"Martha Stewart"

The reality of my mother walking through our front door hits me. “I feel bad about throwing my apple at that girl.”



“Yeah, that was a pretty bitchy thing to do. You probably got that from me, poor thing.” She opens up the cabinets. All of the plates and glasses are neatly stacked. Every piece has its place. Mom bought them as soon as we moved here. I don’t know where our old stuff is, the china with the faded-blue flowers and round drinking glasses. These new dishes are the color of bones. There is no soul to them. They blend with the other sterile and new objects mom bought to replace the familiar. Mom thinks she won’t be able to remember the smell of dad’s brisket with glazed carrots if she donates his oven mitts and CorningWare or the sight of her husband spooning homemade oatmeal into the bowls with the blue bonnets if they don’t come with us to Meadowview. But my father vibrates in every cell of my being. I don’t need the things he touched to remind me. It’d just be nice.


“Since when did Sam become Martha friggin’ Stewart?” Zelda turns to me. She teeters over to the table with a stack full of plates. “Go get your brother. Quick, before your mother gets home.”


“Where is he?”


“He’s playing video games with some kid named Seth in this dump. Your mother will have a shit fit if she finds out I let him off his leash for one second. And come back soon. My feet are killing me in these things.” She gestures to the narrow tips of her shoes which are painful to even look at: all those toes cramming into such a small space.


I will not suggest she remove the leather shoes. To do so would be akin to suggesting one walk braless down the street. To Zelda, pain is much better than an unwrapped package. Maybe this is where my mother learned to be a Pollyanna. The thought strikes me halfway to the McGees’ but is gone the moment I see Seth standing at his front door, a lazy grin on his handsome face that speaks of second chances.