as not I’d find her in an apron, hovering over a roast with a phone in
each hand, one a client, the other an uncle or friend calling to offer
condolences. Through all this my father remained in bed.
Dad spoke at the funeral. His speech was a twenty-minute sermon
on God’s promises to Abraham. He mentioned my grandmother twice.
To strangers it must have seemed he was hardly affected by the loss of
his mother, but we knew better, we who could see the devastation.
When we arrived home from the service, Dad was incensed that
lunch wasn’t ready. Mother scrambled to serve the stew she’d left to
slow-cook, but after the meal Dad seemed equally frustrated by the
dishes, which Mother hurriedly cleaned, and then by his
grandchildren, who played noisily while Mother dashed about trying to
hush them.
That evening, when the house was empty and quiet, I listened from
the living room as my parents argued in the kitchen.
“The least you could do,” Mother said, “is fill out these thank-you
cards. It was your mother, after all.”
“That’s wifely work,” Dad said. “I’ve never heard of a man writing
cards.”
He had said the exact wrong thing. For ten years, Mother had been
the primary breadwinner, while continuing to cook meals, clean the
house, do the laundry, and I had never once heard her express
anything like resentment. Until now.
“Then you should do the husband’s work,” she said, her voice raised.
Soon they were both shouting. Dad tried to corral her, to subdue her
with a show of anger, the way he always had, but this only made her
more stubborn. Eventually she tossed the cards on the table and said,
“Fill them out or don’t. But if you don’t, no one will.” Then she
marched downstairs. Dad followed, and for an hour their shouts rose
up through the floor. I’d never heard my parents shout like that—at
least, not my mother. I’d never seen her refuse to give way.
The next morning I found Dad in the kitchen, dumping flour into a
glue-like substance I assumed was supposed to be pancake batter.
When he saw me, he dropped the flour and sat at the table. “You’re a
woman, ain’tcha?” he said. “Well, this here’s a kitchen.” We stared at
each other and I contemplated the distance that had sprung up