Chapter 3 - HANNAH’S SCHOOL PROJECT
Hannah’s seventh-grade history class assigned a family oral-history project in February.
She chose Mom.
I expected questions about childhood.
Instead, Hannah arrived with a recorder, yellow notebook, and an expression like a journalist about to expose government corruption.
“Grandma, what’s the first thing you remember being poor?”
I nearly dropped my coffee.
“Hannah.”
Mom laughed.
“No, let her ask.”
She thought.
“Shoes.”
Hannah wrote it down.
“What about them?”
“We had one good pair for school and church.”
“Did you like them?”
“Hated them.”
“Why?”
“They pinched.”
Hannah looked delighted.
For three Sunday afternoons, she interviewed Mom.
I sat nearby only because Mom sometimes wanted help with dates.
Otherwise, I listened.
I learned things I had somehow never asked.
Mom left high school for one year after her father’s stroke.
Returned.
Graduated late.
Married my father at twenty.
Lost a baby before Steven was born.
Worked nights cleaning offices before the cafeteria position opened.
When Dad’s factory cut hours, Mom sometimes skipped lunch herself.
“What did you tell Mara and Uncle Steven?” Hannah asked.
“That I’d already eaten.”
My stomach tightened.
“How often?”
Mom looked at me.
“Not often.”
That meant often enough.
Hannah kept writing.
“Was Mom difficult?”
“Extremely.”
“Hey.”
“She once refused to wear anything except purple for six months.”
Hannah looked at me.
“Why?”
“I was six.”
“Not an answer.”
Mom laughed.
Then Hannah asked:
“Who was your favorite kid at the cafeteria?”
“You aren’t supposed to have favorites.”
“But you did.”
Mom thought.
“There were children I worried about more.”
“Curtis?”
Mom smiled.
“Yes.”
She told the story again.
Curtis Bell.
Fourth grade when she met him.
Quiet.
Always returned his tray.
His mother worked nights.
Some mornings Curtis arrived without breakfast.
The school technically required payment unless students were enrolled in assistance.
Mom sometimes added food anyway.
“Did you get in trouble?”
“Once.”
“What happened?”
“The principal asked why my food count was wrong.”
“What did you say?”
“That I couldn’t count.”
Hannah laughed.
“You lied?”
“I was protecting my professional reputation as an idiot.”
Even I had never heard that part.
Hannah’s project ended with a question:
“What do you miss about working?”
Mom answered immediately.
“Being expected.”
Hannah stopped writing.
“What do you mean?”
Mom looked toward the window.
“When you work, people notice if you don’t arrive.”
The room became quiet.
I felt something sharp inside my chest.
Mom continued casually.
“Retirement’s nice. But nobody needs lunch at six-thirty in the morning anymore.”
Hannah put down her pencil.
“Grandma?”
“Yes?”
“I notice when you don’t come Sunday.”
Mom looked at her.
Hannah added:
“And I don’t just mean because of mashed potatoes.”
Mom smiled.
But her eyes filled.
That afternoon, after Mom went home, Hannah said:
“Grandma needs something that isn’t us.”
“What?”
“A job.”
“She’s seventy-three.”
“So?”
“She retired.”
“Then something like a job.”
I almost dismissed it.
Then remembered Mom’s words.
Being expected.
There is a kind of loneliness family cannot fully solve.
A person needs somewhere to belong that is not based only on being somebody’s mother or grandmother.
For decades, Mom had been Evelyn from the cafeteria.
Then suddenly she was mostly Evelyn waiting for one of us to call.
Hannah, annoyingly, was right.
May you like
Again.
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