It was a little after midnight when we pulled into the dark driveway. Six hours on the road had left Mary and I glassy-eyed and sore. As we opened the back hatch on the car to start unloading, the porch light came on and Mom stuck her head out the back door. They’d waited up for us. They’d both been excited that we were coming to stay with them for Thanksgiving this year. Mom had been cleaning since August when I’d told her we were coming.
We usually stay with Mary’s parents when we go to Memphis, which is becoming an increasingly rare trip due to our work schedules. It’s not an intentional slam against my parents by staying with Mary’s; it’s just where we usually end up. But this year things would be different. Just how different we were yet to discover. Mom and Dad are in their late seventies, and it takes them a little longer to do things.
For instance, one of the first mornings we were there, as I was on my way to the shower, Mom told me that Dad wanted me to take a look at the showerhead. “He said it’s leaking water all over the back of the wall. If you have time today, take a look at it,” she said. I told her I had plenty of time and I’d check it out. When I went into the bathroom, Dad was waiting for me. I turned on the shower, and as it ran, one single bead of water brimmed up over the lip of the handheld fixture and ran down the hose.
“See that leak?” Dad said. “I was thinking we could put some of that, um…” he trailed off. Dad forgets his words sometimes and it takes him a while to express a thought, so I tried to help.
“Teflon tape?” I offered.
“No, uh, we need to put some, uh…oh, you know…” then he walked off midsentence. I felt bad. He couldn’t think of the word he needed and was too embarrassed to continue. Moments later, though, he returned with a caulk gun.
“Caulk!” he announced.
“You want me to caulk the showerhead?”
“No, I want you to caulk the top of the knob fixture so water doesn’t run in behind it.”
Never mind the fact that it already has a rubber backing on it to protect it because it’s in a shower; I caulked it. Poorly. (Sadly, I’ve never been much of a caulker.)
Later, Mom told me she wanted me to show her how to make the asparagus dish I had made last time they visited us, asparagus, red onion, and mushroom sautéed together with butter and herbs. Sure, no sweat. I mentioned picking up some asparagus, and she said she already had some — in a can. I must have made a face when she said “can” because she added, “Well, I don’t know how to cook the fresh kind!” How do you get to be seventy-seven and not know how to cook fresh asparagus? I told her it was super-easy. She wanted to know how long it would need to cook. Would it need more than a half hour or so? I explained that it would only take about ten minutes.
“Ten minutes?” she asked, wrinkling up her face. “Will it get done?”
“Yes. It’s asparagus, Mom, not raw chicken.” Why do they think it takes so long? Then I remembered the broccoli they prepared in my childhood — cooked until it was limp and gray.
Then she said she would be cooking a ham. She had bought one of those big spiral-sliced jobs that come fully cooked. All you have to do is heat it and add the packaged glaze that comes with it. Mary and I went out for a while to run some errands. When we returned later that afternoon, the ham was resting on the counter. I lifted the foil, expecting to find succulent pink meat. Instead, the ham was bone dry, reduced to an almost jerky-like state.
Mom called from her chair in the living room, “That ham may be a little dry. I cooked it like it said, but it dried out.”
“How long did you cook it?” I asked, flicking a crusty spiral-sliced flap.
“Two and a half hours,” she replied.
What?! Mary and I looked at each other in alarm, with that look that says both, “Oh my God!” and “Don’t speak!” all in one. Two and a half hours? It was an eight-pound fully cooked ham. It had languished, uncovered, in my mother’s oven for more than twice the amount of time it needed. And now it lay on her counter, charred and withered, like a tiny little burn victim.
One of several things she wanted me to do while I was there was clean the light fixture that hangs over their kitchen table. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour,” she reassured me. An hour? In what atmospheric conditions? We’re cleaning a light fixture in your kitchen, not repairing a damaged rocket booster during a spacewalk.
“An hour?” I asked.
“Well, don’t we need to take the fixture down?” she said.
“No,” I said with a shrug. “We’ll just wipe it with a damp rag.”
“Oh,” she said. She sounded almost disappointed. “I guess that’ll work, too.”
I wrung out a wet rag and wiped the fixture, the globes, and the base, replacing the dust with shiny polished brass. It took about ten minutes.
It was a good visit. I enjoyed getting to spend time with Mom and Dad, talking about the old days and reminiscing about family. But unlike all the other things that week, it didn’t take nearly as long as I would have liked.
~Alan
