short-awaited story

[radfrac_archive_full]

The first part of the forty-five-minute tale. As it is a longer story and therefore More Serious, I had a harder time deciding on the title. So, provisionally, this is

My Mother's Table

Part I

My mother said she had a full set of good dishes once, but she didn't say how many that would have been. I knew a plate got broken at her wedding, and no one ever 'fessed up to it; and I myself had chipped a bowl at the age of four when I dropped a live frog into it. The frog knocked over the bowl while leaping out again. Still, we seemed to have seventeen of nearly everything, and everyone knows a full set is an even number, although I don't know why that is. Some kind of superstition, probably.

The dishes came out twice a year. My mother had four sisters, scattered across the prairies, and each of them took it in turn to cook for one holiday meal. As the youngest, considered the flightiest, my mother had Valentine’s Day – not a proper holiday at all. She set a good table; but it was not a meal we put our whole selves into. By silent consensus between her and I, that was Midsummer’s Eve.

That meal required a bigger table even than the massive one in dining room with all its leaves in. The barn stood unused (we sold furniture, not crops), and a storm had blown off one of its doors. This door, usually propped inside, my mother and I dragged across the yard to set upon two wooden trestles of uncertain origin, out in the middle of the deep-grass field, all burned golden by the summer sun.

This table was far from an object of beauty until my mother set to work on it. First she threw her heavy linen cloth over it, just long enough to cover the whole surface. Over that, the crocheted lace runner, with accents of tiny green leaves and pink rosebuds.

At each setting, with the bowls, the plates, the good old silverware with the monograms on the back, the starched napkins, and the porcelain teacups, we set out stones as though they were place cards. Citrine, like petrified marmalade. Tiny garnets from the river, kept in a doll’s cup so that they didn’t get lost. Hematite, which bleeds red if you cut it. Smoky quartz. Serpentine, which I always laid out in an S-curve, although it wasn’t strictly necessary.

My father always arranged to be in town on Midsummer’s Day. If his excuse fell through, he would sit inside reading the paper all day, even on the brightest day, and ignore us as we rushed about getting things ready. He affected to believe it was all a game for my benefit, but I knew better. My mother made is clear that it was an honor to participate, not a right, and that none of this was for me.

To finish the table, instead of food, my mother would set out the cards she’d spent the last few days meticulously copying from magazine illustrations. They showed that year’s grandest summer foods. I remember a roast beef with a lurid pink interior that probably contributed to my later vegetarianism, and a gelatin mold in the shape of a castle, with fruit suspended within. She carefully shaded and indicated the various transparencies of the gelatin.

Part II [Added later]

We leaned the cards up against the table ornaments, bowls of flowers and china candlesticks. Then we sat down on the slope of the little hill beside the table and waited.

To while away the time, while she picked splinters out of her hands, my mother would tell me fairy tales. Traditional, non-threatening stories that no school teacher could have disapproved of my Hearing at Home. The Three Bears. Red Riding Hood, without anyone getting eaten. The Three Little Pigs, sans boiled wolf.

Should a neighbor come to call during our vigil, my mother would say that she was giving her good things their yearly 'airing-out.'

At dusk, when the stars came out, it was as if the world and my mother gave a sigh, and we started on the task of bringing everything back inside, shaking it out and washing it, putting it away. She burnt the cards in the fireplace, unless the drawings particularly pleased her, and she put them in her recipe book.

The year I turned eleven, just coming into awareness that there was a world beyond our house, our town, and the limitless prairie, my mother had a miscarriage. I didn't know about it until years afterwards, when I read her diary-- at her request, ‘to see if there was anything in it.' She'd been asked to submit to a collection of rural women's writings. Mostly, I think, because she was an inveterate contributor to the school's yearly cookbook fund-raising project. Also, since she occasionally participated in local productions of things like The King and I, she was considered ‘artistic.'

