Mama's Comfort Food

by Rhett DeVane

  Elvis pranced at Karen’s feet. A floral sun visor bobbed atop his head. “I’ve yet to see this dog without an outfit.” Karen knelt and ruffled the Pomeranian’s fur.

  “He has little flip-flops, too. They come off when he runs around too much. Your mama made my swim trunks to match his visor.”

  “Simply amazing.”

  Karen realized one simple fact each time she attended a family function: she came from a body-slamming, hugging group of Southerners. Since her surgery, they had graciously modified the breath-smothering embraces to a gentler A-frame squeeze and back-pat.

  After a round of good mornings, Hattie introduced Karen to the Tallahassee guests. Patsy Hornsby’s emerald green eyes and impish grin brought her Irish freckled face to life. “So pleased to finally meet you! Hattie has told Rainey and me so much about you and your work. All good, naturally. And my adopted daughter, Ruth— ” she glanced toward the pool where a small Chinese girl reclined on a beach float, dark over-sized red sunglasses propped on the end of her nose, “—has been positively frantic to meet you. Ruthie?” she called. “Miss Karen is here, sweetie.”

  Ruth hand-paddled the raft to the steps and managed to emerge with only her feet wet. She bowed slightly when her mother introduced her. Ruth removed the sunglasses, and her ebony eyes studied Karen. For a brief instant, the child’s spirit merged with hers, and she was left with a warm afterglow, as if caressed by a balmy tropical trade wind.

  “I would like to see your paintings,” Ruth said politely. “If you please, ma’am.”

  “Oh, honey,” Patsy said. “Let Miss Karen enjoy being here for a bit, shall we? There’ll be plenty of time after lunch.”

  The child shrugged and returned to her position on the float.

  “Sorry, Karen.” Patsy shook her head. “When that one gets something on her mind, she’s a broken record, or maybe I should say cracked CD. I’m dating myself.”

  “That’s okay.” Karen watched as Ruth floated to the deep end of the pool away from the frantic splashing of the younger Josh and Sarah. Bobby pinched his son’s nostrils together and they went underwater. The toddler emerged, giggling and wiping his chubby face with one hand. Sarah, more tentative than her cousin, clung to Holston and winced each time her aggressive, Chattahoochee-born male cousin splashed water in her direction.

  “Look at these adorable little refrigerator magnets Ruth made for us.” Hattie pointed to a series of miniature pieces of wood painted with splashes of abstract colors.

  Jake smirked. “Like you need just one more magnet on that fridge.” He propped one hand on his hip. “The joke is, Karen, that when one of the Davis women dies, they bury them in the refrigerator. That way, they get rid of the body and the magnets at the same time.”

  Everyone laughed except Hattie. “You leave me and my magnets alone, Jakey. Everyone has a collection of some sort.”

  Jake snorted. “None nearly as gaudy, Sister-girl. The tiny plastic flush toilet with the teeny novel open on top positively slays me every time I open your freezer door.”

  Hattie waved her hands in the air. “This, coming from the man with—let’s see, is it fifty or sixty canes at this point?” She tapped her chin with one finger. “My favorite is the brilliant red one with the hot pink fake fur on the handle and the Gypsy Rose Lee signature down one side. So, don’t even lecture me about taste.”

  Leigh rolled her eyes. “You two. Always going at each other. I swannee.”

  Jake hobbled over and planted a loud lip-smacking kiss on Hattie’s cheek. “It’s love, pure and simple. Right, Sister-girl? I’m all she had before Holston came and pushed me to the curb.”

  Holston laughed and bounced Sarah up and down in the water. “I’m keeping clear of this one!”

  By the time thick Angus beef burgers and hot dogs were shoveled from the grill, the picnic table was laden with food: cabbage cole slaw, potato salad, three-bean salad, buttered corn on the cob, baked beans topped with country bacon, and sliced homegrown beefsteak tomatoes. Joe Fletcher’s hummingbird cake, Hattie’s best damned chocolate cake from Piddie’s age-old recipe, and Leigh’s huckleberry cobbler stood ready on a separate folding table reserved for desserts and drinks.

  Everyone talked at once until Jake called out, “Who wants to say the blessing?”

  The family joined hands, heads bowed, as Bobby offered a short prayer.

  “God, we thank you for our food. For rest and home and all things good. For wind and rain and sun above. But most of all, for those we love. Amen.”

  Immediately, a scrabble ensued. The toddlers were settled into highchairs with paper plates of food to wear and eat. The dogs took up sentry positions at their feet, awaiting the inevitable spoonfuls of dropped chow.

  Holston leaned back and exhaled a few minutes later. “Man! I couldn’t eat another bite.”

  “Until cake and ice cream.” Hattie pointed to the churn, packed down in rock salt and ice to allow the homemade dessert to firm.

  Jake grinned. “What flavor?”

  “Plain old vanilla,” Leigh said. “We thought it might go better with any kind of cake.”

  Jake stuck his lower lip out. “I was hoping for double chocolate fudge with walnuts.”

  Hattie rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to call your friends Ben and Jerry.”

  Ruth loitered beside Karen’s chair, a faint sheen of melted butter on her lips. “Can I see your painting now?”

  Patsy grabbed a napkin, wet it with saliva, and wiped her daughter’s mouth. “May I?”

  “May I?” Ruth asked.

  Karen stood. “It’s in my car. I’ll get it.” She returned shortly with the paper-wrapped canvas.

  Ruth stood back from the painting, one hand on her hip, the other propped beneath her chin. She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head slightly from one side to the other. “I like it.” She smiled at Karen. Then, to her mother, “May I go back in the pool now?”

