The Best for Last

By J.M. Sirrico

My mother was born with a cold draft across her shoulders.

“Oh, can’t you feel it? Don’t tell me you can’t feel that. I’m freezing,” she complains pulling her beige shawl tighter.

My father, brother and I keep our eyes on our plates, not wanting to interrupt the 1,763 performance of the ‘can’t you feel that draft?’ soliloquy.

“You’d think they’d make an effort for paying customers. Henry, I want you to say something to that waiter.”

“You already told him Maggie.”

“And what good did it do? It needs to come from you; you’re the man Henry.” Her words slowly press a long thin sigh from my father’s lungs.

“Whatever,” my brother Jake chimes, letting his fork hit the plate.

This is how it went, every, single, time. I had hoped it wouldn’t, just this once. My mother is a big one for hope; she just doesn’t hope for the same things that I do.

I called her earlier during lunch hoping to catch her distracted by dry tuna on toast.

“Barry’s going to meet us at the restaurant around 6:00 pm.”

“Barry? Barry whom dear?” she feigned.

“Barry Moskowitz, Barry Barry, the one I’ve been living with for three years.”

“Don’t say it like that Carrie.  You’re not ‘living with’ that Jewish boy.”

“Man mother, I live with a man who happens to be Jewish.”

“Well but you don’t have to tell people. Honestly Carrie, the way you act sometimes makes me think you want to be single.”

“We rent a house together, what’s the crime?”

“Carrie any decent man’s going to think your cow’s gone out pasture when he sees that boy living in your house.”

 “OUR house Mother and any sensible man would probably think that Barry is a friend or roommate or gay.”

“Oh you can’t say that dear,” she stage whispers her lips pressed to the mouthpiece.

“Say what?”

“That he’s gay,” still stage whispering.

“Mother, Barry is gay.”

“But Joy, on The View, says it’s insulting to them dear.”

“Insulting to who Mother?”

“To whom dear, you know, to the gays.”

“Joy would not say ‘the gays’ Mother.”

“Oh and I suppose Joy is another one of your personal friends; that you speak to her on a daily basis.”

“Besides Mother, Barry would be the first one to tell you.”

“What would that Jewish boy tell me dear?”

“That he’s gay.”

Her whispering turns stern. “Oh I hate how they flaunt it.  All they think about is themselves, as if the rest of us could care less.”

“Mother, Barry is not a them.  He’s a friend and…”

“Well that may be so dear but you know my rule, ‘birthdays are family days,’ family only.”

“Barry IS my family Mother, I see him more than I see you.”

“Oh don’t start with that again.  Do you see a six inch scar across my abdomen from where they pulled that Jewish boy out? No you do not. So until he grows your father’s nose, and has my eyes, like you and your brother, he is NOT family.”

Lamenting to myself, I barely try “But I’m twenty-six.”

“What dear, twenty-six, as if I didn’t know! Twenty-six hours of labor that I endured…”

At the end of her ‘birthing Carrie’ soliloquy I hang up and call Barry.

“It’s okay Carrie, really.” Barry laughs with relief. “Ah, but to have your mother’s eyes, those thick gorgeous lashes. Any sensible man...”

“Stop! I can’t take hearing it anymore.” I hang up, grabbing the next bit of hope as I put down the phone; birthdays do, after all, come with gifts.

Two Manhattans and a Long Island Ice Tea into dinner, the fringe of Mother’s beige shawl is lying on the floor beneath her chair. Touching my father’s arm she mouths,

“O-K Hen-ry.”

He reaches under the table and pulls out a stack of three wrapped boxes.

“Thanks Dad; you guys didn’t have to.”

“Go ahead Carrie open them,” my father encourages.

I pull out some hope, “Why don’t we wait? Come back to my house for coffee with Barry, or some wine, we’ll open them there.”

“Oh Carrie, just open them. It’s tradition,” Mother instructs, announcing the bottom of her glass by still sucking on the straw.

“A long tradition of public humiliation,” Jake mumbles.

“I hope you two aren’t telling secrets over there,” Mother angles the glass onto the table.

I’m wearing the embroidered cardigan unearthed from the first box, (cows dressed liked scarecrows, a twin to my mother’s,) when I lean to kiss Jake on the cheek for the bounty in the second box.

“Thanks brother,” I say “It’s just what you always wanted,” smacking him on the head with the rolled up magazine “Model Plane Weekly.”

“I sprung for the whole year plus two bonus issues.”

“Sprang dear,” stifling a hiccup Mother reaches to move Jake’s hair from his forehead.

“Oh, my sweet boy.” Then, turning to me, “Now Carrie, as you very well know, in this family,” chorusing along with her we chime, “WE SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST!”

“Thank God for that,” I mumble, reaching for the last and largest box, hope tickling my fingertips. I pull the pink ribbon on top, hope swells. Remove the top of the box with my left hand, hope rises, and I pull out reams of wrapping confetti with my right, hope soars. 

With the silence of a stealth bomber, the entire wait staff appears, standing across the table from me; a waitress in the center holds a small cake ablaze with lit candles. Beginning to sing “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU;” the assembly mimics my lead, we lean forward to peer into the box. I reach in to fold back the remaining piece of tissue paper.  The group jumps back, recoiling. The wait staff squints and rubs their eyes, blinded by the sight of the most massive enclave of large pink satin panties ever known to pass the threshold of any restaurant, anywhere, ever.

Hope lies suffocating, crushed beneath a pink satin pig pile.

About the Author: J. M. Sirrico

J. M. Sirrico is currently pursuing her heart’s desire, writing! She recently worked as a Librarian and has a Masters’ Degree in Library Science from Simmons College. Cape Cod Massachusetts is the beautiful place she currently calls home. She can be reached at jsirrico@gmail.com.