June 22, 2020
Review, Edit and Update
After taking out unnecessary spaces and punctuation, there was little else to fix.
Father's Day just passed, this writer asks: do Dez and Emmie have similar feelings about their father? Will this be identified in a future episode?
Mom's Advice
Mother’s Day had not been big deal for Dez for over ten years. Her father - and Emmie’s father - had outlived their mother by exactly one year. Dez had tried to avoid Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. She often wondered how her sister, Emmie, managed these special days. Neither sister had children, although Emmie had been married, so they could easily avoid being subjected to the celebration of Motherhood. Dez, disappointed in herself for feeling this way, knew and had worked with many great moms. There were many women who had been just like moms for her. Was Emmie’s mother-in-law like a second mom to her? The sisters had never talked about that. In fact, in the last several weeks that they had been reunited, they each had studiously avoided the subject.
Today, Mother’s Day would not leave her thoughts. She cleaned the whole house, not a task she ever relished. She did the laundry ~ before she even saw the bottom of the underwear drawer. She was tempted to wash the patio doors, but before she could, her paint brushes got her attention. I could finish that water colour I started a few days ago. Just a touch in the corner. That persons suit needs a bit more red. Before long, washing the patio window was not even a memory. The canvas Dez was working on was a stylized painting of several people on, what looked like, a grass green surface. In the foreground there was a grouping of four substantial people. Not particularly close to each other but obviously a group. One other man, barely separate from the group, was striding towards them. In the back ground, a thin woman, dressed in blue, stood with her arm raised. Dez stood back from the painting. There’s something missing. I don’t like the bareness of the picture. Too much green, but I don’t know. Dez dipped her brush in water and dragged it across the top of the canvas, watering down the green so it was almost translucent. Giving it a chance to dry, she sat down to read, but was unable to concentrate. She got up and stepped outside on her balcony. The streets were busy with people believing that all the pandemic restrictions had been relaxed. Dez wanted to shout down to all of them to ‘Get it together! A bunch of you are going to be sick!” But, she didn’t. Her mood and her energy were low.
“Martha is kind of maternal. She has her daughter next door. Her grandchildren are her joy. If I were one of her grandkids, I’d really like her to be my grandma.” Talking out loud was a way for Dez to break the silence of her home that sometimes seemed quite oppressive. This Mother’s Day was a tough one for Dez. “And Cook. She may be a bit gruff from time to time, but she would have been a great mother. Could have taught me how to cook, like my own mother didn't.”
Her canvas dry, Dez picked up her brush again. “Hmmm. The green is too flat. Making it translucent helped but………” It still needs something. Brush down again, Dez put water on for tea and rummaged in her refrigerator for a snack. Suddenly angry, Dez blurted out “I don’t feel like I belong there. It was ok when Emmie came and picked me up that night. It was ok when we stayed in isolation for two weeks. It was ok when we’ve been busy with the orchard and the garden. But now? When this pandemic thing is all over - if it’s ever going to be all over - I’ll come back to my little apartment and my little job. Emmie will do whatever it is Emmie has figured out for herself. And we’ll probably seldom see each other again.” By this time Dez was fuming. Fuming and her heart was starting to break at the loss that hadn’t come yet. And maybe never would. But just the thought of it was too much for Desperanza Eliot, a strong resilient woman. “What would Mom say? - Desperanza, you can keep sulking and kick all the doors you want, but how will that help? Do you want to be part of that group on Emmie's estate?”
Dez went to her bedroom where she kept a picture of her parents. “I don’t know mom. I think I do. But I can’t just butt in. They all have their own lives and families. Mom, I’m so lonely and I miss you so much.” “How does Emmie feel? She is your family, Dez. Don’t forget about her.”
The light bulb lit up. Like the one in the refrigerator when Dez opened the door. Mom’s right. Mom was always right. Guess I’d better stop talking to her! My patio door is open. Anybody can hear me nattering on to myself. Dez picked up her phone and punched the speed dial for Emmie. There was no answer so Dez left her a message. “Emmie? I’m picking up some pizza and coming out there to share it with you. Call me.”
Dez’s phone rang almost before she tapped the stop icon. “Emmie? Where are you?….Outside my building?!…I just called you and left a message. I’ll buzz you in. Come on up.”
It was all she could do to not hug her sister when Dez answered the door. Emmie had been crying. “What’s wrong, Emmie?”
“I miss mom. I want her to be here with us.”
“Damn, Emmie I was just talking to her picture! I miss her too. This Mother’s Day has been harder than all the rest since she died. I’ve been pacing around here feeling sorry for myself. Mom - or maybe just the memory of mom - telling me to ‘stop sulking and do something about it’ pulled me up short. All of a sudden I was really hungry - I haven’t eaten much all day. My solution: A nice hot all-dressed pizza and go get Emmie.”
“I just cried and cried. But how could you tell? I thought I washed off all the salty mascara that had dribbled down my face.”
“Emelina Beaufort, have you forgotten? Every time you had some break-up or got in trouble with mom or dad, I knew something was up. First you’d go to the bathroom, you’d hold your head up high with your nose in the air. I didn’t see you go into the bathroom, but when I opened my door, your head was at that angle and your nose up in the air. I’ve always been able to tell.
~~~~~
Dez and Emmie, just two years apart, went out that evening. Picking up pizza, Dez got two slices of all dressed with extra mushrooms. Emmie’s pizza, in an effort to eat ‘more healthy’, ordered two slices of thin crust vegetarian pizza (with extra cheese). Taking it to the park by the water, they talked about their mom. The sewing and mending she had done for them, the secrets they hadn’t told her, the terrible cook she was - except for that one cake - what was it called…..Decadent Chocolate Pudding Cake. “We always ate it with vanilla ice cream! I was sure Dad always ate more that either of us.”
“No he didn’t. He just pretended he was to make you worried you wouldn’t get enough.”
As the sun settled on the water, they talked of the changes to their lives since they were united only weeks before. Emmie’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Dez, why don’t you come and live at the estate. You know I’ve got more than enough room.”
“I would hope that one day, I would at least live closer. Right now, I feel like I need all my things around me. Things I’ve gathered over the years that are tied to certain memories, events… people. But I’ll be out and I want you to come in. Now I’m going to sound like I’m twelve years old - we can do sleep overs at each other’s house. I’ve got that apiary to get up and running and you’ve got the garden and your whole house to manage. But we are family, Emmie. Let’s stay that way.”
“Mothers are like glue. Even when you can’t see them,
they’re still holding the family together.”
~ Susan Gale, Canadian artist
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