Daughter Dearest

The phone in the kitchen demands attention.

            I sprint to answer it, holler through the house as I run. “I got it.” I grab the mustard receiver from its wall mount and press it to my ear. “Hello?”

            “Hey. What’re you doing?” It’s Karen, my best friend. She only lives a block away but it’s too cold and too late on a school night to meet on the corner to yack. I stretch the phone cord taut and huddle, legs criss-crossed-applesauce, in a corner of the dining room. 

             I cover my mouth so Mom can’t hear me. “Algebra, but it can wait. What’re you doing?”

            Karen and I chat for over an hour. Even though supper was ages ago, Mom doesn’t leave the kitchen. At one point I hear her announce to no one in particular, “Think I’ll make Toll House cookies.”

             More than once I spy her shadow as she hovers near the doorway. I twist myself even closer to the china cabinet, tuck the phone between me and the wall. 

~~~~~~~       

One day during my lunch hour in downtown Cincinnati (I lived and worked there in the 80s), I was walking toward Fountain Square and these two gals—mother and daughter—came at me, arm in arm. The younger woman’s grin was the spitting image of her mom’s.   When I stepped in front of them, they stopped walking and talking, their limbs suddenly stiff, their eyes wide.

            The mom gathered her girl close. “Yes?”

            “You all don’t know how lucky you are,” I said. I swatted my hand at their togetherness. “I wish— I wish me and my mom were like you two.” I blinked away the burn of close tears.

            In that moment, they seemed to melt. The mother reached out tentatively, rested her manicured hand on my forearm.

            “Why, you should tell her that, honey. Surely she wants the same.”

            I bit my lip and shook my head. “Nah, we’ll never be like you two. Enjoy what you have.” Before they could say anything else, I ducked inside Lazarus Department Store.

~~~~~~~

A couple years back, I got to thinking about the Ten Commandments, the one that says honor your father and mother.  I did okay with Dad but Mom was different. We were never  close but that afternoon as I puttered around the house, I thought maybe, just maybe, things'd be better if I came up with a list of good stuff I remember instead of . . .  

            I arranged myself, my journal, and fountain pen at the dining room table, cradled a mug of coffee, drew its hazelnut steam into my nostrils. Seconds then minutes passed as I tapped my pen on my front teeth, crinkled my forehead, and waited for good stuff to arrive. Then all of a sudden, there it was: good stuff.

            I like scallops, but Mom loved them first.

            My mother adores stories. I do too.     

            Mom used to take me shopping and in between Stone and Thomas and Nassar's, at McCrory’s five and dime, we'd order club sandwiches, wavy Lay's potato chips, and made-in-front-of-you cherry Cokes.

            "This'll pick us up," Mom always said.

            In the evenings, we’d sit side by side on the sofa and she’d teach me how to embroider. My French knots never got as good as hers.

            My mother was a nurse. I never told her but I thought that was pretty cool. She got so freaked out when my brothers beat each other up, it was hard to believe she could stomach blood and guts. From the hallway outside her bedroom, I used to watch her bobby pin her stiff and quirky nurse’s cap into her dark curls. No one told me how much I resembled her, not till years later.

            Sometimes we'd dress up and drive downtown to the Elephant Room in the Hotel Frederick for lunch. I’d clutch the armrests of my chair as the sweet, super old waiter with shiny mahogany skin scooted my chair in. I’d peek under the snowy table cloth to watch my patent leather Mary Jane shoes dangle above the plush, crimson carpet.

            When the waiter asked for our drink orders I’d cross my gloved hands in my lap and peer up at him.

            "May I have a Shirley Temple, please? With two maraschino cherries on a pink plastic sword?"

            Every year, out in our backyard when the weather warmed, Mom showed me how to grow lilies of the valley, zinnias, and Shasta daisies.

            "Poke your finger inside there," she'd say as we crouched beside a clump of snapdragons. "It's like a tiny mouth, don't you think?”          

            On summer mornings our Keds sneakers would leave green trails in the silver dew as we made our way to the pussy willow bush on our property’s edge. Mom would smile as she stroked the furry catkins.

            "Don't they feel like kitten paws?"

            I don't remember Mom saying no much.

            "Since I'm in fourth grade now, can I have my birthday party at the roller rink?” I asked her that one night as I sliced green olives for the salad.

            “That sounds fun.”

            One evening as we watered the garden I presented her with my heart’s desire.