That year, I saw with alarm that she was making no preparations for the midsummer banquet. She did the minimum to keep our lives more or less in order, and spent the rest of her time in bed. She hardly smiled, and when I asked her to tell me stories, she said she couldn't think of any. I dared not hint about the table. Yet this year, on the brink of puberty, I longed more than ever for the familiar childish ritual.

Midsummer's Day came. I waited through breakfast, but she gave no sign. I followed her around the house, as silent as she. Finally, tired of having her child dog her heels, she sent me outside to play.

It was clear I had to take matters into my own hands. I could not move the barn door table myself, so I sent to my father. When I explained my request, he looked surprised, then sad, then annoyed.

"That's foolishness." he said. "I want no part of that."

"But she's so sad." I said. And then I was afraid, for I'd never seen my father with tears in his eyes before. Nor ever did again, until she died.

"All right." he said, getting up from his desk. "Let's see what we can do."

He set up the table, and even helped me lay out the dishes. We had to do without some things we couldn't find. I put pebbles at all the plates and hoped the guests would know what was meant by them. I took some of last year's cards out of the recipe book, and supplemented with my own awkward drawings.

When the table was set, my father went inside. I waited, picking splinters out of my hands, and thinking of nothing at all.

My father came out at lunchtime to call me in, but I said I'd rather eat outside, and he let me, coming back for my plate without having to be asked.

The long summer afternoon began to turn to evening. I was just thinking that after all, some other game might be more fun, when I heard music.

A rattling and clanking and ringing like a bell came on the wind, growing closer but never coming clearer. Until it was suddenly just the noise of an old engine and a bad muffler, and a beat-up pickup truck, held together by baling wire, pulled up the long dusty driveway.

It didn't go right up to the house; instead it stopped about even with me and my table. Someone got out the driver's door and came around the front of the truck. He had a long cowhand's coat on, too warm for the weather and wrong for summer work. His broad hat was pulled down over his eyes.

He came swinging through the tall grass, right up to the table. He looked it over, and he looked down at me.

"Is this your table?" his voice was hoarse.

"It's my mother's." I said nervously.

"Where is she?"

"She won't come outside. She's sad."

He nodded. His gaze went back to the table. He walked up to it. He reached out to the card that showed a decanter of wine. His coat masked my view, so I couldn't see quite how he did it, but when he pulled his hand back, he was holding the decanter, and he poured himself a glass. He set down the decanter; it stood there on the table, cut glass sides glittering.

He tasted the wine, made a face. "It's sweet." he said, looking down at me. I blushed, since I had always imagined the wine in the picture to taste like cherry Kool-Aid.

He drank it anyway, and poured himself another. Then he walked the length of the table, pulling the lids off of trays suddenly steaming, opening bottles that caught and refracted the late sunlight across the table. The rich smell of meat rose into the air.

The wind stirred the grass. I looked; from in between the stalks, small people were coming, wispy and dry as grass themselves. And some round and furry as mice, and some broad and blue like the sky. They smiled at me. I did not quite like their smiles.

They took their places at the table, and somehow, although they were so many, there was a seat for each of them. His place was at the head, and he sat down. That left the place at the foot for me. I'd never sat at the table, but I did now. I felt like Cinderella, if she'd had to go to dinner still in her rags; or Alice, if she wasn't entirely sure what have you for tea meant.

My chair was woven of grass-stalks and framed in golden wood, and seemed always to have been standing there, invisible against the prairie. His was a high carved chair, set with blue stones the shape of sky-scraps showing through a field. Or they were spaces in the carving. Or there was no chair at all.

We ate and drank. I was nervous, at first, but the paper food was good, and I served myself many helpings. They got rather drunk on my sugary wine.

By the time we were finished, night had fallen. Along the western horizon, a line of umber was still retreating, but above us stars were showing in an indigo archway.

The decanters were empty; the plates carried nothing but bones and memory. The guests were mostly asleep, or giggling under the table.

He stood up, his great coat shifting like wings. "I can't stay any longer." he said.

"She always sets the table for you." Who else could it have been for?

