Chapter 5
Ruthie, do you remember a collection of silver spoons, mismatched pieces I’d collected?
You always liked them. I remember one summer day, the breeze pushing at the dining room curtains and you were lining those spoons up, making them spaced exactly even.
You had graduated high school and were off to college the next day and you seemed sad about it.
You had come over to say goodbye and it was lunchtime and I asked you if we should have a fancy goodbye lunch together, and by fancy I meant we’d eat tuna sandwiches in the dining room, and I’d cut off the crusts.
I came out into the dining room with our plates and there you were, sitting before those spoons, and they had a silvery glow with the sun coming in on them.
You looked up when I came in and you said how pretty the spoons were.
This, too, seemed to make you sad. And then I remembered how you used to use those spoons for Terrence’s soup when he was sick, when he got to where he couldn’t hardly eat you liked to bring him soup with a different silver spoon every day.
Well, look at this, he would say, every time.
And you would sit by his bed while he ate and just talk to him.
It was a kindness beyond what a child can usually offer, Ruthie. You did that.
But anyway, I was remembering that day when you’d lined the spoons all up.
And I asked you, when we sat down to eat, were you okay.
And you commenced to crying and said you wanted to go to college but you didn’t want to go away.
And then you started talking about how things could never be perfect and you always wanted them to be perfect.
And you moved one of the spoons just a tiny bit to be in exact alignment.
You looked up at me and said, See? And I remember just what I told you.
I told you that part of life was learning how perfect imperfect could be.
You just sighed but you thought about what I’d said, I know you did.
That was one of the many times I wished I were your mother.
I always wanted to be a mother, I wanted it awful bad.
But year after year I would turn to Terrence on a certain day of the month and tell him my “friend” had come and he would nod and say quietly, All right.
And then one day he said, It’s just not for us, then, and that was the last we ever spoke of it.
He never let on how much that particular loss hurt him.
We contented ourselves with taking care of the neighborhood kids, which you know very well since we spoiled you nigh unto kingdom come.