Kitabı oku: «The Baby Chronicles», sayfa 2

Chapter Three

Wednesday, March 3

To whom it may concern:

To the owner of the leaking Ziploc bag that at one time may have contained a sandwich and some baby carrots that now houses fuzzy mold and oozing liquid, please remove your biological warfare project from our refrigerator. There are some in this office who want to keep their lunches cold and do not want vomitous yellow gunk dripping onto our yogurt cups. If this is not done immediately, fingerprints will be lifted from the plastic bag and the guilty party will be fined large amounts of money and forced to eat the contents of the baggie.

The Management

War has broken out in the Innova lunchroom, and it isn’t pretty. We’ve been eyeing each other with suspicion, covertly watching our once-trusted friends and coworkers stash their lunches in the break-room refrigerator to identify consistent patterns of behavior. Betty is my top suspect, for leaving a Tupperware container of cottage cheese and pineapple on the counter until the cheese aged into a yellowed slime the texture of yak milk.

Harry usually picks up something at the deli, so I assume the half-eaten pastrami on rye that’s fossilizing on the bottom shelf is his. Bryan is hard to pin down because he brings his lunch in everything from old bread bags to cast-off foam containers. Mitzi carries her meal in a tidy Gucci purse she’s turned into a lunch box. I suspect that beneath that designer exterior lurks a plebian plastic bag carrying the hard-boiled eggs that she intentionally leaves in the fridge for weeks at a time to torment the rest of us. Old eggs give off a distinctive rotten, sulfurous smell that is easily recognized but requires a full-scale refrigerator cleaning to eradicate.

And that’s part of the problem. Nobody wants to be in charge of cleanup, so we’ve allowed a zoo of microscopic bacteria, fuzz, mold and moss to build and flourish. Our lunchroom is not called the Bacteria Buffet for nothing.

I’ve ordered Mitzi to do the dirty deed, but she says it isn’t in her job description, that removing toxic waste is the task of a professional. Her only concession to helping out with this office problem was to send her cleaning lady in one day to do the job—and then submitting her bill to me for payment.

Mitzi breezed into the break room on strappy sandals that matched her pink designer suit, put her Gucci lunch box on the table, opened it and took out a delicate tray of sushi. She batted her fake eyelashes at me and put the sushi in the refrigerator. Then she took a bottle of designer water out of the bag and tripped off to her desk to file her nails, read the paper and make sure she and her husband had secured tickets for the symphony—all of which, she insists, are somewhere in the “unwritten” agreement concerning her job description.

Mitzi missed her calling. I could see her as an executive for a company run by Barbie and her stiff-legged dolly friends. Barbie has a Dream House. If she ever develops a Dream Office, Mitzi is the one for her. Work would involve picking out professional-looking suits in all shades of pink, refurnishing rooms with expensive furniture and groaning over long days at the office when one should really be at the beach.

“There you are, Whitney. I’ve been looking for you. Where have you been?” Harry had a stack of contracts in his arm and a frazzled look on his face.

“Standing here. You’ve gone by the door three times and looked in.”

“Nonsense. You must have been hiding.”

I didn’t bother to point out that hiding from the boss during office hours is frowned upon, even here at Innova where the expression “running a loose ship” was probably invented. Besides, I know from experience that around here, you can run but you can’t hide.

“Take a look at these, decide what we should do about them, report back to me and we’ll determine our next step.” He thrust the papers at me as if they were the proverbial hot potato. All Harry really wants to do is design software. Things written on paper bore him, even contracts that bring in paying customers.

He spun on his heel to leave, then paused and turned back. He’s very graceful for a short man who’s carrying more weight that he should around his middle.

“Whitney, I don’t say it much, but I really do appreciate what you do around here. Bringing you into the Innova family was the smartest thing I ever did.”

I blinked, dumbfounded. “Why, Harry, thank you…”

“And get those things back to me ASAP and tell Mitzi to get the lipstick off her teeth on her own time.” The touchy-feely moment was over, and he was gone.

The Innova family. I like the sound of that. Dysfunctional as it is, I’m glad I’m part of it, too. Then the word family brought me back to the conversation Chase and I had had last night, the one about starting our own little family.

How much, really, had the idea of having a child right now been sparked by the thought of sharing those special months with Kim? We shop together, we eat together, we pray together. Maybe being queasy and nauseous together would be fun, too.