"She should have known," he said. "I couldn't have come if I'd wanted to." He paused. "And I didn't want to." Stepping back, he made a funny formal bow. "I should go."

"But she's so sad. Can't you help her? Isn't that why she wanted you to come?"

He might have smiled.

"Your mother is a practical woman. She wanted something I had. That's all." When my father said she was practical, he meant it as a compliment. This didn't seem complimentary at all.

"You're wrong." I said, defending her against I didn't know what. "She's just-- sad." That seemed to be the magic word with my father, and maybe with him. "And if you could make her happy, I don't see why you won't, unless you're just mean."

He was silent. His shadowed eyes contemplated me. I felt suddenly small and afraid.

"You make a good argument." was all he said. He looked over his shoulder at the house. "All right." He took something out of his pocket. "I think this is what she wants." he handed it to me. "But tell her..." he hesitated. "You're the very image of her." he said. "Tell her she's got debts of her own." Then he turned, coat furling, and walked back to his truck. I heard laughter behind me; when I looked, I saw the last of the guests, walking out through the archway of stars.

I heard my name.

My mother was standing in the back doorway, framed in a box of light. When she saw the truck pulling away, she called to me frantically.

"I'm here." I said.

She ran out into the yard in her bare feet and threw her arms around me. Her hair was tangled and unwashed, her face grubby with tears. It was wonderful to be held by her.

"Who was that man? What did he want? Was he looking for antiques?"

"He came for dinner." I said. She let go of me, stared at me from arm's length. "What do you mean?"

She followed my gaze to the table. With a cry, she leapt up and dashed towards it. She stared at the debris of the meal. She turned west. The truck could just be seen, rattling down the crossroad towards the moon. She ran a few steps towards the road, then towards the house, then our car.

She threw herself on the ground beside the table and wept.

When she looked up, her face was wild in the moonlight, and she began to tell me a story. A fairy tale, but not one any teacher would have approved of. There was a princess and a prince, but that was where the familiarity ended. It was terrifying, full of death and nameless threat. I didn't want to hear it, but I couldn't shut it out. It had a terrible, unhappy ending. When she had told it, she was silent for a long time.

I wanted to speak, to quiet the sound of that tale still sounding in my ears. I remembered the gift. "He left something for you." I said. "Well, I asked him for it. I think I was rude." I admitted.

She stared again, and I was afraid of her. I held out the gift. She snatched it away from me, examining it eagerly. It was a piece of yellow agate, carved into the shape of a sleeping child. She peered at it for a long time, and then she did a strange thing; she put it into her mouth and swallowed it. I looked away and pretended I hadn't seen her.

In a moment, she got up, dusting herself off. "It's late." she said. "Time you were in bed." She seemed calmer. "We'll clean all this up in the morning. Your father will help."

And he did, without complaint. He did not remark on the acquisition of several new items of glassware and silver serving-dishes; nor did he raise any protest when mother asserted that she wanted to sell off all her old things in the shop. He gave her the choice of the other dishes in our stock. She chose some pretty fluted-edged ones with cornflowers, a set of twenty-four with very good provenance. I think my father was sorry not to be able to sell them; but since she only ever used them inside, he was pleased.

My younger brother was born that spring, just about the equinox. He was the image of my mother, just like me. The mother he knew was merrier than mine– less dreamy, more attentive, but almost resolutely so, as if she were staving off unwelcome thoughts with ceaseless action. She was famous in town for the costumes and sets she deigned to design for local theatre productions, although she always mocked the actors over our dinner table. She was famous in the extended family for the elaborate Hallowe'en costumes and the astonishing theme birthday parties, and for upsetting the balance of things by demanding a holiday dinner with more responsibility.

She'd always had a knack for a good find, and as we got older, she went more often with father on his scouting trips, coming back with stories of her triumphs in barns and back parlours. She would take us anywhere we asked; skating, birding, rafting on the river. But she kept us all inside on Midsummer's Night.

THE END