My mother never burnt a crust of bread, let alone all of Thanksgiving dinner.
A grey fog has descended upon the first floor of my home. I throw open the kitchen window. Everyone will be here in an hour. I’m beyond help. Beyond redemption.
Panic-ridden, I cover my face with a greasy hand towel.
“Mama, what’s wrong?”
The soft voice stills the frantic one in my head. My daughter’s staring at me, clutching a beloved bear, eyes wide. I rise, grabbing the takeout menu off the fridge. Though my hands are trembling, I’m back in control. “Nothing, sweetie. Nothing at all.”
You’ve hit the core of so many mother/daughter issues. Lovely!
Thank you!
Lying to the daughter obviously thwarts trust and makes daughter doubt her gut feelings, but as a story, very real, sadly enough.
Thanks for sharing your take! cheers!
Let’s just hope there’s a restaurant open on Thanksgiving day capable of preparing a large take out order on such short notice. Instilling confidence in the daughter that Mama will always find a way only works if such a restaurant is available.
Well, I think there are plenty of restaurants open on Thanksgiving, but obviously you’re correct, her situation isn’t any different if she can’t find some place readily available. Thanks for commenting!
I find the feedback on this story quite interesting. It just proves that the readers’ perspective can be totally different from that of the writer. For me, the story is about Mama, not the little daughter. I saw Mama realizing that she isn’t her mother, and that she’s not bound by her mother’s example. I saw her growing to realize that burnt turkey is not the end of the world, and that she can carve out a new path for herself and her family.
I thank everyone for their feedback!
Sometimes I wonder if we just don’t make the past perfect in our minds, or else our parents were just good at covering up the crises as the mother in your well-written piece here. Who knows how many things my mother burned, and improvised to have it all work out in the end? As a child i only remember eating delicious food. 🙂
So maybe that just what a good mama does…handles the crisis with clever improvising. 🙂
As a parent, there have been plenty of times where my plans have failed or turned in a direction I wasn’t expecting. It makes me believe my parents faced similar obstacles while I was growing up, I just didn’t realize it. 🙂
Thank goodness for parents who take care of things behind the scenes!
Thanks for commenting Swarn!
It’s so easy to compare ourselves to our parents–and come up lacking. This seems to happen from generation to generation…at least in most cases. Wonderful story.
Thank you. Perspective is everything, and even that changes with each new experience. I ask my mom all the time about things, just to see of my experience is unique…it’s not. Haha! Thanks for commenting!