,” he said, his voice hushed.
“Do you think she’d let me stay the summer with her?” I asked, the words escaping before I had time to think them through.
“Just so long as I get to see you, too,” he said, “I’d miss my Bean if you were with her all summer.”
He took off his glasses and kissed me. I let myself disappear into his embrace, relaxing as his adoration washed the adrenaline away.
CHAPTER 13
Reunion and Remembrance
AFEW WEEKS LATER I mustered the courage to ask my mother if I could spend the summer with her. I wanted nothing more than to be around her, learn from her, be her daughter. Sure, there were lingering questions about, well, everything. But I wasn’t angry, and the questions weren’t burning—not at first. Sitting in the same room as her would be enough. I’d spent nine years wanting nothing more than her.
While she didn’t refuse outright, Mom insisted on emailing the Dumonts to make sure it was OK with them. I told her that in the nine months since I’d called about seeing them for Thanksgiving, Pierre had only contacted me a handful of times; the only time I saw him
was when he took me to purchase some school clothes around Christmas. Pierre responded to her email with two simple lines: “Of course. Sasha needs you.”
It was as though he was thrusting me into my mother’s arms, dutifully, the same way she had thrust me into theirs when I was ten. Thinking back to the Thanksgiving phone call, I wondered if the Dumonts hadn’t been cutting me off. Perhaps they had been trying to help me spread my wings and find a roost with Mom.
Apparently liberated by Pierre and Patricia’s blessing, Mom rented a trendy loft in the heart of Boston’s Italian quarter, the North End, and furnished it with a kitchen table, two chairs, and a bed. She said I needed to connect with my Italian roots, so I was surprised when she told me she wouldn’t be staying there with me. She kept the apartment in Jamaica Plain, “just in case,” but given her shaky situation with the landlord, split her nights between there and a hotel. During the day, she worked as a receptionist at a high-end salon.
When I asked Mom how she could afford two rents on her salary, she stood a little taller and pronounced, “This isn’t any old apartment; this loft costs $1,800 a month.”
My jaw dropped.
“But it’s worth it!” she added. “You’ll get to be around your Italian heritage for a change.” I pressed her further, but she shrugged me off: “Just enjoy it, Alex.”
The small, heavy-beamed loft was rimmed with windows that opened right above a flower shop. Orange, red, and pink bouquets spilled onto the sidewalk below. I was on the fifth floor, a few blocks from the main drag, Hanover Street, and 30 yards from the harbor. From the kitchen window, I could watch men perched like lanky Italian roosters crowing at curvy, red-lipped belle donne who clacked along the sidewalk. On warm evenings I could smell the old men’s cigars.
I got a job within walking distance, at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, where I worked the counter at the Museum of Fine Art’s gift shop. In my free time, I roamed the North End with Mom—her idea. Every evening and on the weekends, we systematically worked our way through the best restaurants and shops—none of which were on Hanover Street.
“When lines are that long, you know the food won’t be good and it’ll cost too much. That variety of Italian food,” she advised, “is for the tourists.”
She walked me over to Polcari’s Coffee for sesame candies, to Maria’s for dollar slices of Sicilian pizza and cannoli, and to a holein-the-wall called Dino’s that only kept its door open long enough to sell out of their daily batch of fresh spinach ravioli. Their pasta was delicate, the spinach filling laced with the most tantalizing whisper of nutmeg, the sauce bright with disarming bursts of unadulterated tomatoes. Mom said it was the only pasta in Boston remotely as good as her grandmother’s.
With each stop, my mouth remembered what my mind had long forgotten; I had visited these curiosities with Mom and Michael more than a decade earlier. When I talked to Mom about these memories, she’d alight on the joyful ones before promptly flitting back to the food in front of us. I could feel an invisible barrier when it came to talking about the past. If I opened my mouth, I was half afraid I’d shatter the spell.
One day I came home from work to find Mom already there. The apartment was perfumed with the sweet aroma of roasted tomatoes. There was something earthy, too—like cinnamon or nutmeg.
“I’m in here!” she called out from the kitchen cheerily. I rounded the corner just in time to see her pull a baking sheet out from the broiler.
“You cooked?” I asked, peering over her shoulder with a curious smile. This was the first time she’d cooked for me since I was little. On the floor beside her was a large cardboard box, half unpacked. Pots, wooden spoons, and two dozen spice jars were piled up pell-mell on the counters.
“Are you moving in?” I asked.
“I think I might,” she grinned, and handed me a toasted square of cinnamon raisin bread topped with tomato sauce and two translucent slices of mozzarella. She swirled thick rivers of olive oil over the top of the cheese until it pooled over onto the plate, finishing it off with a generous dusting of hot paprika. We sat down at the kitchen table.
“Never brown the cheese,” she said, as she slid the plate toward me, “that’s a sign of a careless cook.”
“What exactly is this?” I began, looking down at the curious, steaming concoction that was by now marooned in olive oil.
