John glanced down at his mother’s hand resting on his. It was cold and looked like it had been formed of marbled blue and yellow-brown wax. She had worn the same cabochon Tiger’s Eye ring for as long as he could recall. It had always seemed to him too gaudy and big for her hands—and by no means her finest piece of jewelry. But somehow it was her. She’d wear it to her grave. It had pained him to take it to the jewelers the week prior. It was the third time this year that they’d had to have it cast a size smaller.
He would reason with her. “It’s just that it seems a little morbid to me. People usually give their stuff away after they’ve passed.”
“Passed, John? And what exactly will I be passing, dear?”
John searched the palm of his right hand. It was a habit he formed as a little boy—something he did when he felt bewildered.
“Mom, I am trying not to be selfish, but I need you to understand that not everyone is taking this as breezily as you are.”
Fonnie smiled and nodded her head. She sat still for a moment in seeming deference to the weight of her son’s words, then heaved herself out of the ancient wicker chair and headed for the kitchen.
“Honey,” she called from the other room, “it’s just that dead people can’t give their stuff away. If you actually want your family to know what something has meant, you have to give it to them before you die. You know, while you can still talk.”
John winced and tried to smooth the pleat in his trousers. His mother, he observed, must have decided that being flippant wasn’t helping her chances. As she stepped gingerly back down to the porch stairs holding two glasses of ice tea and a box of ginger snaps under her arm, John noticed that her face looked comically grim. She handed him his tea and he jumped up to help her lower her small body back into the wicker chair.
He watched her gaze fix on the opposite wall for a few seconds, her arm still mostly extended and holding the glass of tea up like a lantern. Then she snapped back into the moment, glanced at her hand, and put the tea down, gently shaking her head side to side. She pulled a cigarette out from behind the flower in her wide-brimmed hat. Half-way through the motion, she froze and looked at John pie-eyed.
“Damn it.”
John had to chuckle a little. For a moment his eighty-one year-old mother looked about seventy-five years younger than she was. “Come on, mom. You think we don’t all know?”
Fonnie slumped a little in her chair. “Well, I just hate being a bad influence on the girls, John.”
“Well, I hate it, too. But I’d be a fool if I didn’t realize the good completely outweighs the bad. Besides, I told them it was only temporary.”
“Ha! Well played, son. Well played indeed,” she said in a faux-bourgeois accent, while feeling around in her pockets for matches. John picked the box up off the table and lit the cigarette.
They sat in silence for a few seconds. John watched as his mother took two or three puffs, scrunched her nose up and snubbed the cigarette out in an ashtray she had pulled from under her chair. He knew she didn’t like smoking in front of him and was pretending not to enjoy it for his sake.
“So what about the girls, John?” Fonnie posed the question quietly, cleared her throat. She seemed to be doing her best to avoid eye-contact. “You know I wouldn’t smoke around them,” she added weakly, glancing up in time to meet her son’s gaze for half a second.
“Yes, I know that mom.” He rarely saw her timid and even though he was forty-seven, it was the first time he had felt like an adult—like her peer—throughout the entire conversation. Then again, she rarely asked him for anything, including his or his children’s time. He knew she felt she hadn’t earned it.
“Why don’t we see about the girls coming to stay with you on Thursdays after school. We could arrange for the bus to drop them off here.”
He watched her eyes widen and for just a second, her old body reminded him of a coiled spring. She stuffed her mouth with a ginger snap, most likely just to give it something to do. He knew she didn’t always trust her own mouth.
“Hell, I think they’d rather be around you than just about anybody else.”
Again, Fonnie just nodded and chewed for a moment, the corners of her mouth betraying her excitement. “Well, I feel the same way, dear.”
“Just don’t talk about sex too much, okay?”
“Not too much, I promise.”
“Or death...”
“Oh no. Not death. I told you honey, I want to tell them about my life. They’ll figure everything else out on their own.”