In memoriam R. Zs.

“No white sauce, thank you very much? Not even a dressing? Golly, my wife would so sharpen the hatchet if I tried that at home. Could I book a table for four for tonight, then?”

As the good doctor Therason kept looking at his chart it took me a second to realise he was talking to me. Aunt Bessie was in the room, Mum was in the room, Baby Nelly was in the room, and he did not as much as peek in my direction. I had obviously been trying to convince Bessie to patch my latest creation on the menu in Chili Demon a tad louder than socially desirable. Buffalo cauliflower bites with onion- tomato-bulgur wheat salad. Huge hit with the guests, by the way. Already stood the test of time.

Unlike me in that room. Opposite of standing the test of everything and the opposite of everything.

Looking back on the moment I can say that my vision was twenty- twenty, if only subconsciously. Big picture, minute details, bird’s view, frog’s perspective. Only my thoughts were a complete blur. Fog on the mire. I knew without knowing, saw what we were facing in the shards of a shattered mirror. So, as always, I played bubbly. My all-time faites vos jeux for red seven in Crisis Casino.

“Your sister has about nine months left,” I heard. “Maybe twelve. Fifteen tops, depending on how the treatment goes. In the meantime, peace, harmony and positive thoughts. Only positive. Can you make sure she spends a lot of time with the baby, perhaps?”

Eventually these words came from the nurse about two minutes later. In the corridor. Clearly, I had walked out, clearly the good doctor Therason had picked up on my vibe and sent his sidekick my way. Into the No Man’s Land of hospital doors facing each other. You’d expect the walls to be whiter.

I looked the nurse in the eye. She seemed nice enough. One doubtlessly benevolent native of the medical community assigned with the job to read the verdict out loud.

“Thank you, nurse, but you see, my sister isn’t here today. Partly because I don’t have one. That’s my mother you’re talking about.”

The look on her face! Oh, it’s been a while.
“Right. Okay. It’s just that...”
Just what, my facial wrinkles enquired naïvely, the tattoos? The piercings? Her figure? The incredibly small age difference?
True, I do that sometimes, observe innocent bystanders, watch the penny drop in slow motion. The kind creature looking at me was batting her eyelashes rapidly.

“Yep,” I nodded. “Sixteen. Sweet sixteen. That means getting pregnant at fifteen, right? Must have been one of her very first times ever, you say? Badass, you say? Wait, more? A warrior? An Amazon queen in punk disguise? A she-wolf whose mere presence turns on the light in the room?”

I flipped my right hip just a little and went on. Sadness, I told the nurse, was an ordinary part of life. The glass of water we all had with lunch. Mum, for example, she had an amazing gift for arts and crafts: crocheting, knitting, embroidering, weaving, you name it and me, I haven’t inherited any of it, not a dot. Now what’s sad if that isn’t.

The nurse opened her mouth and very soon closed it. “I think I’ll wait for my family in the car,” I said and walked out of the building.

The parking space had become a park crowded with invisible statues. Naked, desolate, bleak, lonely, and not willing to talk about it. When you finish your first year in kindergarten and your mother’s still a teenager aren’t you supposed to grow old together? Is that not the divine plan? Especially when she’s the only parent you have?

I was telling the nurse the truth. Mum did have the magic touch. Her ideas materialising in fabric came up breathtakingly beautiful. Once, when I was about nine, she said yes to sewing a cover for a harp. To keep the instrument warm during the night, she explained. Then she added: “Also because I want this here kid to win the costume contest every day.” Mum picked a colour that seemed like orange to the average customer but what was really the middle sister of cheerful apricot and drowsy coral. I found the shape funny, the cloak enormous. That the colour was an ideal background for Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable’s legendary kiss, half embroidered, half painted, I didn’t have the slightest problem understanding. In my eyes a tattoo, fabric or other, seemed very genuine indeed.
Gone with the Wind was one of the dozen or so movies Mum knew by heart but the only one her and Bessie watched together ritually. Both of them sat there like the kind-hearted sister Scarlett could not have. As a teenager I did like to troll their enthusiasm. Not my proudest moment but it isn’t easy to revolt against a punk-wolverine mother and a volcano-passionate aunt. I joined them once in a blue moon, but more often would much rather shout things from my room like, “The casting was a scam and Vivien Leigh had long been picked before they made 1400 young girls audition,” or, “Did you know they asked Margaret Mitchell who she thought should play Rhett and she said Groucho Marx?” Or, just before I was off to meet up with the girls and conquer the night, I’d yell, “The ending SUCKS! Ciao Bessie and Mum O’Hara!” I frowned at the predictable Hollywood tempos, made fun of the paraphernalia of the Stubborn Southern Girl, or simply reasoned: “It’s four flipping hours long.”