After work I stopped at Norah’s Ark, my favorite pet shop, to get food for Mr. Tibble and Scram. Norah was behind the counter, having a deep conversation with a turtle. Her dark, curly hair was fastened into a ponytail that erupted from the top of her head. She has remarkable gray-green eyes, full of humor and compassion and a ready grin.

“Hi, Whitney, how’s Mr. Tibble? What’s Scram up to? Oh, yes, and Chase?” Norah always asks about the pets first.

After leaving the pet store, I picked up a pizza and arrived at home by six-fifteen. Chase was already there. Odd. He usually doesn’t arrive until seven or after.

At least I thought he was home. His car was in the garage, but the house was dark. I found him in the darkened living room, lying on the couch with a pillow over his eyes. Mr. Tibble was sleeping on his chest, his head nuzzled beneath my husband’s chin. Scram, who’s learned his place in Mr. Tibble’s pecking order—below the bottom—was sleeping across one of Chase’s ankles.

When Mr. Tibble heard me come in, he turned his head and sleepily kneaded his claws into Chase’s chest. That started a chain reaction. Chase jumped at the needle-sharp nail pricks, Mr. Tibble yowled and hung on by his claws to Chase’s shirt. Scram, jettisoned off Chase’s leg and sure he must be somehow the cause of all this commotion, headed for the hills, or, in this case, the back of my favorite chair.

“I usually don’t see this much excitement when I walk into a room,” I commented, first prying Mr. Tibble off Chase and then rubbing the broad part of Chase’s chest where the cat had been hanging.

“So much for a nap. I think I may be going into cardiac arrest. Could you do CPR on me, please?” Smile lines crinkled around his beautiful blue eyes, and I felt my own heart do a little lurch.

“Oh, I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.” I put my arms around him and kissed his lips. “What are you doing home? I didn’t expect you until seven.”

“Tired, that’s all. I got done early today and decided to sneak out.” He brushed a strand of hair from my eyes. “Maybe I’m getting old and can’t keep up the pace.”

I searched his face, unable to tell if he was joking or serious, but he smiled at me and, as usual, banished every sensible thought from my brain.

After dinner, as we sat together on the sofa, Mr. Tibble and Scram once again snoozing next to us, Chase asked. “What’s Mitzi been up to today?”

The Mitzi saga is Chase’s idea of a soap opera, and I’m his verbal TiVo. I replay my day with Mitzi every evening so he can have a few laughs.

“That podiatrist husband of hers is clamping down on shoes with pointed toes. She says he’s seen a rash of bunions lately and wants her to wear flats. As you can imagine, Mitzi is fit to be tied. She’s been wearing sensible shoes out of the house and hiding high-heeled shoes in a briefcase and bringing them to work but has begun to feel that’s being ‘unfaithful’ to her husband. Recently she forced Betty Noble to stay late and teach her how to sell her shoes on eBay.”

“At least she didn’t waste work hours on it,” Chase commented.

“She didn’t have time. She was too busy researching cellulite cures during the day.”

“How is Kim?”

I waved my hand. “Up and down. Chase, do you think Kurt is right to be so worried about her having another child?”

“Kurt’s cautious. The man is going to be a certified public accountant. Those types don’t make their money taking risks. It’s in his nature to be cautious. There was a time that it was assumed that the hormone surges of pregnancy fueled breast cancer. That’s not so black-and-white today, especially in women like Kim whose cancers were caught early. Kurt and Kim need to get all the facts from their specialist and then make the decision.

“It can go either way,” Chase added matter-of-factly.

“For women whose cancers are caught early, a subsequent pregnancy may not be nearly as dangerous as was once assumed. Still, Kurt can find information out there that says a woman’s survival is affected negatively, as well. They need to be talking to their doctors, not scaring themselves on the Internet.”

“It’s so hard for them.”

“They’ll be okay, Whitney. They’re a praying pair.”

Of course. I felt my mood lighten. “You’re right. They have the God factor on their side.”

Chase pulled me close. “Did you think anymore about our conversation last night?”

“I didn’t think about much else. Poor Harry didn’t get much bang for his buck from any of his employees today. I prayed about it, too.”

“I know. I did—”

The phone rang, interrupting what Chase was about to say.

“Whitney, this is Kim. What are you doing?”

“Having a romantic tête-à-tête with my husband.”

“Oh, good, I didn’t interrupt anything important, then.”

Chase overheard her comment, rolled his eyes and went to make coffee, leaving me alone with the conversation.

