Renovation

“Why don’t we give a luncheon for your friends?”

A luncheon in the Sixties—horrifying thought.

“Mom, nobody does that anymore! Everyone would laugh at me.”

Later with my friends, I laugh at her. “She’s so out of it. She never asks what I want, what I feel. It’s all how it reflects her.”

How do you prove who you are to someone who will not see you?

•••

My scorn of her offerings is exceeded only by her contempt of mine.

The summer I return from my first painful work-study scholarship year at the teeny girl’s college in Madison, Mom and Dad take two weeks in Scottsdale, Arizona, their first private vacation in decades.

A few mornings after they leave, I go to the kitchen, reach for a glass.

Our ever-dirty cupboards. Wouldn’t Mom be tickled if I cleaned them?

I throw away the ancient mayo jars, the crusting ketchup, the rusting cocoa tin, replace the cruddy newsprint with fresh Delft-pattern shelf paper, and step back to admire my sparkling shelves.

But the cupboard doors are streaky with years of grease and cigarette smoke, your smoke, your hypnotizing smoke that slowed you into stories over the black kitchen table.

I see with fresh eyes, eyes that for two semesters have been elsewhere.

What does it mean—this kitchen? What do these colors mean—these supposedly white walls? Who called for these chrome-edged shrill-red Formica countertops? These gray plastic tiles? Whose idea was this chewy blue and white linoleum? This table, this oval abyss of black metal, reflecting chomping jaws, clattering flatware?

Who found these awful coffee-potted curtains—which actually combine this unappetizing color scheme: red, black, gray, and white? All of it lit by ghostly bouncing blue fluorescent light?

“It looked modern once,” you said. “Sophisticated.”

This meant, I guess, a place for people who drank martinis to mix them.

Yet you despised it, too. “Someday I’ll get a new kitchen.”

•••

After I wash the cupboards, the dingy walls cringe.

I’d read your Family Circles. I could—what the heck?—repaint those walls and cupboards with a nice glossy enamel. Costello’s, here I come.

But when cupboards and the walls are spanking white, the sad scratched linoleum looks like a kennel floor.

Those ads for simple self-stick floors—I have my tuition fund from waitressing, don’t I? When will I get another chance to give a gift this big?

I drive to Sears and buy a brand-new kitchen floor, cut and fit and lay the shiny no-wax tiles all Saturday and Sunday.

The kitchen looks like a glittering showroom. You’ll be so happy.

Except of course, the gray plastic tiles on the windowless wall look like pigeon filth.

More than paint is called for. More than Contact paper mimicking ceramic tiles. Sears has wood paneling—genuine wood—stained a rich walnut. Back to my fund, back to the store, back to the house, panels roped to the car-top.

I measure the panels and cut them with a handsaw.

Whatever certitude of love or of design buoyed me through the washing of the shelves, the painting of the cabinets, the transformation of my lifelong kitchen floor, utterly abandons me when, crowbar in hand, I face the gray plastic tiles.

The root of my tongue pulses. My fingers tingle. I could wait till you get back. We could panel it together, or take it back because what if you don’t like it but of course you will. You’ll love it. You’ve been wishing for this kitchen all our lives. I must do it now. I’ll never have another chance—school will start, I won’t have time; the panels will prop against the wall and never get installed.

And what good is Cinderella in a golden gown if the coach is still a pumpkin? The transformation has to be complete. Step into my beautiful room made for you, made of love. Let me fulfill your dream.

There was something fierce about it, too. Stop talking about a new kitchen and do it.

I swing the crowbar, shattering the plastic tiles.

I’m up all night cutting, fitting, nailing, but am too exhausted to apply the trim along the very top.

When Mom and Dad come up the walk, I catapult to meet them.

“I have a big surprise for you!” I squeak in glee and lead them to the new kitchen, clean kitchen, bright kitchen, kitchen of love and warm wood.

You stiffen at the threshold.

“Come in, come in…” I spin around. “Do you like it? I did it mostly myself, though Jim and Ro helped with the floor.”

“What a surprise.” You resist entering. As if contagion awaits.

“You always said you wanted a new kitchen. Now you have it. What do you think?”

Your gaze swivels corner to corner.

“I’m very surprised.”

“That’s genuine wood paneling. Not fake. I used my tuition money, but I can waitress more this summer.”

Your silence expands, extends and coats the room, settles like dust on wet paint. Finally it sinks into me, smothering my lungs.

Your old prescription: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

My heart is punching. You can’t say something nice. Not one nice thing? Not even “A for effort”? I want to scream, to sob, but I won’t give you the satisfaction.

In continued silence, without so much as an awkward smile, you go upstairs to unpack, guillotining any further outreach.

But magnified through my suspended tears, I see the admiration in Dad’s eyes.

He puts his arm around my shoulder.

“Congratulations, Honey. This is just remarkable, what you’ve done.”

“Thanks, Dad.” The floodgates open. “I thought she’d like it. I’m sorry if I did something wrong. She just always said she wanted—”

“I’m proud of you, Honey. It was very generous of you, but you shouldn’t have used your tuition money. I’m going to reimburse you.”

“It was gonna be my gift—”

He gives me his handkerchief. “That’s all right; I’ll take care of it.”

When it came, I took the money. The trim went unattached for years.

•••

Memory is curious.

The first night of our Montana trip, when Jim and Ro and I were sharing that sunset drink on the deck, talking family, Jim asked, “Did you think Mom treated you any worse than she treated the rest of us?”

“No, not really,” I confessed.

“I’m here to tell you she did. She did treat you worse. You got her goat. She didn’t like you. I remember she slapped you once.”

“Slapped me? Really? I don’t remember.”

“Yes, she did. I remember that,” Ro corroborates. Neither remembers why.

The icy water still drips down my face, my lungs still suffocate about the kitchen, but the slap is deeply buried, like uranium.

“Wow,” I said. “And she thought saying ‘belly’ was rude.”

Thank God a sense of humor was valued in our house.