“Pizza.”
Mom watched intently as I pressed my knife through the cheese into the crispy bread and brought the glistening, oozing morsel to my mouth. The sweet raisins coupled with the cinnamon and hot paprika suddenly and unexpectedly brought me back to the kitchen in Jamaica Plain. There was no other taste in the world like this.
I was six years old again, swinging my feet under the kitchen table. Michael and I ate and chanted in equal measure: “Pizza. Pizza. Pizza.”
“Wow,” I said, and took another, larger bite. I shut my eyes and settled into the memory, a smile tracing vaguely along my lips.
Mom’s Curious Cinnamon
Raisin Pizza
Never one to let lack of ingredients stump creativity, Mom first made this “pizza” when we were out of regular sandwich bread. Whenever I tell someone about it, they inevitably scrunch up their nose. And yet, against all odds, the touch of sweet raisins and cinnamon delightfully punctuates paprika-topped pizza. The combination reminds me of some Middle Eastern and Central Asian cultures, which include cinnamon and raisins in their savory rice dishes.
2 slices cinnamon raisin bread
2 generous spoonfuls marinara
2 slices mozzarella or provolone
1 or 2 glugs olive oil
A couple pinches hot paprika
Toast two slices of cinnamon raisin bread under the broiler. Spread on a heaping spoonful of marinara, and top with a slice of mozzarella or provolone. Return to broiler until hot and bubbling. Mom would say not to brown the cheese, but I prefer the deep nuttiness that comes from an extra minute under the broiler. Drizzle with good quality olive oil, and dust with sharp paprika. Enjoy with a fork, a knife, and a triumphant smile.
Enough for 2
As I closed in on the last quarter of the pizza, Mom made an announcement. “Just so you know,” she said, “I got rid of all your bras while you were at work today.”
I froze, mid-bite. “Are you serious? Why would you do that?”
“That room was a mess! I thought I’d get it shipshape. And then I find you’re wearing …” she scrunched her nose. “Push-up bras? You don’t need that junk! Does John make you wear them?”
Though John had bought a few for my birthday, I wasn’t about to admit it. “Mom! I’m not 12 anymore.”
“No. You’re not. But I’m your mother. And I’m trying to figure out who you are.” She screwed up her eyes and looked at me steadily.
I squirmed in my seat, waiting for her to look away, even for a moment. When she didn’t, I stomped up to the loft, yelling over my shoulder, “You’re wasting your time! I’m just going to buy them all over again.”
At $30 a pop, good bras were beyond the reach of my summer-job minimum wages. Outraged, I lay down as far as I could from the railing, arms crossed, listening to the swish and clatter as Mom cleaned the kitchen below.
At least, that’s what I thought she was doing.
In the morning I woke up to find my mother sitting on the side of my bed. “We’re moving back to the old apartment. Get packing, Twinkle-Toes.”
“I thought you were having trouble with your landlord?”
“Oh, that’s all settled,” she waved her hand dismissively. “I just didn’t think you were ready for all those memories.”
I looked at her newly composed face, considering the disarming realization that in all likelihood, there’d never been a disagreement—or if there had been one, it was little more than an excuse to protect me.
Real anger flashed for the first time since I’d contacted her a few months earlier. Why was everyone so hell-bent on controlling my experience of the past? Why couldn�
��t I be allowed to decide when I was ready?
“But the box you brought over last night? What was that all about? I thought you were finally moving in?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “A mistake! The kitchen is no good; the stove is too far from the fridge, and there’s no ventilation. It doesn’t work. Plus this place costs an arm and a leg. I don’t know how someone’s supposed to afford the North End anymore. This used to be a place for immigrants—a place of opportunity.”
I followed her downstairs and saw that she’d put everything back in the box and sealed it up with two strips of clear packing tape.
“You can sleep in your old bed,” she added brightly.
“You still have my bed?” I asked, not sure whether to be pleased or horrified.
“Sure. I’ve been using the frame as a plant stand, but that won’t take but a minute to fix.” She paused, digging in her purse. She pulled out her wallet. “But first, let’s go bra shopping. My treat.”
I didn’t really have a choice. Two hours later, I was outfitted with a dozen sensible bras. Though I was loath to admit it, they were more comfortable than the push-ups and nowhere near as frumpy as I’d expected.
Walking into our old apartment was like stepping into a whitewashed photograph from another era. The pale walls stretched up to the nine-foot ceiling quietly, without cracks. The very paint, the color of driftwood, looked taut, as though the room might have been holding its breath for the last decade. Though the morning light filtered into the tiny living room, soft and glowing, even the dust bunnies were suspended, seemingly on pause.
Everything but the windows was smaller than I remembered, but the space was also neater than I recalled. From the looks of it, our toys had long since been donated. Michael’s bed was gone, too, a rubber plant in its place. But my bed was propped up just where I’d left it: my old, wooden castle just below the front window under the spider plant.