“Very funny.”

“What are you guys doing tonight?”

“Nothing. Especially since you interrupted our romantic talk.”

Kim didn’t take the hint.

“Then you wouldn’t mind if I came over? I’m feeling a little stir-crazy here. Today Wesley developed a fascination for fishing in our saltwater aquarium. He spent the morning turning light switches on and off until I thought I was either living with a strobe light or having a stroke. Then he picked up a terrible word from the neighbor child, which he’s finally tired of saying. And about two minutes ago I discovered that he’d been tinkering with the knobs on our stereo. I thought I would turn on some nice, soothing rain forest music and nearly blew out my eardrums.”

So it had been a day just like any other with Wesley.

“Does Kurt have class?” He’s finishing up his degree in accounting and preparing to sit for the CPA exam while driving a truck during the day to pay the bills.

“He does. It’s me who needs the diversion. Wesley discovered he can make the entire house tremble if he sets the tuner knobs just right. Until Kurt arrives to put a lock on the cabinet door, I’ll be peeling Wesley off the entertainment center. If I go deaf before Kurt gets home, I won’t be able to hear what Wes is doing next.”

My experience with Wesley is that when I can hear him, it’s okay. It’s when things are silent that I begin to worry. Entire rooms can be colored with crayons up to a height of two feet from the floor in virtually no time at all. Uncleaned litter boxes can be emptied onto many square feet of flooring. Kitchen cupboards can be cleared of their contents and many cereal boxes opened. Oh, no, noise isn’t the problem with Wesley. Silence is. Of course, it’s not my house that’s trembling.

“Can we come over?” Kim was as determined as a bulldog. I knew that even if I did say no, it probably wouldn’t stop her.

“I suppose…”

“Good. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.” The line went dead.

“What was that about?” Chase returned from the kitchen carrying a huge butterscotch walnut sundae and two spoons.

“Kim’s sanity is slipping. Wesley has discovered he’s mechanical.” I told him about the stereo.

Chase shuddered and then sighed. “I guess I’d better start making more sundaes.”

When in doubt, eat. It’s one of my coping mechanisms, too.

When they arrived, Wesley marched into the house first and flung himself at Chase’s leg, where he stood with both his little Nike-shod feet on Chase’s shoe. He refused to let go of Chase’s leg, forcing him to walk stiff-legged down the hall to greet Kim, dragging Wesley with him.

“Too bad he doesn’t like you,” I muttered to Chase. “The child is like a barnacle attaching itself to the hull of a ship. How are you going to scrape him off?”

Chase winked at me. “You’re just jealous that it’s not bedtime yet.”

Chase is Wesley’s favorite playmate, but I am queen of the bedtime story and back-scratching professional extraordinaire. I come into my own with Wesley the moment he starts rubbing his eyes and wanting to cuddle.

The color was high in Kim’s cheeks, and from the glint in her eye, I could tell that she and her son had come to an impasse and leaving the house was their only logical recourse. With Kim and Wesley, as with Kim and Kurt, when stubborn meets stubborn, it’s like two mountain sheep ramming horns. Nobody wins, and everybody gets a really bad headache.

They didn’t even have time for the normal niceties. Wesley bounced off Chase’s shoe and went straight for the huge plastic box that harbors his toys, dumped them onto the floor and then started chasing the cats. Mr. Tibble, wise to Wesley’s ways, dodged him by leaping onto the just-out-of-reach-for-Wesley back of the wing chair. With an intelligence born of experience, he also tucked his long black tail beneath him so that there were no handholds for Wesley to swing on. Scram—not the brightest bulb in the package—was rescued by Kim, who scooped him out of Wes’s grabby little mitts.

I, as silently as I could, breathed a sigh of relief. Kim is always saying, “He’ll grow out of it.” That’s true, but he always grows into something else.

“Okay, you two,” Chase demanded. “What’s up?”

Kim took the sundae he offered her and sank onto the couch with a relieved sigh. “I’m half-deaf from that sound system Kurt insisted was everything we’d ever need and more, I’m exhausted from running after a three-year-old with boundless energy and limited common sense and I’m smart enough to know that Uncle Chase and Aunt Whitney can make me sane again. Do you have any cherries for this sundae?”

This is the woman who wants another child? If the baby is anything like Wes, there isn’t enough ice cream in the world to keep any of us sane—and the biggest nut may turn out to be Kim herself.

