Corinne Smith, ContributorI suppose in many ways my mother is like a lot of women of her generation. They married young, stayed home to raise kids and, when the job was done, took up knitting.
In many ways I am a lot like my mother. I married young, quit my job, and stayed home to raise two beautiful boys.
I have no regrets there. But I'm sorry that I never really knew my father, and that it wasn't until after his death that I started to know my mother. I suspect there is much about her I may never know.
She was only 61 when he died, not much older than I am now. I remember her call from the hospital that day: 'Oh Gracie, he's gone. He's gone and left me and I don't even know how to pay the hospital bill.'
It wasn't that they didn't have the money. He had invested wisely; money was not a problem. But Dad had always taken care of the finances while Mom made sure dinner was on the table at five o'clock and that I was wearing shoes appropriate for a girl my age. She knew nothing about reconciling bank accounts, or even how much their mortgage payments were. In my eyes, she was the perfect mom, and the perfect wife. If she was ever unhappy with her life, she never let it show.
At the beginning of each month, Dad would hand her a plain brown envelope and say, 'Now don't go spending it all in one place, Doris.'
She always laughed when he said it, like it was their little secret. And Dad always wrote, in beautiful longhand, what the money was for: Groceries, Grace, Etcetera; and then a figure - maybe $30 or $70 - beside each item. The figures changed as I grew older, but the words remained the same.
About two weeks after the funeral, I went to visit Mom and help her clean the house. We'd spent many Saturdays together before and at first this Saturday felt almost normal, too. The last of the visiting family had finally gone, the sheets had been changed, the carpets vacuumed, and I was about to pour the coffee when I noticed it.
The envelope was on the kitchen counter next to the sugar bowl; I propped my elbows on the faded laminate and looked down at it. The usual things were written, in his perfect handwriting, on the front: Groceries, Grace, Etcetera. (He always wrote the whole word, Etcetera). I stared at it, wanting it to tell me all the things about my father that he hadn't.
I glanced out the window. Shafts of sunlight bent through an odd assortment of empty jam jars on the sill. Long ago they might have preened with pink and purple hyacinths from Mom's spring garden, cut by two adoring grandsons under her watchful eye, or maybe fistfuls of dandelions, if they'd wanted to surprise her. A dirty teaspoon blinked at me from the sink.
Mom sat at the kitchen table, her pale wrinkled hands cradling a cup of coffee. Her skin was thin, almost translucent. 'I hope you don't mind, Gracie. I've been using it to buy Christmas and birthday presents for you and Peter and the boys.' She turned and looked out the picture window and drew in a long breath, then looked over her glasses at me and let it out. I was still thinking about the envelope; I only half-heard what she was saying.
'I've been saving the rest of it for you. I call it my Grace Fund.'
Steam rose lazily from the cup in front of her. Beyond the jars, in the yard outside, faded pink cherry blossoms hung tenaciously on the tree in the brilliant blue of the morning sky.
'That's sweet, Mom. Thanks.'
There was a thump on the front door and the Saturday paper, pregnant with sale flyers, thudded on to the porch. Mom and I had spent many Saturdays clipping out coupons we'd never use. But Saturdays were different then.
'Allen, it's my turn now,' Mark whined. 'I want to turn the handle!'
Working Grandma's sturdy old ice cream maker was their favourite distraction on Saturdays, while Mom and I clipped coupons over coffee. The reward was fresh ice cream and a kiss on the forehead from Grandma.
Mark took his place in front of the machine and poured milk into the top. 'Watch, Grandma! Lookit how strong I am!' He cranked the handle as hard as he could and squealed as a surfeit of ice and salt churned out of the bucket and on to the counter. Grandma put her hands on his shoulders and said, 'Great work, Markie.'
He inclined his face for a kiss, then resumed cranking. 'How ever would I manage without you?' She said, not really expecting an answer. She went over to the sink and held the kettle under the faucet.
'Grandma,' he began. He stopped turning the handle and stared morosely at the bucket in front of him. 'Grandma, I broke your cherry tree.'
Grandma put the kettle on the stove and looked out the window at the broken limb. It was nothing much.
Mark looked at his feet. The kitchen was silent, except for the hum of the refrigerator and the long deep sigh of the kettle. 'I'm sorry, Grandma,' he said, and he ran to where she stood by the window. He wrapped his skinny arms around her waist and clung to her. 'I know it's your favourite tree and I'm so sorry. Please don't be mad, Grandma.' A tear glistened in one eye, but never quite made it to his rosy cheeks.
She looked down at the top of his head and wrapped her arms around him. 'I'm not mad at you, honey. Just sad about my tree,' she said quietly.
She was the perfect grandmother, I thought. I found myself hoping that one day I would be as good-natured and long-suffering as she.
'Gracie, promise me you won't make the same mistakes I did.' She was still clutching the now empty cup.
I didn't know what she was talking about.
'Ever since the day I married your father, I've been completely dependent on him.'
The paper boy waved from the street outside.
'Oh sure, I can drive, and I know how to do lots of things. But Gracie, I have no idea about the money, or even about what I want out of life anymore.' She paused and waved, smiling at the boy, but when she turned back to me her smile was gone.
'You say it like you gave nothing to the marriage, Mom.'
I knew what she meant, in a way. More than once during those years at home I would have loved to be back at my old job, my old life. But Peter was sure that the boys would be better off with me at home - to ask them about their day at school, to hug them if it was a bad one, to guide them through their school projects and be at every PTA meeting - and I knew he was right. 'I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. You're the best grandma around. Dad was lucky he found you.'
She rolled her eyes, but couldn't help smiling. 'And you're a great liar, Gracie. Thank you.'
'I hope Peter and I will be as happy as you and dad were.'
The ancient Frigidaire throbbed behind me.
My mother looked up at me from the table and opened her mouth, but then said nothing. She drummed her fingers on the table, then said, 'Gracie, there's a lot about me you don't know.'
A lawnmower roared to life next door. My mother got up from the table and disappeared down the hall.
The floor felt strangely cold under my feet. The once-new linoleum was showing its age; I saw where the psychedelic squares and circles were worn in spots where mom had stood washing dishes, where she'd stood stirring jams and jellies on the stove, where she'd stood chopping onions for her Sunday pot roast.
Then, as I dug through the familiar old cupboards in search of her just-for-Saturday sugar cubes, I spotted my grade-three Sleeping Beauty lunch box. I hadn't seen it for 35 years. I couldn't imagine whyshe'd kept it. My mother was not sentimental; nostalgia came to her in glints and glimmers and rarely involved what she called 'stuff'.
I eased open the clasp and lifted the lid. It was, of course, the Grace Fund. And as I took out the rolls to see how much she'd squirreled away, I found a photo - a European-looking man with a sensuous mouth and unrepentant eyes was standing with his arm around a young woman with a decadent look and a curvaceous body, amid the palms of a tropical beach. I had never known my mother like that.
The neighbourhood looked different as I drove home that day. The barely used sidewalks were cracked and uptilted by frost, and the perfect lawns and freshly painted picket fences looked faded and gray in the waning light. A bent over, gray-haired woman crossed the street at the stop sign in front of me. I watched her step carefully on to the sidewalk. I was still sitting there when she turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
-Corinne Smith