Mum would just smile. The broken record of my resistance did not stand a chance. Bessie would stumble upon copies in foreign languages. This is how the two of them bagged an occasion or two in German (“Du solltest geküsst werden von jemandem der weiß, wie es geht”), in French (“Such a poetic language, Bess, so how come this repartee sounds just like you cracking nuts for the Christmas blueberry cake?”), in Spanish (“Chili Bean, drop what you’re doing, come listen to this orchestra!”), in Russian (“Wow, Bessie, imagine if Victor Fleming had seen the day of light in Novosibirsk”), even in Swedish (“Soaked in vodka, Chili Bean, bang to rights drenched in Northern goodies”). Mum making a festive nightie flaunting Rhett and Scarlett for an ethereal instrument—in my eyes that kiss was clunky and angering and moving at the same time— all that was very much in her wheelhouse. If pansexuality is a thing, panamour has to be, too: altar cloth and winter coat getting the same respect, peppered with the same innocent cheekiness, the same dash of the unexpected.

It all came down to the nature of the wolverine. The educated cook and self-taught businesswoman with whom many loved to dread to negotiate, the restaurant owner who was seldom wrong about how many calls she needed to make to get the job done by Friday, the teenage widow and mum turning into a traditional marmalade grandmother— one rich package all the way: the smart, independent predator living in the woods, sleeping under a rock, giving her all for her beloved. The most popular mural in Chili Demon was the one with the wolf sitting in the clearing. Sure, the Moon above her, full, of course, but rather than howling at it, this one, our specimen, was quietly guarding a barrel in a bright spot surrounded by pine trees. Maybe a cask of beer. Or Amontillado. Extra dry. Because on the stormy field of nineteenth century topics there was room next to Gone with the Wind for Mum’s three musketeers: Poe, Dickens, and Gogol. The barrel had a banner on it that said Mit den Wölfen muss man heulen. For most guests that was the takeaway. The mental image, not the drink.

Mum was that wolverine. That’s why she wouldn’t hear of the abortion at fifteen, that’s why, at barely twenty, she was proud to be always only holding the hand of an infant, with no male companion as far as the eye could see. If people thought our story was the usual teen- pregnancy hit and run, they were wrong. My parents were in love and stayed together for as long as they could. Dad died in a stupid accident when he was twenty-one. Construction, eighties. What a rubbish take on safety at work.

I must have been sat in the parking space for about half an hour when all of a sudden there came a quick rattling sound from the other side. I was so numb I didn’t even shudder. For a fragment of a second the image of the nurse flashed through my mind: standing in the corridor, batting her eyelids rapidly. Bessie’s completely understandable wish to try and get in the car didn’t quite reach me. I felt smashed like an overboiled potato.

My aunt wasn’t pleased with the communication skills of the doctor, you could tell. Nor had she had the chance to talk to the
nurse. I watched her through the window until she raised her hands energetically, presenting the duh! gesture so typical of our family—my daughter started doing it when she was fifteen months old. Finally I opened the door. Bessie went on with whatever monologue she had started outside without pausing for breath, her every word bouncing on the ground. “I mean I know they go out of their way to avoid liability but they haven’t seen our girl in action, I mean come again? Stage five? Who, her? That’s my sister y’all’s talking about! If anyone can beat that sick freak at its own shit show it’s her. Cancer. Right. Fiddle-dee-dee. Death, you patsy, you’ve picked the wrong woman to mess with.”

Of course we took the helm. Stuck together to keep the unspoken promise.

