June, 1982. I’m hurriedly washing a sinkful of dishes in our one-bedroom apartment in Canton, Ohio. My in-laws are on their way over with a meal. A day earlier, I had returned home from the hospital with our baby, Doug, who was four days old.
I’ve already frantically picked up our cluttered living room and heaved a blanket over our unmade bed. Doug sleeps unconcerned in his bassinet. My husband blithely straightens the piles of papers on his desk in the living room. He thinks it’s fine that his mother is coming. “She wants to help,” he says. “Just let her.”
The thing is, I don’t need any help. Sure, standing too long makes me ache. I’m sleepy and also too keyed up to sleep most of the time. My breasts hurt. All the more reason, I think, for my in-laws not to stop by. I’m picking up clutter and washing dishes instead of resting. I don’t understand why they’re coming. We’re doing fine.
One of my sisters lives about an hour away. My husband called her when Doug was born, and we haven’t spoken since. My other sister lives about five minutes away. In a day or two, she will make a grocery store run for me. My dad died eleven years earlier, and my mom, who also lives in Canton, doesn’t drive anymore. Since my husband called her after Doug’s birth, she’s been incommunicado.
She’s not mad. She just doesn’t call. She’s called me only once or twice in my entire life.
My sisters and I pride ourselves on our independence. They had children before me, and as far as I can recall, my mother never bought them a gift, called, or even sent them a card. I remember only one time my mom brought food to someone in need. Our neighbor, Dorothy, was bedridden after surgery for breast cancer. We walked to her house, my mom carrying a casserole dish wrapped in a towel. Dorothy lay in her bed in a loose nightgown. I could see a jagged red scar snaking under one arm toward her chest. Cheerful and appreciative, she chatted with my mom. I was about eight years old, and that anomalous mission of mercy was a one-off, as far as I know.
John’s mother, in contrast, seems always to be helping out neighbors and is also in our business. She calls just to chat. I struggle to manage these conversations, wondering when she is going to get to the point. During my pregnancy, she wanted to know how I was feeling. I’d say I was doing well. Had we picked out any names yet? Were my mom and sisters excited for us? How was John doing? No. I guess so. Fine, I would answer.
It wasn’t that I disliked my mother-in-law. I just didn’t know what to make of her. I was accustomed to managing on my own. I applied to colleges all by myself. I moved myself to Kent State University with the help of my then-boyfriend. A sister visited that apartment with my mother in tow, who sat virtually silent the whole time. Afterward, she told me that she didn’t trust me. I think she was imagining that I might entertain young men in that apartment. (As I did.) She never set foot in the apartment where I am currently washing dishes, where we’d lived for four years. John’s parents, in contrast, helped us move in, carrying boxes up four flights of stairs.
I am still rinsing off remnants of our lunchtime tomato soup from bowls when the doorbell rings. First, my in-laws tiptoe into the bedroom to peek at the sleeping baby. In the kitchen, my mother-in-law opens the big picnic basket she has carried up the stairs. The fragrance of hot fried chicken wafts toward me.
She pulls out a heavy platter, heaped with crispy breasts and thighs, and sets it on the table. Then a foil packet holding four steaming baked potatoes. There’s more.
Buttered green beans fill a serving dish, and wrapped in paper towels are four brown dinner rolls. Tupperware contains a green salad. My mother-in-law is like Mary Poppins opening her satchel, pulling out more than it could reasonably hold.
With a gentle smile, my father-in-law sets down a treasure I hadn’t noticed. It is a homemade chocolate cake. My mother-in-law provides napkins, plastic silverware, and paper plates, which we pile with food and carry to the dining room table.
I’m bewildered and stunned. Mute. Loved. I sit and eat, surprised by my sudden hunger.