In My Mother's Kitchen

The brown refrigerator door sucks open to the song “Bacon on the griddle, my oh my, bacon on the griddle…” And there I am in the middle, the shortest of the five of us, stumbling around in my footy pajamas, holding out arms to be held. Giggling, my middle sister with her beautiful hand in the puppet Snoopy, bends over me, wagging his tail, singing the refrain up close.

There is bacon, the fat burning crisp on the flat hot griddle. There are probably pancakes or waffles too. My father and my mother are there, both of them, together, like gods in their dominion of bacon smoke, whistling tea, and black coffee percolating into crystal.

An egg shatters against the floor I imagine, smearing its transparent innards out from beneath a pile of crumpled brown shell. I see the domed yolk of its inner sunshine sliding across the deep blue linoleum. The gods are laughing, looking at each other. Like in a 1950’s TV show, they adore the messy egg of their clumsy offspring. And the sisters, the two bigger ones, argue gently about who will get the paper towels. It’s floating away from me, this dream, and I focus harder on the bacon and the Snoopy doll and holding out my arms.

“Bacon on the griddle, yeah yeah yeah, bacon…”

I am smiling again at the close world created by these five creatures. I am five too. Tiny enough still to spy the fat yellow cat curled on the chair. I want to touch him, but I want more to hold tight to these people and their song, a longing cutting itself loose from the truth in my guts. That swirling feeling of lonely that starts out a small spiky ball in your belly, then creeps into your throat. It’s there, in the middle of the end, and I know it, can feel it moving fast and quick, even as they sing and I dance the slippery dance of the footy pajamas on this sunny Saturday morning near the yellow cat and the smoking bacon and steaming coffee, I know, the way a child’s heart knows the tears inside her mother’s eyes. And I force myself open, to push from my throat, the last sound of my family’s song.