Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs (25 page)

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 …

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.

T
HIS 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—needed—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.

It served my purposes as well. I never needed to learn how to deal with the butterflies and the nerves and the upset stomach
and the terror of forgetting everything you were supposed to do just as the audience sets you in their sights, because I never
did it. I played Jo March in a sixth-grade production of
Little Women
, reveled in the limelight, and never stepped out on the stage again. I was a theatrical has-been at twelve.

Recently I have been writing more—shorter pieces that can be read in five or six minutes—and I have acquired friends who not
only enjoy my writing, but enjoy hearing me read. When I mention I have written more, they request I read it to them aloud.
This evolved, gradually, into the notion that I might read some of my work for the Phoenix Community Talent Show. I volunteered.
It seemed like a good idea in February, when I had months to prepare and when I concentrated most of my efforts on writing
the piece I might read. A month or so later it occurred to me I had volunteered to stand up, alone, in front of a veritable
crowd of people, and
perform
.