reasons, and when you’re done, bring me the list and we’ll talk about them.”
“But I haven’t eaten hardly anything,” Jenna said.
“Do I get to eat the clumpy ones?” Oliver asked.
The phone rang. If my luck was good it would be a telemarketer wanting to know if I had time to answer a twenty-minute phone survey. “Jenna, go to your room. Your dinner will keep. Oliver, no one is eating those noodles.”
As I picked up the phone, both kids were in full protest. “Hello, can you hold on a minute?” Without waiting for an answer, I put my hand over the receiver. “Oliver, be quiet and eat. Jenna, go to your room.”
“But, Mom, I—”
“Mom, why can’t—”
My shout surprised them to silence. They stared at each other and, after a short eternity, came to an unspoken agreement. Oliver picked up his fork and started eating. Jenna stomped out of the room and up the stairs. I listened to her thump down the hall and waited for her door to shut.
The only noises in the room were the clock ticking away time and Oliver’s overloud chewing.
I suddenly wanted three things very badly: a hot bath, a thick book, and a massage therapist to iron the kinks out of my neck after spending six hours in the tub reading. Instead, I took my hand off the phone. “Sorry about that.”
“Difficulties with the children again?” my mother asked.
My hackles rose high. “What makes you say that?”
She laughed. “I’m your mother. The signs are all there. Covered phone, muffled shouts, slight delay before answering. Anything I can do to help?”
My hackles went halfway down. Maybe she wasn’t judging me; maybe this time she wasn’t going to remind me that the end of my marriage with Richard had been completely my fault.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, “but I have things under control.”
She clucked. “It’s too bad you don’t have a man in the house any longer.”
“We’re in the middle of dinner,” I said. “Can I call you back in half an hour?”
“You’re eating rather late, aren’t you? Such a late mealtime can’t be good for the children.”
I looked at the clock. Seven. Late, but not that late. “Mom, don’t forget we’re on central time here.” The whole concept that I lived in a different time zone had never quite penetrated into my mother’s consciousness.
“Ah, yes.”
“When are you going to get here?” I asked. “Are you coming in on Tuesday or Wednesday?” How Thanksgiving had gotten so close so fast was a mystery, but there it was on the wall calendar: Thanksgiving Day.
I’d also written down names: Mom, Kathy, Darlene, Tim. I’d crossed off Kathy and Tim when they’d called to cancel, and the small square now looked like a half-done to-do list. So much for the nice big family Thanksgiving dinner at Beth’s house.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Mom said. “Thanksgiving.”
“Don’t worry. I’m still cooking the rutabaga.”
“You are?”
“Well, sure. We always have rutabaga on the table at Thanksgiving. I don’t want to be the first Emmerling to break with tradition.” It’d probably bring me bad luck for thirteen years. “I’m making that pie you like with the pumpkin on the bottom and whipped filling on top. We’re having green beans and squash, and mashed potatoes, and I want to try real cranberries this year.”
The menu spilled out of me like water gushing from a broken pipe. Over the weekend I’d made my final final list and typed it into the computer. Set in stone. Almost. “And I was thinking of making that broccoli salad with bacon and raisins, but if you’d rather have a regular green salad, I can do that instead.”
“Honey, there’s something I have to tell you.”
If I’d been standing, I would have sat down abruptly. Since I was already sitting, I sat up straight. No one had ever handed out good news by starting a conversation with “There’s something I have to tell you.” No, that was always the preface to bad news.
It was her health. She’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had only three months to live.
It was her house. There’d been a huge storm and a tree had crashed down on her house, making it uninhabitable, and, since she’d forgotten to renew her home insurance, irreparable without funding from her children.
It was her car. She’d crashed it against a telephone pole and the friendly police officers had taken her driver’s license away from her. Without a car, she wouldn’t be able to live in the house. She’d have to sell it and move to an assisted living facility unless one of us volunteered to take her in. My brother would assume one of his sisters would take care of things, and Kathy didn’t have the room, so it was either me or Darlene, and I had the youngest grandchildren.
The first-floor study was the obvious place for Mom to stay. But where would I move its current contents? I was mentally rearranging furniture in my bedroom when Mom asked, “Beth? Did you hear me?”
“Um, sure. You said you had something to tell me.”
“About Thanksgiving. I won’t be able to make it down.”
“You . . . won’t?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
I swallowed. This was not personal. My family loved me. Kathy had a chance of a lifetime, that was all. And Tim’s work schedule was out of his control. Nothing personal in any of that. “Are you okay?” I whispered.
Please let my mom be okay. Please don’t let her be sick or hurt. Maybe we don’t always get along, but I love her and would be lost without her guidance. I haven’t told her about Richard’s layoff. I haven’t told her about Evan dancing with Jenna. Please let her be happy and healthy. Please . . .
“Certainly,” she said. “Why? Do I sound sick?”
“No, but—”
“Honey, don’t be such a worrywart.” She laughed. “I’m sorry about Thanksgiving, but Gladys had a bad fall.”
“Oh, no!” Gladys Pepper and my mom were nextdoor neighbors, best friends, and each other’s security system. They had a complicated arrangement of lights on/lights off, curtains open/curtains closed that could mean anything from “I’m going to bed early so don’t worry if all my lights are off” to “There’s a serial killer in the house.” Darlene lived barely twenty minutes away, but it was nice to know Mom and Gladys had each other. “Is she okay?”
“Yes, thank heavens, but she cracked some ribs and is bruised in all sorts of uncomfortable places. She’d been planning to fly to Texas to be with her son and his family for the holiday.”
“She can’t do that now,” I said.
“No,” Mom agreed. “And she doesn’t have any family left in Michigan except for her sister in Pontiac, and her sister can’t drive, so I said I’d make Thanksgiving for the two of us.”
I swallowed. Mom was okay, inside and out. “You’re a nice lady.”
“Thank you, dear. And you’re a nice daughter for not being upset about your dinner plans.”
“Thanks, Mom.” A warm feeling enveloped me. You never outgrow the glow that results from parental praise. Though what I was going to do with a twenty-pound turkey for five people, I didn’t know.
“So, how are the children? I heard you scolding them. Was it Oliver? Jenna?” She clucked. “Don’t tell me it was both.”
The warm fuzziness evaporated immediately. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have only Darlene and her husband with us for Thanksgiving. At least Darlene wouldn’t criticize my parenting skills, my divorce, my kitchen cleanliness, or my career choice.
I tried to listen to my mother suggest ways to improve my children, I really did, but most of me was stuck in worrywart mode. And, since there were a lot of things to worry about, I kept myself occupied all the way through my mother’s lecture.
Being a worrywart had its bright side.