            "Can I take horseback riding lessons with Karen? I checked, a half hour lesson costs ten bucks."

            “I think we can manage that.”

            “I’ve had my driver’s license a month now. Is it okay if I take the car tonight?”

            “Ask your father.”

            “Can I go to Myrtle Beach with Suzy, Stretch, and Natalie after graduation?”

            “Is it okay with their folks?”

            Mom did tell me no once, after she found Suzy's Eve cigarettes in my room, in a drawer, under my undies.

            "Do not ever, ever smoke cigarettes,” Mom said. Her mouth was a thin, coral-colored line. “You'll die of cancer. My best friend from high school's husband had to get a talk box put in his throat because of cigarettes."

            “But you smoke.”

            “That’s beside the point.” I whimpered as she gripped my wrist hard and marched me into the bathroom.          

            "But Mom, they're not mine. Suz— This girl I know asked me to hold them for her and I forgot to give ’em back. I swear."

            She pursed her lips and squinted. "Nice try. Now flush them this instant. I mean it.”

~~~~~~~

For the past few years, from time to time, I’ve been sending her my stories, some of them real, some not. I fold then crease them, tuck the pages into the stamped and addressed envelopes and hand them to the mailman. It’s wonderful to get real mail these days, not just bills. I wonder if Mom feels like she’s getting a present when she opens her mailbox and sees a letter from me?    

            When the phone rings these days I squint at the caller I.D. screen. Is it her? What’d she think of the last story I sent? Did she think I did good?

            “I liked your latest story,” she told me just the other day. “You’re getting better, you know.”

            Now here I sit with this one. And a stamped addressed envelope. It’s almost Mother’s Day. To send or not to . . . 

Bluegills from Gallaher Elementary

Sometimes you have to squint your eyes and strain your brain real hard in order to remember.  Else you'll forget.  It's like fishing.  You throw back your arm, then whip it forward, letting go of the little button on the reel.  And the see through line whistles as it sails towards the center of the pond.  The red and white bobber goes plop, and then you wait. 

That's how I caught these memories.  I laid in bed on a Sunday morning, waiting for the red and white bobber in my brain to pop in and out of the water.  "Got one!" I said.  Actually, I got more than one.  The fish were biting.  They do that in the morning, you know.


I went to Gallaher Elementary School.  Or was it Gallagher?  I'll have to ask my mom or my oldest brother, Mike.  He's the only brother who cares about the old stuff.  It's not like I can drive down to Huntington and check the sign on the school.  Mike called one day a few years back and told me they tore the school down.  "I got some bricks," he said.  "Want one?"

Every morning, Monday through Friday, Labor Day to Memorial Day-ish, I walked to Gallagher School with my dad.  It was just five blocks.  We'd talk about everything--Alistair Cook on Masterpiece Theater, our next camping trip to Carter Caves, or Piggy Boy Twisty Tail.  He was a pig on the farm where Dad grew up, before his family moved to Charleston. 

Dad got grumpy when I told him I was going steady with David Lively.  "You're only in the fourth grade, for crying out loud!" 

David was the only guy who signed up for the Gallaher School Summertime Reading Contest and he beat me.  Me!  Of all people.  I went to the library twice a week in the summer.  Read under the covers at night with a flashlight and everything.  I was a shoo-in to win.  But the summer before fourth grade, David Lively crashed his bike and his foot got stuck on the banana seat and he ended up with a cast from his ankle to his hip.  Wasn't like  he could do anything but read that summer.  That made me think he was pretty neat.  That he read a lot.

David wasn't my first crush at Gallagher School.  In first grade I was gaga for a boy named Beau.  Know what beau means in French?  Beautiful.  And he was.  Had the biggest baby blue eyes ever.  Sometimes we'd just stare at each other with silly grins pasted on our faces.  Mrs. Collins would tap the blackboard with her pointer stick.  "Pay attention, you two."

Green paint's what I remember from second grade.  Mrs. Calfee handed us each a piece of off-white paper, big as our desk tops.  "Green starts with the letter 'g,' so we're going to paint something green."  Then she picked up the big container of grass green tempera paint and shook it real hard.  I guess the lid wasn't on good 'cause next thing you know, we were something green.  I bet if Gallaher Elementary was still standing, you could walk into Mrs. Calfee's classroom and the green splatters would still be up on the ceiling.