Chapter Four

“What stage is he in now?” I inquired sweetly. “Heat-seeking missile, search-and-destroy mission or kamikaze LEGO airplane pilot?” I could hear Chase and Wesley roaring with laughter about something hysterical in the kitchen. My recent attempt at a chocolate layer cake, probably.

“Maybe Kurt is right,” Kim said glumly as she plunged her spoon into the melting mound of vanilla bean ice cream. “Maybe it is a bad idea. Not for the reasons he brings up, of course, but there are some grounds for calling it quits.”

Perhaps Wesley really has driven Kim off the deep end. “What are you talking about?”

“Having another baby, of course.” She stared at me accusingly. “Didn’t you hear a word I said?”

“Surely you won’t let a three-year-old determine whether or not you have more children.”

“That’s not it. Like I told you before, we both want more children, but Kurt is being difficult—no, impossible—about my getting pregnant again. Today he announced that the pregnancy shouldn’t happen because he’s been reading up on my condition on the Internet and he’s not willing to put me through anymore stress. Whatever happened to deciding this together?”

Kim crossed her arms over her chest. “You’d think he’d consult me before putting his foot down. That’s what we agreed to do. I’m the one taking all the risks. I deserve a vote in this.”

“It seems only right. Why didn’t he?”

“Because he says I’m letting my emotions overrule my common sense and that I’m not being rational.”

“And are you irrational?” At the moment, she appeared suspiciously so.

“Of course not! Well, maybe…just a little…No!” She waved her spoon in the air. “Whitney, you have to help me convince Kurt that having another baby is a great idea. You’re practically my sister. He listens to you.”

I rolled my eyes and sank deeper into my recliner. I may believe I am my brother’s—or sister’s—keeper, but this is ridiculous.

After Kim left, I discussed the twists and turns of Kim and Kurt’s lives and logic with Chase. As always, he is cautious not to make judgments without having the full picture. With Kurt and Kim taking opposite sides on the issue, the last place either of us wants to be is in the middle.

He leaned back in his chair and laced his hands behind his head. I love it when he does that, because I get a great view of those pectorals he works on at the gym and a peek at his washboard abs when his shirt pulls tightly across his torso. I love watching Chase, feeling his chest rise and fall as we sit together on the couch watching football or hearing him humming to himself in the other room while he reads the paper. I delight in him just because he exists. Miraculously, that’s just the merest hint of the pleasure that God gets from being in a relationship with me.

I’d almost forgotten I’d asked Chase a question—too occupied with my happy little visual feast—when he finally spoke. “This may be a matter of ethics.”

“‘Ethics?’ People have babies all the time and don’t think about the moral principles behind it.”

“Maybe they should. It’s not a frivolous thing to bring a child into the world. In Kim and Kurt’s case, there’s more to consider than for some.”

His expression was intense. “If Kim’s cancer were to recur—and I don’t believe it will—there’s always the risk that she won’t be around to raise either Wesley or the new baby.”

“You can’t think…” But the thought had crossed my mind, as well.

“No. I don’t think it will happen. I know Kim’s case. I believe she’s fine, but I’m a doctor, not a visionary. I respect Kurt for not only being concerned for Kim’s safety, but also for Wesley’s well-being. Granted, he’s gone a little overboard….”

“Kim’s very frustrated right now.”

Chase looked at me oddly. “Is she depressed?”

“No. Not that I’ve noticed.” A dim lightbulb finally flickered faintly in my brain. “You mean because of the hormones?”

“Kim is depression-prone. Kurt’s not only worried about Kim’s physical state but her mental state, as well.”

We’d all walked with Kim through a very bad time that none of us—least of all Kim—wanted to repeat. “Do you think that a pregnancy will affect her in that way?”

“I can’t blame Kurt for being wary.”

For all the heedlessness and lack of consideration with which some babies are conceived, one thing is still true. Every time parents bring a new child into the world, it is here for eternity. Another soul who exists not only in the present but in infinity. Now and forever.

No wonder Kurt is thinking this through so carefully. The enormity of the responsibility, once one begins to think of it, is mind-boggling.

Friday, March 5

The next morning, Bryan, showing more energy and enthusiasm than he has in months, collared me as I entered the Innova office. His eyes were narrow and his pupils, angry pinpoints. “Are you the one who took my pierogis out of the refrigerator last night?”