Those days I was still losing weight. Thirty, twenty, fifteen dekagrams a week is not a lot but, apart from having a great deal to offer in the beginning, I wasn’t exactly on a diet. It began during my pregnancy, and I just could not stop. True, you don’t often see Mummy give birth twenty-two kilos lighter than the day the two little bars appear on the plastic stick. Nor is it very common for anyone’s boisterous, super fun husband to discover his polyamorous side six months before your child picks your names from the heavenly top hat. When, just beginning to show, I stumbled upon the text meant for the other woman, Kevin didn’t deny anything. In fact he wanted me to understand he was not having an affair. He was in two relationships.

That night we talked until daybreak. Kevin kept repeating that love could not be split, love could but multiply. Kudos to him for not throwing in clichés long gone with the wind like ‘For the sake of our unborn baby’ or some painfully rational argument against life as a single mother. Surely he knew better. When I say I’m going, going there will be. Begging was just not in the cards. We hugged in the pearly blush of the new day. In the afternoon he packed his bags and soon enough he moved in with the other woman and her eight-year-old daughter.

As always when in crisis mode I needed a week to myself for my signature strategy to work its magic, for me to get back in the game. Day One: roaring tantrum. Anything goes. Wailing, whining, sobbing, bawling, tearing my hair, bouncing on the mattress for half an hour, hurling a plate or two at some innocuous wall, never would you expect them to be whiter. Day Two to Six: autopilot. Crates of pizza, buckets of ice cream, Guardians of the Galaxy ten to sixteen times in the clothes I was wearing on Day One.

The truth is those days are secondary. On a path like this One to Six are like the girls who stood a good strong chance to be voted homecoming queen until for some reason the boys stuck it out for Amber Winston instead; passed over by the skin of their teeth. Those days spit gum out wherever the afternoon finds them. Dinner plays piggyback with breakfast, lunch is hiding in the pantry, Wash Your Hair and Go to Work are the yard boys who, in their heart of hearts, are not too fond of nature. For it all comes together in the final spot. The one Mum used to call Waking Up Standing.

“Sacred sometimes comes from where you’d least expect it,” “Heartbreak is an earthquake that pushes all the armchairs into the right place.” I will always hear these words in Mum’s voice. When I grow wrinkled and saggy and silver and blind. Even on my deathbed. Even after I’m gone.

When you wake up standing, all you see is a fresh start sparkling on the horizon.

One morning a week later, give or take, I did wake up standing. I shook off the shattered shards of pain and spotted the truth in a slender splinter: though our future as a family had become my past, and in a way mine only, I had plans waving at me just round the corner. Sell place. Move out. File for divorce. Find new place. Settle in. Motherhood.

I swapped the house for a flat in three weeks and made the most of it. Did the makeover in the baby’s room first. Kevin started calling. Eventually I had to admit our conversations were and had always been too real to be ignored.

Not that I didn’t keep a bottle of champagne on ice for the inevitable demise of the other thing. I knew my soon-to-be-ex-husband well. I knew his code. To leave his pregnant wife for a new family, untested and wonky at best? To abandon his unborn daughter? To open a big ol’ can of whoop-ass on his soul mate? Please. He started losing weight, too. The fact that we had been Mr. and Mrs. Chubby-Happy all through our history but now anxiety, grief and derailed excitement had chewed us both to one third our original size was really just a sidenote on the contract we had probably signed in a previous life. In a way we would always belong together, it’s just that the shape of our commitment was fluid.

Nelly surprised us three weeks earlier than expected. Through ten hours of labour Kevin held my hand and cooled my forehead. For six months he visited us every day. He is the second-best babysitter in the world. Just before Nelly’s first birthday, right on the money, his backup plan went tits up. It really wasn’t rocket science. The other woman ditched him.

Our divorce selfie bagged a decent 453 likes. We swore each other eternal friendship. We do not need to be together to know we really are soulmates. And he is crushing it in the Daddy department.

When she became so weak that she had to force herself to leave the house, throw in a walk a day for good measure, Mum passed Chili Demon on to Kevin. Just like that. Handed over keys and documents like the pepper shaker at the table. “My favourite Spice Boy in the whole wide world,” she said, pinching the new manager’s face.

