The Price of Love

A lizard, no bigger than my little finger runs by the library window. I am using the internet anxious to get my newsletter done for my clients, the work sandwiched in between other chores. A few minutes before a large lizard, who would have won a part in a Grade B movie called the Monster that Ate Englewood, had ambled by and last night my mom and I were on safari for the baby lizard that lives behind the fridge. He does not want to be evicted.

I am grateful for the air conditioning. This heat makes me nostalgic for last week’s Geneva’s milder canicule when my housemate and I fantasized about winter, with the need for coats, fuzzy socks. The humidity is energy zapping, when I cannot afford not to marshall my strength for the many chores I need to accomplish.

Last night we ate at Howard’s filled, with oversized people and oversized meals. Some of the diners feasted their eyes on two little girls. The family is the only one in this large restaurant under 65. Also missing are any black faces, any language but English, any meaningful differences.

“Are you sure this is all right?” My mom is anxious; worried that she has uprooted me from another continent. We have spent the day working through various problems. Her frailness saddens me as much as her worry.

Around me are ghosts of my father, my aunts and a favourite uncle. I have come to Howard’s on various trips to Florida to visit my parents since they moved here in 1975, albeit the owners have changed and prices have gone up including the Early Bird Specials.

“It is wonderful,” I say.

The waitresses are loud, call everyone honey and sweetheart, a far cry from the soft Madame and Monsieur I am now used to.

I appreciate the waitress, who shares my name. She knows what my mother wants for a meal the same way Patricia at La Noisette in Argelès automatically brings me green tea in the morning and doesn’t put Chantilly on my coffee ice cream with chocolate sauce.

I also appreciate doggie bags, rare to non-existent in Europe, and look forward to another two meals out of our crabmeat stuffed baked shrimp. It has nothing to do with the children are starving in China theory of waste on which I was raised. The food tastes wonderful.

As we drive home we pass cookie cutter strip malls, one after another with the same stores. We pass deed restricted housing developments equally undistinguishable.

At my mom’s the birds have gathered in the back of the house as they do each night. One by one, as if directed by some air controller, they take off for the island in the lake to settle for the night.

We watch the Kennedy Memorial on television. It will seem strange not to have him as my Senator. Whatever his personal failings, he voted like I wanted him too. I’ve been to the Kennedy library, and the church where the funeral will take place is in my old neighbourhood. I remember a few Christmas Eve Midnight Masses there. I have read about the old neighbourhood in The Boston Globe where they talked about Flann O’Briens where we ate Sunday night Pub Grub and the ethnic diversity, which I love(d) being part of.

The Boston Patriots are playing next. My mom oohs and ahhs over Tom Brady. It has been a long time since I’ve watched American football, although I’ve read about the Pats many Superbowl victories with a smile.

The activities are a respite from the work still before us to try and improve her quality of life, new memories after years of only good memories. She is my stepmom, a woman who forgot to read the ugly stepmothers manual. I am the only surviving child of a mixed family that never had his and her children just “our kids.”

She falls asleep, and I see not an elderly woman, but the beautiful young woman who was always there for me. I do not want to be here dealing with these issues. I do not want to be anyplace else. I realize that this is the price of love and it is a privilege to pay it.