Pierogis? I’ve never tasted one, and from the look of them, they are definitely not something anyone would want to steal. In fact, they’d probably be pretty hard to give away. Bryan, whose Polish grandmother has made them for every holiday since he was a child, has an unnatural attachment to these lumps of dough filled with mashed potatoes or sauerkraut. More peculiar yet, she makes dozens of them and gives them to him as a Christmas present. Bryan freezes them and metes them out slowly between Christmas and Easter so he doesn’t run out until his grandmother refills his stash on his birthday. He guards them like gold nuggets and brings them to work boiled or fried in butter. At noon, he heats them, slathers them with sour cream and eats them at his desk

“Bryan, you know I’d never steal anything, especially your Christmas present.”

He sagged and looked woeful. “I suppose it’s my own fault, leaving them there overnight. They were just too tempting, and someone just couldn’t resist.”

“Tempting?” I put a knuckle between my teeth to keep from laughing. Bryan took it as a signal of my upset and sympathy.

“Who could pass up my grandmother’s pierogis? I should have known better than to leave them in the refrigerator to entice people. If you discover who might have taken them, will you let me know?”

Move over, Nancy Drew. Now I’m on The Case of the Purloined Pierogi.

Mitzi entered the office in a cloud of Chanel N° 5 and the aroma of chocolate. “Treats, everyone!” She set a bakery box on my desk and opened it to reveal chocolate éclairs and chocolate doughnuts frosted in chocolate and covered with sprinkles.

“Why do you do this to me, Mitzi?” I take Mitzi’s treats as a direct attack on my waistline. Because Mitzi doesn’t like chocolate, she can ignore it completely. She knows that I, an admitted chocoholic, will succumb repeatedly before the day is done.

“Self-preservation,” Mitzi said with her characteristic straightforwardness. “I like people around me who are heavier than me. It’s good for my self-esteem.”

“What about my self-esteem?”

“Oh, you’re in charge of that,” she retorted airily. “I can’t take care of yours and mine, too. Éclair?”

No wonder I leave the office with a headache.

“Have you seen the pierogis Bryan left in the refrigerator?” I asked, hoping to catch Mitzi in a petty crime.

“Those white lumps he eats for lunch? They look like brains and boiled cauliflower.”

Now that’s a visual.

“His lunch is missing today.”

“He can have an éclair. I’ll put them in the break room.” And Mitzi tripped off happily, acting as if she’d solved every problem but world peace.

Then Kim slouched in wearing a baggy sweater and jeans even though it wasn’t casual Friday. When I greeted her, she walked by me as if I wasn’t there.

Now, I’m accustomed to that kind of treatment from Mitzi, who is usually too involved in her own little world to notice mine. But Kim? That’s another story.

I caught up with her in the back room. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” She flung a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into the refrigerator and slammed the door. “Nada. Zip. Nil. Zilch. Nothing.”

Before I could point out that there seemed to be a whole lot of “nothing” going on, she burst into tears and flung herself into my arms, toppling us into a file cabinet. “The doctor said no, Whitney. What am I going to do?”

It took me a moment to recall that yesterday was the day Kim and Kurt were to visit her oncologist.

“‘No?’” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that?”

“Not exactly,” she snuffled. “He said ‘not yet.’ My oncologist is very conservative, and he recommended that I wait. Since my cancer was caught very early, it’s not likely another pregnancy would be dangerous, but he wants to follow me medically for a while longer before I try to have a second child. Of course, Kurt picked that up and ran with it, reminding the doctor about my issues with chronic depression.”

This didn’t sound good. “And?”

“The doctor called to consult with a specialist, who said that women with a history of depression before pregnancy are almost twice as likely as other women to show signs of it while they are pregnant. It has to do with hormone imbalances.” Her face crumpled. “My doctor started talking about my susceptibility to postpartum depression, and Kurt put his hands in the air and said, ‘That’s it. There’s no way I’d ask my wife to go through that again.’”

“The doctor tried to assure Kurt that babies exposed to antidepressants in utero don’t seem to be set back by it, but you know how stubborn Kurt can be. He never heard another word the doctor said.”

“He’s trying to take care of you, Kim. You can’t fault him for that.”

Kim scrubbed away her tears with the back of her hand. “I know it. And I know we have to be in agreement about this before we try again. But I don’t think he’ll change his mind. He says he loves me too much to jeopardize my health.”

“It’s hard to argue with that. He loves you, Kim. He’s seen you in both physical and emotional pain.”

