My mother didn’t hear any of that. She was in the back, washing coffee cups.
I told her later, in the car on the way home.
She sat in the passenger seat with her apron in her lap. She didn’t say anything for a long time.
“Did you know he was going to do that?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did you hope he would?”
She looked out the window at the fields.
“I didn’t hope for anything, Kim. I just thought he should know who held him. That’s all. Everybody ought to know who held them when they couldn’t hold themselves.”
“Mom. Why didn’t you ever tell me? About Walt? About the baby?”
She was quiet.
“Because it was Walt’s story,” she said. “Not mine. He was ashamed. A man doesn’t want people knowing he couldn’t take care of his own child. I wasn’t going to take that from him. If he wanted to tell it, he could tell it. And he finally did.”
“You held him every morning for two years.”
“I did.”
“And you never told anybody.”
“Who was I going to tell?” She shook her head. “It was my job, honey. Somebody comes into your section and they need something, you bring it to them. Most of them need eggs and coffee. Walt needed somebody to hold his baby. So I held his baby.”
“That’s not your job.”
“Kim.” She turned and looked at me. “That’s exactly what my job is. That’s what it’s always been. You just never asked.”
I didn’t say anything.
I thought about being sixteen and telling a boy my mother worked in food service.
I thought about all the mornings she’d come home smelling like bacon grease, tired, her feet aching, and I’d been embarrassed by it.
I thought about forty-seven years of a woman walking up and down between red vinyl booths, carrying whatever the people in them needed. Coffee. Eggs. A baby. A piece of pie for a boy who couldn’t pay. A kind word for a farmer who was going under. Her hand on somebody’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said.
“For what?”
“For the boy in tenth grade. When I said you worked in food service.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then she laughed. Really laughed. Leaned her head back against the headrest and laughed until she had to wipe her eyes.
“Oh, honey,” she said. “I do work in food service.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” She patted my hand on the steering wheel. “I always knew what you meant. You were sixteen. Everybody’s embarrassed of their mother at sixteen. I was embarrassed of mine and she took in ironing.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It’s exactly the same. And you got over it. That’s all that matters.”
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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