In fifth and sixth grade, I got picked to be a safety and a fire patrol person.  When I was on safety patrol duty, I wore a white cross-my-heart-go-'round-my-waist thingy.  I carried a flag made out of a bamboo pole and a twelve inch square of orange cloth.  I'd open it and shut it after I looked both ways 'cross Gallagher Street or Norway Avenue.  If it rained, we got to wear cool yellow coats and hats, like the guy on the box of fish sticks. 

When the fire drill bell rang, I'd put on my orange cross-my-heart-go-'round-my-waist thingy.  I'd run to my post--the second floor stairwell on the Gallaher Street side of the building--and hold the door.  I was ready to shout, "Stop, drop and roll!" if I saw someone a-flame.

The cool thing 'bout being either kind of patrol was going to Camden Park at the end of the school year.  I was too chicken to ride the roller coaster so I'd ride the Whip and the Tilt-a-Whirl over and over.  And eat cotton candy.  Pink please.  Oh, and pronto pups with bloody ketchup and sunny yellow mustard.


Mr. Lee was our principal.  Remember that saying?  "The principal is your pal."  Mr. Lee looked like a bull dog.  Like the one on the Purina dog food commercial.  "This is dog chow's finest hour."  Mr. Lee made it his personal mission to make every child at Gallagher School an adventurous eater.  "Eat the nutritious before the delicious."  Like there was something delicious.

The worst day of the month was Liver Day.  The school would stink to high heaven.  'Round 'bout eleven o'clock I'd start poking at my uvula with the bubblegum pink eraser of my orangey-yellow, #2 pencil.  Tried to make myself throw up so I wouldn't have to taste the liver.  Mr. Lee would stand over your shoulder 'til you took, "just one bite."

The thing was, the liver looked like a square b.m..  My mom was a nurse and that's what she made us call poop.  It smelled like it too.  If I'd been unsuccessful triggering my gag reflex, there was always Timmy Howard.  He was the only boy in school who liked liver.  For a quarter, he'd eat yours.  Man, that kid ate a lot of liver!  I always wondered if he died young.  Doesn't eating a lot of organ meat give you something called gout?


I think my sixth grade teacher ate something that made her sick.  Her skin was all bumply.  All the time.  She tried to cover it up with lots of face makeup and cream rouge the color of Bozo the clown's nose.  You could still see the bumps though.  Kinda looked like toad skin.

I had to mouth breathe whenever I went up to her desk to ask a question.  Her perfume was rank.  She said it was Wind Song but we called it Break Wind Song.  Her lips looked like the Joker's but she didn't smile much.  I reckon I was partly to blame for that.

See, I was ornery.  No one knew it 'cause I made good grades.  No one thinks the smart kids ever do anything wrong, but I did.  I had the world's A #1, best spit ball system ever.  First, I made my ammo.  I'd tear off little bits of notebook paper and put 'em in my mouth.  When they were good and soggy, I'd roll 'em into little balls, just a tiny bit bigger than a beebee.  Then I'd roll 'em in Elmer's glue.  The last step was covering 'em in pencil shavings. 

When I had a dozen or so of my super awesome spitwads, I'd work on the delivery system.  I'd pry the stopper off my Bic pen with my teeth.  Couldn't use my fingernails 'cause I bit 'em.  Then I'd grab a hold of the writing tip and pull it and the ink tube out.  Then real sneaky like, I'd load the tube with a spitball.  When the teacher went to write on the blackboard, I'd . . . ready, aim, FIRE. 

The spitwad would fly through the air and get caught in the adhesive that held her hair together.  See every day after lunch, she'd spray her hair real good with a blast from her big  pink can of Aqua Net.  The spitwads would dangle in the back of her hair for a little while, then they'd fall to the floor like little woody booger balls. 

The hardest part was trying not to get caught laughing.  I had to bite my lip real hard.  If I laughed, I'd get caught.  If I got caught, I'd probably have to go to the principal's office.  I'd never been in Mr. Lee's office but I was pretty sure it'd be scary.  He'd probably get in my face and I'd faint from the terribleness of his breath.  I was sure he had bits of liver between his teeth, decomposing at various rates.  Worse even than his breath was the possibility that my safety and fire patrol privileges might be yanked.  No more Camden Park?  Perish the thought!


Well, the sun's coming up.  Time to get cakes on the griddle.  But I sure am glad I went fishing first.  Just think, if I hadn't gone fishing this morning, the woody booger balls and the bits of liver might've been the ones that got away.