Stuffed Pork Chops (February 2007)

Dear Grandma,

Last night I didn't have time to make the homestyle white bread I'd promised. Instead, I made an apple oven pancake, a fluffy treat with brown sugar and cinnamon, to go with our tea as dessert. I put the pancake on my mother's strawberry-painted plate and covered it with tin foil, and drove down the hill to your house while the plate was still warm.

I parked behind your car in the driveway and as I was going up the side steps, glanced out over the snow-covered backyard stretching out in winter darkness. I long for spring to come. I pictured the backyard and what it would look like if I lived in your house and continued gardening back there. In my mind, it brimmed with life and color.

You always greet me with a cheerful hello when I come in, before I see you. You were down the wide plank stairs in the Keeping Room, reading one of your library books. I put my things away, took off my shoes and told you of what I'd made for dessert. I think from now on I'll be coming through the door with dessert in hand, for my contribution to our meals together.

Tonight you announced we were having stuffed pork chops. Well, one stuffed pork chop, split in two and shared between us. I smiled to myself, because for some reason we've been having pork in some form every time we have dined together. One of the many blessings of these dinners is an education in the many ways pork can be prepared! You pulled the chop out of the oven and carefully divided it with a knife. I helped by microwaving the green beans and divvying the stemmed broccoli between us, and taking the teapot down. You cut up two slices of salt-rising bread and carried them down in a little basket.

The television was on; I had already danced through my ritual of placing the teapot on the table and turning the volume down. We sat down to eat under a new table lamp that seemed too large and bright for your small table under the window. I always feel a bit awkward at the start of our meal because I'm unused to beginning to eat without saying a blessing. I hesitated the first night to offer to say grace, and I don't want to offend you or turn you off in any way, so I err on the side of being so inoffensive that my faith doesn't show, which isn't good.

We dug in, I poured tea for us into our usual teacups of red dragon and blue flower, and everything was delicious. You ate fast; you said you must have been hungry from scrubbing your kitchen floor, which activity also leaves you temporarily lame. You snapped off the t.v., to my surprise and secret delight, when the CBS Evening News began. You said you don't like her - her being Katie Couric - because she seems down all the time. Probably a side-effect of a newer evening news anchor who wishes to show that she can be taken seriously to do her job well. No matter; I was glad you turned it off.

Dinner conversation was easy. You mentioned you'd finished the book, The Hounds and the Fury, and had enjoyed it very much. The author, you said, hunts foxes and so she isn't writing about things she doesn't know about. Duly noted. You asked about my first assignment for an art class I'm taking. I told you of this period of waiting my fiance and I are in, waiting to hear about applications to graduate school, and I told you of the wedding cake design I picked out, and the flowers for my bridal bouquet.

We spoke of gardening; you plan to do some tomatoes and roses this spring. You no longer have the time or energy to do your full gardens anymore. For a minute, I almost asked you if Ryan and I could plant our vegetable garden where your vegetable garden used to be, inside the ghost of the white-picket fence. But I hesitated. I think I'm afraid to show too much eagerness where your house and garden are concerned, to give away my longing to live in your house and maintain my memories of you.

We took our dinner things upstairs and I sliced the dessert while you got out ice cream. Back downstairs with our pretty blue china plates of apple oven pancake and ice cream, to go with our tea. You enjoyed the apple oven pancake.

After dessert, we sipped our tea and when you finished, you began reading your tea leaves. I watched as you taught me, turn the cup three times around upside down in its saucer, then lift it over your head in a counterclockwise circle. You looked a little silly to me while doing this, but I know it's something you do almost every night with your older daughter. The book on reading tea leaves has rested on my side of the table under the windowsill each time we've had dinner together. The first three times we met, you used teabags in the teapot, but now it was as if I had made it beyond the preliminary round and you felt comfortable enough to read your tea leaves in front of me. I played along, picking up the book and offering to read your "destiny" depending on what form your tea leaves took. You had a rainbow, which came with a touching fortune - the hardest part of your life is over, and things will be beautiful from now on. I don't believe in tea leaves, but I heartily wish for that to be true.

Then it was my turn. I played along, again, not wanting to offend. I twirled my upside-down cup around in its saucer three times, then lifted it counterclockwise around my head, feeling goofy, and then handed it sheepishly to you. You spotted two birds and a log. I flipped through the yellowed pages to read my fate. The birds meant that good message would come my way. The log meant that a large gift (such as a refrigerator, it said) would also be coming my way. I laughed about that and you did too, and said that reading tea leaves was a silly and "for fun" pastime that you learned from Grandma Tanner, your mother-in-law.

After reading our tea leaves we talked about some of the extensive genealogy work you had done in your younger years of retirement. You and Grandpa traveled all over the northeast, "running through graveyards," as you put it, and talking to town clerks, piecing together the family tree. You once read a Reader's Digest article about Tanners living in Connecticut, and you wrote a letter to the author, and she wrote back with the discovery that you were from a different branch of the same family tree.

Last night you were wearing a pale pink sweatshirt that said MAINE in large letters, and underneath, that said "The Way Life Should Be." I asked if you'd been to Maine. The sweatshirt, you said, was a gift from your daughter-in-law, but you had indeed been to Maine before. Grandpa used to take fishing trips every year, you said. One time he was leaving for a trip and your friend Charlotte, who had moved from our town to Maine, convinced you to come spend a week with her in Portland. You took the bus to a small airport and then took a series of "puddle jumper" commuter planes out East and up the coast. It was your first time flying, and you especially enjoyed banking out over the Atlantic Ocean before landing in Boston. You enjoyed three days with Charlotte on the Maine coast, taking pictures of seagulls and spending time with your good friend, before tragedy struck. Her mother died, and your trip was cut short as you rode with Charlotte back across New England to Orchard Park, NY, where the funeral was, and your oldest son came and brought you back home.

We went into your bedroom; you were talking of how you'd like to paint the walls. I'd like to help you paint them. I don't like the fake wood walls you have now. You want to redecorate the room a bit and display a few of your Oriental things in there. I noticed you had covered the funeral door in plastic wrap. You picked up and handed me your senior picture, and I was looking into your eyes, only eighteen years old, proud and confident, untouched by future heartache and disappointment, beautiful. You had flawless skin and brown hair, parted in the same place that my brown hair parts. You wore a navy blue and white dress which your English teacher had given you. I was mesmerized by your youthful face. You probably still had dreams of being a history teacher at that point. You and one other girl in your class were the only ones who had college entrance, but in an ironic twist of fate, you each had seven children (hers all girls) and never continued your formal educations.

You showed me Grandpa's great-great-grandfather's trunk, made of horsehide and containing the Tanner and Hadley family Bibles. There was also an old, cracked-binder leather photo album with many people who we don't know in it, but who are connected to the family somehow, or they wouldn't be in there.

As I got ready to leave, I told you of my disappointment when looking for a chair frame for you to cane, and of the man who might have a nice one I could buy. Get a pair, you said. I will do that. I'm glad you are offering to cane a pair of chairs for us. I will also get my first chair to cane, and learn by doing as I learn to cane from you. I can hardly wait for the arrival of spring.

I took the rest of the apple oven pancake home with me. You kissed me on the cheek and I kissed you on yours - your skin soft and leathery with fine wrinkles. We both enjoy our evenings together. Next Thursday we will meet again, probably have some kind of pork, I'll provide dessert, we'll drink more tea but I don't think I will read my tea leaves anymore. Maybe next time I will work up the courage and ask to say grace before the meal. I will try to remember to bring my art assignment to show you. I'm looking forward to it very much.