“Wow! Now, that I’d love to see.”
“You may be in luck. Apparently Izzy filmed the whole thing.”
Penny laughed again and shook her head. “Never a dull moment in your household.”
As if on cue, my mother called out. “Alison? Alison! Where are you?”
“Okay,” I said, turning to Penny. “I guess we can’t put it off any longer. Come on and meet my mother.”
Penny nodded, her warm look helping to melt away my misgivings.
I led her into the guest room carrying a cup of tea for my mother. Penny had the plates of coffee cake.
“Mother,” I said, “I’d like you to meet my friend Penny. Penny, this is my mother, Mavis.”
“It’s wonderful to meet you, Mavis,” Penny said with a warm smile.
“Are you one of the nurses?” my mother asked.
“No. I’m Alison’s next-door neighbor.”
“And best friend,” I added.
“And I brought a blueberry sour cream cake my wife made,” Penny said, holding out a plate for my mother.
I held my breath, wondering what judgment my mother might pass or uncomfortable comment she might make at Penny’s mention of a wife.
“Lovely,” my mother said, smiling, accepting the slice of coffee cake. “Come sit beside me. I want to hear all about you and your wife who made this delightful-looking treat.”
My mother was full of surprises.
She took a bite of the cake as Penny pulled a chair close to her bed. “Delicious!” she proclaimed. “Is that cardamom I taste?”
Penny smiled. “That’s the secret ingredient. Just a touch. And freshly grated lemon zest.”
“Amazing,” my mother said, closing her eyes for the next bite. Then she opened them, looked at Penny, and asked, “So tell me, how long have you known my Ali Alligator?”
Penny smiled at the old nickname. I wanted to smile too—but somehow, after the events of the morning, I couldn’t bring myself to do so. She was definitely putting on the charm. Maybe, I was starting to think, the key to keeping her on her best behavior was to have a constant stream of visitors. The trouble only seemed to happen when the two of us were alone.
“We met when she and Mark moved here. Gosh, it must have been nearly ten years ago now, right, Ali?”
I nodded. “Yeah, Izzy was in first grade. The same age as Olivia is now. That doesn’t seem possible.”
“Time is a funny thing,” my mother said. “It goes so fast, doesn’t it? One minute, your children are the sweetest little toddlers; the next, they’re gone, out of the house with lives of their own.” My mother spokeruefully, making it sound as though she actually missed my brother and me.
Penny stayed for nearly an hour. My mother was sweet and charming. This was my Grateful Dead–loving mother. The mother who called medearand told funny stories about what I was like when I was little, how I was a nervous child, afraid of sidewalk cracks and eggs that were too runny. “She used to overthink every little thing, find something to fret about and worry herself sick over,” my mother told Penny. Then she turned to me, said, “I hope you’ve outgrown that now, Ali. All that worrying over things you can’t control. Inventing trouble.”
I nodded at her. She looked to Penny. “What do you think, Penny? Is my Ali Alligator still inventing trouble?”
Penny caught my eye, smiled. “No more so than any of the rest of us,” she said. “Now, speaking of trouble, let me tell you what poor Louise is up to at home with our laying hens.”
My mother cackled at the story, admired Louise’s dedication to the birds and their egg production.
By the end of the visit, Penny had promised to come back soon with Louise and to bring my mother some of her marijuana-infused honey. My mother had surprised us both by admitting that she’d once loved to indulge in the occasional joint or batch of pot brownies, although she hadn’t done so in years. “Back in college, Bobbi and I smoked all the time,” she said. “Everyone did back then.”
She clutched Penny’s hand as they said good-bye, added, “You must be a wonderful therapist—so insightful and such a good listener. I’m so glad Ali has you in her life.”
Penny smiled, not even bothering to ask how my mother had known she was a therapist. It hadn’t come up in our visit at all. Penny had told my mother all about the farm, the animals, Louise and her honeybees, her Electric Sheep strain of homegrown weed. But she hadn’t once mentioned anything about her professional life. And I certainly hadn’t said anything. My mind worked at the problem, probing at it the wayyou poked at a sore tooth, tentatively and carefully, until I came up with a plausible explanation.