“Not having another child will hurt me, too!”

That was something I wasn’t going to touch. Only God was smart enough for that one.

Friday March 19

Today, I was innocently minding my own business as I put treats out for afternoon coffee. My plan was to infuse the staff with pure sucrose, to give them a sugar high that would last until the end of the day, so we could get some work done around here.

“Ahah!”

The door to the office coat closet flew open and crashed against the wall behind it, revealing Byran standing there, piles of extra toilet paper at his feet, his head in a tangle of wire coat hangers.

I dropped the Tupperware container of divinity I was carrying and grabbed my chest with both hands. “CPR! Call an ambulance! Someone, start CPR!”

“Sorry, Whitney, I thought you were the Pierogi Bandit.” Bryan slunk out of the storage closet where he’d been hiding and began to pick up the white globs of divinity candy that were now on the break room floor. “You had white lumps in your hands. I thought…”

“Give it up, Bryan. Ask your grandmother to make you some more pierogi. Give me her number and I’ll ask her. You can’t continue to leap out of cupboards and shuffle through our desks looking for food.”

“It’s just wrong,” Bryan insisted. “There’s a thief on the premises, and I’m going to find her.”

“‘Her?’”

“There are four women in this office and two men. It’s got to be a woman. The odds are in favor of a female.”

Talk about allegiance to your gender. I wish some of that loyalty would rub off on Mitzi. For the past two weeks, while Kim has been utterly distracted by her debate with Kurt over another child, Mitzi has turned into Lady Godiva—Godiva chocolate, that is. She’s even had her housekeeper bake goodies for the office—German chocolate cake, cookies, fudge and seven-layer bars. I might as well just slather them directly onto my hips as process them through my mouth. Betty the office dragon is beginning to mutter about banning treats from the lunchroom entirely, but Harry, who has to consume a lot of calories to maintain his waistline, wouldn’t be happy. And if Harry isn’t happy, nobody is happy.

Otherwise, life has been fairly routine. Chase is covering for another doctor who’s on a mission trip, and he hasn’t been home enough to even discuss the baby issue. The main man in my life has been Mr. Tibble.

The problem with Mr. Tibble is that no matter where he is, according to him, he is on the wrong side of the door. If I’m in the bathroom with the door closed, Mr. Tibble wants in. If he’s stuck with me while I’m in the tub, he wants out.

He finds it amusing to go into the laundry room and bat the door shut behind him, barricading himself in with the food, water dishes and litter box. Poor Scram is so traumatized that he refuses to leave the laundry room for fear he’ll never be able to return. I’ve had to keep the litter box in the living room, where Mr. Tibble cannot seal it off from Scram. This does not provide enjoyable evening entertainment.

Scram has learned to be resourceful and now drinks out of the toilet off my bedroom. This does not make for pleasant daily ablutions.

Until Mr. Tibble learns something useful, like behaving himself, he’s going to put a crimp in both our television watching and our bathing. On top of all this, he makes it clear that he regards us as inferior beings. If you need an ego boost, don’t get a cat.

Tonight we had dinner guests, all of them unannounced. That meant that I threw together the meal—a cauliflower-bacon-and-broccoli salad, cold cuts, bread and soy ice cream. It wasn’t exactly gourmet fare, but if it had been just Chase and me, we would have made caramel popcorn and eaten ourselves into a stupor in front of the fireplace.

As it was, Mom, Dad, Kim and Wesley all arrived at our front door at once.

When my mother comes to visit, she often brings food. I’m not sure if she thinks she won’t get any at my place, or that it will all be raw, organic and unsalted. Tonight she came bearing one of her signature desserts, a frightening confection she calls “dirt cake.”

It’s a mousselike dessert of cream cheese, whipped topping and vanilla pudding that Mom serves in a flowerpot. She tops the mixture with crumbled chocolate cookies—the dirt—plastic flowers and a host of gummy worms oozing out of the soil. It tickles her to serve it with a child’s plastic shovel and watch people’s expressions.

“Mom, do you have any idea how many calories are in that disgusting-looking thing?”

“It’s not disgusting, it’s cute. It was a big hit at my book club.”

I popped a gummy worm into my mouth. “It’s not very healthy. Think of all the sugar, the preservatives…”

Mom glanced in my hallway mirror and put the back of her hand beneath her chin where the first sign of sagging skin was still in her future.

“Preservatives? Don’t take them away from me, darling. I need all the help I can get.”