Why? Why would you make the bloke who cheated on your only child the guardian of your brainchild?

Because she was the coolest mother-in-law. Because all hardship had ever taught her was generosity. Because she had never forgiven Kevin but thought passing the relay was the right thing to do. Because she had watched Gone with the Wind a thousand times. Scarlett admits she marries Rhett partly for the money. Great balls of fire. Not even considering fake tact. Fiddle-dee-dee. What a silly, bubbly, obtuse little girl I had been.

“I’ll never call anyone else Mamma for sure. Thank you for your out- of-this-world-spicy salsa. And for all the madness. Love you forever.”

That was Kevin’s last post on Mum’s Facebook wall. On the 27th of February, the day we rushed her to hospital for the third time that month.

How did you know? my tormented facial wrinkles asked Kevin two days later, standing in the corridor with walls so white I had to keep my eyes closed during our conversation. “I knew without knowing,” he replied.

The day my mother died the sky put on a veil made of clay. Grief took a seat on my windowsill and, Mum, the ending SUCKS!, motionless, indifferent, bleak, pretending to be an entire statue park it stayed there for very long months. My catastrophe strategy flew out the window. Drizzles, floods, spring breezes, apple blossoms, sunsets, big waters, sweet melons, emerald lawns, dry leaves, foggy nights—every feature of every season blended into a puddle-coloured ball. It was not before mid-November that lettuce started to taste like lettuce again, that soup became hot again, and my burgundy boots flashed colour again.

A little before Christmas I called a number. Yes, I told the guy, I was aware it would be more painful on the thigh. Three sessions, okay. Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable; that photo, yes. January’s fine. My first ever tattoo, yes. Positive. No, don’t pencil me in. Ink me in.

Nelly was obsessed with the snow she had discovered on the pages of What Do People Do All Day? and woke me up at half six on Christmas Day. Sure, amethyst cub, what better time to go for a walk, let me squeeze you into five layers of clothes while this beautiful coffee fills my favourite mug, drop by black gold drop. Seven o’clock, Christmas Day, surprise, surprise, no one in the street. Unfortunately there is no snow, but it’s chilly, can you feel it? No, not the kind of Chili Dada runs. The opposite. Oh, dang, I forgot the nappy bag. Wait there, bean. Don’t open the gate. I’ll be back in a jiffy.

A minute later Nelly was standing on the doorstep, holding a brown paper bag she had found tilted against the wall in her baby-robin-hand. I touched it—felt something soft and light—and knew what it was, knew without knowing. Sacred sometimes comes from where you’d least expect it. But first the card.

Good morning,
You probably don’t remember me. My name is Dotty, I am the nurse who works with Doctor Therason. We met the day your mother was diagnosed. During her treatments we started to converse, talk led to more talk and eventually, if I may make so bold and say so, some sort of friendship developed between us. One day she called me and said she had to see me immediately. I rushed like mad to Chili Demon—but she was fine, still strong. She wanted to give me something.

Honestly, never had I ever seen such exquisite work. Monochrome is my soft spot as it is, but that turquoise! So plain, so friendly, so mysterious. Also, a poncho? The funny, windy, one-size- fits-all piece and never can you tell if it’s friends with your figure or not? Who wears a crocheted cloak today? Yet who could resist the temptation? Taking a walk in a poncho always sends a message.

Before becoming a nurse I dreamed of dedicating my time to The Great Charles. That’s right, I wanted to be a Dickens specialist. A Bowl of Punch for Mister Pinch. The title of my unwritten book. On certain days it still haunts me, like a pair of unborn twins. Naturally, the love-read of my life was and is and always will be A Christmas Carol. If I had a penny for every time its wisdom had helped me out I would have built three shelters for single mothers by now. Thanks to your mother I have discovered yet another moonlit clearing in the magical forest of Dickens. Very few people know how to give their beloved a Christmas present after they’re gone. Your mother was one of them. This poncho has become a Christmas carol and A Christmas Carol at the same time. It is yours now. I feel infinitely grateful to be the messenger in this heavenly transaction. Joy to the world.