I had a turkey club, but it could have been a BLT or even egg salad which is what came to mind as the corner of the sandwich first touched my tongue and my teeth and I breathed in the smell of white toast. (I'm particularly fond of egg salad but rarely order it, preferring the way my mother made it, the way I make it.) Then there was the lettuce and the mayonnaise and I was in a small diner, Main street Hackensack (NJ), with my mother. We had just come from the allergist, Dr. Berkow, a short, square, hairy man who had given me a couple of shots and who explained to my mother the sources of allergies and asthma talking to her like she was a child, maybe because he was a doctor and she was not, or maybe because he was a man and she was not, or maybe both. And my mother looked at him in the way (I had seen this before) that let the speaker know that she was letting him go on with his nonsense, that she knew the source and cause but she wouldn't bother to tell him because he wouldn't get it anyway. It wasn't hostile, it just wasn't worth her while.
So there we were, sharing silence, (we are not big on talking, especially when eating, we are, both of us, quite fond of food), when my heart shook, hit with a wave of what felt like love coming from my mother, more like a sea swell really, slow and strong, and warm. I looked at my mother who was not looking at me but was holding her sandwich in both hands and staring off somewhere in thought, looking angry as she always did when thinking, but she wasn't angry, that was just her face. If you didn't know her you'd think her's was a cold, hard love but that wasn't the case it just seemed that way because the heat of her heart was held in check by a will of steel, tempered in the fires of suffering, hammered by pain. She was less given to loving looks than actions: we had ridden the bus to the doctor together and now we were sharing a meal, she cared for me and it made me want to cry, but I didn't. After all, to the rest of the world I appeared to be at my desk at work and if I were to cry there it would prompt questions the answers to which would prompt more and I would find myself explaining myself when all I really wanted to do was spend some quiet time with Mom. So I didn't cry then and there, I saved it for later.
So there we were, sharing silence, (we are not big on talking, especially when eating, we are, both of us, quite fond of food), when my heart shook, hit with a wave of what felt like love coming from my mother, more like a sea swell really, slow and strong, and warm. I looked at my mother who was not looking at me but was holding her sandwich in both hands and staring off somewhere in thought, looking angry as she always did when thinking, but she wasn't angry, that was just her face. If you didn't know her you'd think her's was a cold, hard love but that wasn't the case it just seemed that way because the heat of her heart was held in check by a will of steel, tempered in the fires of suffering, hammered by pain. She was less given to loving looks than actions: we had ridden the bus to the doctor together and now we were sharing a meal, she cared for me and it made me want to cry, but I didn't. After all, to the rest of the world I appeared to be at my desk at work and if I were to cry there it would prompt questions the answers to which would prompt more and I would find myself explaining myself when all I really wanted to do was spend some quiet time with Mom. So I didn't cry then and there, I saved it for later.
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