“Do you want me to make the cheese sandwiches?”
“You use too much butter.” She put everything on the counter and then went to the silverware drawer and pulled it open. My heart dropped down to my stomach like a boot into a pond.
My mother stared at the disarray for a moment. Quickly, she righted all the silverware, pulled out a knife, sliced off a pat of butter, put it in a frying pan, and turned on the flame.
“I’ll try to use less butter next time.” My voice was quiet, hesitant.
“And you definitely oversalt.” Mom laid three pieces of bread in the pan.
“I can be more careful.”
“One should never be careless or haphazard when cooking. Particularly when it comes to butter and salt.” She unwrapped the Kraft slices and laid them on the bread.
“Did you like Izzy? Don’t you think she’s cute?” I felt desperate for my mother to understand the magic of the Cone house.
“How did those people eat before you arrived? They talked about you like you were Gandhi feeding the starving masses.”
Was there anything I could say that would shift my mother’s focus from disparaging the Cones to appreciating them? Or, at the very least, maybe she could appreciate that I was an integral part of the family? “Well . . .” I paused as I tried to answer the question without betraying the family. “Before I started cooking for them, they picked up a lot of prepared food from Eddie’s. And sometimes they ordered Chinese or went to Little Tavern.”
My mother looked at me like I’d told her they ate dog poop off the sidewalk. “That poor, poor child.” She turned back to the sandwiches. “There’s something wrong with that mother.”
I opened the cupboard and took down three plates and put them on the counter near the frying pan. “What do you think is wrong with her?” My curiosity was sincere.
“The way she was dressed. That she doesn’t feed her child.”
“But she loves Izzy so much. I think she just doesn’t want to be a housewife.”
“Use paper napkins and fold them in thirds.” My mother nodded quickly toward the yellow plastic napkin holder that always sat on the kitchen table. “If she didn’t want to be a housewife, then she shouldn’t have had a child. And she definitely shouldn’t have put that child in danger with those people in the house.”
“I was in charge of Izzy.” How could my mother not know that? What did she think I’d been doing all summer? “She was never in danger.”
“You shouldn’t have been in charge. You’re a child. You should have been a helper.” My mother used a spatula to turn the sandwiches over. “I never should have allowed you to take that job.”
“Mom.” I felt strangely choked up. I wanted to tell her that I was pretty sure that I’d done a really great job being in charge of Izzy and taking care of the house, too. And I also wanted to tell her how much I loved cooking for the Cones. How cooking for people you love feels less like a chore and more like a way of saying I love you. And, really, I got that from her, the cooking, the child-rearing, and the housekeeping. My mother had been such a good mother to me in so many ways. She’d taught me so much. And she’d been excellent company. Until she wasn’t.
“Mom,” I said again.
My mother didn’t respond. I pulled out a napkin, folded it in thirds, and put it under the first spoon. Then I folded the second and third napkins. Once they’d been placed, I picked up the soup bowls and took them to the counter near the stove. I was trying to anticipate my mother’s directions before they left her mouth.
“Mom,” I said.
“Spit it out, Mary Jane.” My mother banged the soupspoon on the side of the pot and then placed it in the holder.
“You did a really good job teaching me how to keep house and how to cook. Everyone was amazed by my cooking and I learned all that from you.” I blinked rapidly to keep my eyes from filling with tears.
My mother started ladling soup into bowls, then handed the bowls to me without ever looking up at my face. We were both silent as I walked back and forth, placing the soup bowls on the table, one by one.
“I don’t understand why Sheba’s with that drug addict,” she said at last.
“He’s recovered.”
“The tattoos look so dirty. I wanted to take a Brillo pad and scrub them off.”
The urge to cry vanished and I actually laughed. “It’s weird how quickly you get used to that stuff. I don’t even see them anymore. It’s like Karen Stiltson at school. When she first showed up at Roland Park, she had this lisp, like she said shoe lay—shesh instead of shoelaces.” I took two plates with grilled cheese back to the table.