Round Two
Sunday, May 8, 2011
In which Mother’s Day begins in an unexpected way, to which Collette responds in almost ridiculous slowness of realization…
Collette surprised herself at just how oblivious she was Sunday morning.
Around 5:30 she heard OLeif waking up.
“Why in the world is he getting up so early?” she thought.
“Where are my keys?” he whispered as quietly as possible.
“I don’t know,” she replied, half-awake. “Can you look for them later?”
She fell asleep, blankly aware that OLeif had left the room.
An hour or so later, Collette heard a soft crack from the other room. An egg, maybe? Then a muffled beep. The oven timer. What would possess OLeif to use an oven timer as an alarm clock? Then she woke up. OLeif was making breakfast? Ohhhhh…. Mother’s Day. Of course.
And yet, though finally awake, she was thick enough not to notice the display on the kitchen table until after she had groggily opened the magnesium tablets and pulled a glass of water from the fridge tap. Then she turned around and saw it.
A bowl of OLeif-style scrambled eggs, bacon in the oven, a glass of cran-raspberry La Croix, two chocolate long johns under glass. And even a pitcher of fat red roses.
Sweet boy.
On the way to church, Puck adjusted his sunnies.
“The sun is following us, Mama.”
“Is it?” Collette replied. “It tends to do that.”
“Nice try, sun. Silly sun,” Puck laughed. “Poor sun. He’s all lonely up there.”
“That’s alright. He has a lot of people to watch all day.”
“I have nothin’ for him. No food. Nothin’,” Puck replied, as if a gift were necessary in response. “Why is it following us?”
“To warm the earth like God told him to. We would all be ice cubes if he didn’t.”
“It’s going far away from God. Why did God tell the sun to follow us? So he could watch all the cars?”
“That’s one reason.”
“Wuhl (well)… the very last car is Puck and my mama and daddy.”
And that seemed to end the conversation.
At services…
Mom was looking very nice in a white dress and in a necklace that Grandma had bought for her.
Sinai introduced services with an explanation of Judah’s absence due to support-raising in New England, and an awkward explanation of his salaried position on staff, which was an interesting segway to the morning…
Puck attended Children’s Church and created a little pot of silk flowers for his mama.
“I picked those pretty ones for you,” he said proudly.
During Sunday School, he joined his companions for ‘blanket time’ on the lawn.
And Jonas Swiss provided the Sunday School lesson.
Over at the house…
Rose was reading through Spurgeon’s sermons.
Carrie had baked a plate of sugar cookies frosted in themes of various conspiracy theories. The flower was for ‘the hippies’. The butterfly — The Butterfly Effect. And the smiley face was for Communism.
“Dad went right for the Trilateral Commission, as predicted,” she said.
Gifts for Mom. She had already been presented the woodwork in the hallway from the majority of the kids. Joe gave her a Starbuck’s gift card. And from OLeif, Collette, and Puck, two items Mom had fancied about a week earlier in Old St. Charles: a bundle of salmon-colored silk blooms and a tea mug in pink roses.
“Oh, I love them!” Mom exclaimed, with everything.
“Mom would be happy if you gave her a quart of oil,” Dad teased.
And it was not long later that everyone was out the door in three separate cars for Florissant.
The tradition of the Valley of Flowers parade in about 80 degree weather. And all the expected usual razzle-dazzle. When they arrived, the folding chairs were already accordioned on the grass alley, and a table marked with Grandma’s fleur-de-lis where shortly a box of cheeseburgers and hot dogs was set, with macaroni and cheese, corn bread, garlic toast, three types of chips, cheese danish, chocolate brownies, and chocolate-blonde cookies. It was a Florissant smorgasbord.
And Earnest had his first introduction to the extended family, watching the happenings from his cardboard box, or from Grandma’s bathtub.
Puck sat with his Lila at the curb’s edge, catching the tossed candies and experiencing his first pop rocks.
Dad, Uncle Mo, and the boys (sans Linus), stood behind the row of chairs, snacking, and making the usual peanut gallery comments or noting the various features and years of the antique cars.
And once the parade had officially passed and the street cleaners began their run, Grandma gave Puck a Nagle’s blue oil pinwheel box toy, which fascinated him endlessly, and a three-month-early gift certificate to The Finn Inn for OLeif and Collette’s seventh wedding anniversary.
Back home, Puck examined the line-up of flowers on the kitchen table. He plucked a small petal from the geranium and handed it to his mama.
“Here you go, my love,” he said softly to her with a sweet smile.
And it had been a good day, yes, it had.
Puck was bundled up cozily in layers of soft blankets, giggling in happiness, as his daddy read Farmer Boy.