by
Rebecca Bass
The gathering for the baby shower on the long glassed-in veranda overlooking the lake teemed with drama that occasionally broke loose from its hiding place just beneath the surface. Although a sperm and egg had united, there was no relaxed socializing between the egg’s family and the sperm’s family. Even friends of one made no effort to become friends with one another. Less than a dozen sperm boosters in their own right had split into two clusters at opposite ends of the narrow room. In between representing the egg contingent (her family was a runaway breeding machine) were four tables accommodating seating for eight — siblings, aunties, cousins, nieces, nephews, and the friends whose children were blood-related because of unrestrained hanky-panky. Nana, the woman responsible for swelling this segment of the population, had married once. All her children inherited her facial features regardless of who sired them. Some complexions suggested that their mother’s Irish husband was, indeed, their father, while others’ skin reflected the telltale hues of one or two of Nana’s Latino lovers. Half her children inherited their parents’ great thirst for intoxicating spirits, one poor soul birthed two babies with fetal alcohol syndrome. Her straightforward admission of the obvious — “I’m an alcoholic” — placed an intolerable burden on the denial practiced by the other drunks in her family. Consequently she was elevated to pariah status and was not invited to the shower.
Now in her eighties, Nana savored uninhibited adoration from her grandchildren and great-grandchildren but from her daughters she reaped brittle tolerance and grudging respect. “They’re all bitches,” she hissed. Her free-wheeling days were history. The girls had moved her out of her apartment where she had provided a home for stray dogs and cats, an unofficial adjunct of the local SPCA. When trouble-making pranksters came calling, they made high-pitched, screechy noises to incite the menagerie into pandemonium, a cacophony of excited barking from the larger dogs and tinny yapping from the toy breeds which Nana particularly fancied. “God almighty, stop that!” she shrieked, cats scattering, threatening to swat the keening culprit with a broom. Now she was quartered with her daughter Bridget who allowed her to keep one aging Chihuahua and a worn-out mother cat. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Bridget had become her mother’s keeper, a responsibility she carried out with a vengeance nurtured during the years of a childhood short on maternal nurturing.Even by the family’s sub-par standards, Bridget’s acting out reached shocking proportions. When she was a pretty girl with wispy blonde curls, she seduced not only her sisters’ boyfriends but her mother’s too. During the temporary marriages — theirs and hers — she seduced their husbands. Hard living, hard drinking, heavy smoking, coarsened her looks but no matter: the summer before on a camping trip with her sister Colleen’s family, she created a private rendezvous for the seduction of Colleen’s partner by moving sleeping kids from one tent into another. Colleen surprised the lovers, pelting them with plastic cutlery, empty beer cans, packages of hot dogs, and anything she could grab and hurl.
The baby shower festivities opened with a breakfast buffet. Bridget guided Nana through the line, telling her what she could have and what she couldn’t. The line snaked around the French toast and raspberry, strawberry, and maple syrup toppings, puddings and fresh fruits, varieties of Danish and doughnuts, cakes and chocolate covered eclairs. Nana returned to the table with orange juice, a generous portion of scrambled eggs, a single strip of bacon, a few home fries and a small slice of ham.
“Ma, is there anything else you’d like?” Bridget asked.
“Yes,” Nana snapped. “I want an eclair.”
“You can’t have an eclair.”
Under her breath, Nana muttered, “I want an eclair!”
Bridget said, “After you see the doctor next week, Ma, if he says okay, you can have an eclair.”
“Next week!” Nana harrumphed, and she cleaned her plate of the eggs, bacon, potato, and ham.
To the other daughters and grown grandchildren who stopped by to say hello, Nana told each of them, “I want an eclair,” and if they said they would get one for her, Bridget stopped them. “She can’t have an eclair. Her sugar, y’know.”
“I don’t want a dozen,” Nana said. “All I want is a taste!”
“Now, Ma,” Bridget said. “You can’t have a taste.”
The gift-opening lasted an hour. Exaggerated “oohs” and “aahs” helped break the monotony of seeing one sweet baby girl outfit after another — yes, the baby’s gender was known — but no gift, regardless of its size, color, or clever function, distracted Nana from her relentless quest of an eclair.
After the last gift was opened, the niceties of leaving began, and the initial exodus gave Margie, a daughter-in-law who was aware of the ongoing power struggle between Bridget and Nana, what she needed — diversion. Margie, stood at the table opposite from Nana and brandished an eclair on a plate. Nana smiled. Margie smiled back, raised the eclair to her mouth, smiled again at Nana, and bit off the end. Nana sagged. Margie pivoted to position herself between Bridget and Nana, and placed the slightly abbreviated eclair in front of Nana. With the speed of a bird of prey, Nana seized the eclair from the plate, took a bite, hid the eclair in one hand, and with the other pulled the tell-tale plate into her lap. She chomped off another mouthful, her eyes alight with merriment and triumph. She flashed a smile of thanks to Margie. After she devoured the last bit of transitory ecstasy, she meticulously swept the evidence — a few crumbs — onto the floor.
The drama had not been wasted on Colleen. As she walked by Bridget, she spoke to her sister for the first time since the previous summer when she had pelted the guilty lovers with picnic paraphernalia. With a voice dripping with gotcha, Bridget deflated Colleen. “Ma just ate an eclair, and.... she.... enjoyed.... every.... damn.... bite.”
Rebecca Bass has been writing ever since she could hold one of those thick pencils handed out in first grade.
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