  Patsy reached over and smoothed back a hank of hair from Ruth’s eyes. “I’d rather you wait a few more minutes, honey. It’s not good to go in right after you eat a big meal.”

  Bobby added, “You’d sink clean to the bottom if you tried to swim right now.”

  Ruth studied both adults as if she knew their logic was loaded with holes. “I can go swing?” Patsy granted permission. Ruth skipped from the pool yard to the swing set underneath the pecan tree.

  “She didn’t have a lot to say,” Karen said as she wrapped the painting.

  Patsy shrugged. “That’s just her way. She’ll mull over it a bit, then tell the world. She’s not quick to let go of an art opinion.”

  By mid-afternoon, the toddlers were cranky and water-logged. Hattie and Leigh put them down for naps in a playpen in the shade while the adults visited. Laughter flowed like a gentle tide around the circle of folding chairs.

  Ruth danced and skipped to Karen’s car. She smiled down at the petite child. “It certainly was good to meet you, Miss Ruth. Maybe next time I’m in Tallahassee, I can stop by and see your studio.”

  Ruth crooked her index finger for Karen to bend to her level. “Everything is going to be okay,” she whispered into Karen’s ear. “The shadow won’t hurt you. They are watching over you.”

  Karen drew back and stared at the little Chinese girl with the shiny black hair and dark eyes. “They?”

  Ruth held a hand slightly over her mouth and spoke in a soft voice. “The angels,” a smile transformed her serious expression, “over your shoulders.”

  Patsy approached the car. “C’mon, Ruthie. Time to go inside out of the sun for a while.” She rested her hands on her adoptive daughter’s shoulders. “She’d stay outside all day if I allowed it.” Patsy patted Ruth on the back. “Run on inside, honey.”

  Patsy grasped Karen’s hand and gave a gentle squeeze. “Please come visit any time. I’d love for Rainey to meet you.”

  Karen smiled. “Hattie has your number. I’ll call.”

  “When will you be heading back to Atl
anta?”

  “I have one final chemotherapy treatment next week. I’ll probably stay on until after the worst of the side effects wear off. Then, I need to go to Georgia Metro for a few days to help with the final edit and voice-over on the documentary.” Karen’s gaze dropped slightly. “After that, who knows?”

  “Best of luck—whatever you decide to do. I’m sure things will turn out for the best.”

  As Karen drove the country highway towards town, she contemplated Ruth’s comments. The last time she had heard those comforting words, she had been facing surgery.

  “For heaven’s sake. What next?”

  “I can tell you, sure as the world, what floats my man Bull’s boat. Fish. You ought to see my freezer! I can barely get to the field peas for all the dang frozen fish. I don’t think it has a lot to do with his mama, though. More, his daddy. He adored his daddy. Come the weekend, he and Bull would light out for the river and stay all day of a Saturday until it was so dark they had to train a flashlight on the cork to see it. Whenever Bull acts like the world is getting him down, I thaw a mess of bream and fry them up with some hushpuppies and maybe some home fries. I can see it in his face, how the comfort comes over him. Come to think of it, I suppose his mama cooked fish all the time, too. If she had the overload Bull provides for us, I reckon they had fish once or twice a week.”

  Mandy Andrews

  Chapter Forty-two

  “Your problem,” Mandy’s nostrils flared slightly, “is that you can never leave well enough alone!”

  Elvina huffed. “Had to do something. You certainly weren’t taking up the reins.”

  “You two!” Evelyn sat a tray of filled coffee mugs and biscotti cookies on a small table. “I swannee, Elvina, if you and Mandy don’t carry on with each other just like you and Mama used to.”

  Elvina swatted the air with a bony hand. “Leave Piddie out of this. Besides, if she was here, she’d back me up on this one!”

  “What are you going on at each other about, anyway?” Melody asked. She took a seat in one of Hattie’s dining room chairs that had been moved against the wall to make room for the massage tables.

  Elvina snorted. “That dang little disgrace of an engagement ring Bull gave her, that’s what. Mandy’s mad as a wet hen over me talking to him about sizing it up a few carats.”

  Melody arched one eyebrow, glanced down at her own marquee-cut diamond band, and took a noisy sip of coffee.

  Mandy twisted the delicate gold ring around on her finger. “Not a thing wrong with this ring. Bull put a lot of love and consideration behind it.”

  “And my patootie is bright blue!” Elvina said. “That man drives a brand spanking new Dodge Hemi Ram pick-up truck with every contraption known to man built in—it hitched to a matching seventeen-foot Bass Pro boat worth twice the truck a-pulling it, and that,” she jabbed a finger at Mandy’s ring, “is all he could cough up for the woman he wants to marry? Really!”

  Mandy frowned. “It’s the thought that counts, after all.”

  “That’s the case, you’ve not only promised yourself to a tightwad, but an ignoramus to boot—the quality of thought he gave it!”

  Hattie held up her hands to form a time-out symbol. “Could we, perhaps, cool it down a notch or two, ladies? This is, after all, a time for quiet, calm, and loving instruction in an ancient healing art.”

  Mandy and Elvina threw a final glare at each other before moving to opposite corners of the massage table.

  “Thank you.” Hattie held out her hands. “Now, do you all have the little booklets I handed out last week? Has everyone had a chance to read over them?”

  “I read it,” Melody said. “Didn’t make a lot of sense, Hattie, to be honest.”

  “Was as clear as mud to me, too,” Elvina said. “Still, Christ did healings by laying on hands, so I can sort of grasp the notion behind it all.”

  Leigh smiled. “I’ve had one of your sessions, and it was very relaxing, Hattie.”

  Wanda spoke up. “Pinky should’ve been the one coming today. He’s all into natural healing. I don’t see where I can be any good at it.”

  “That’s just it,” Hattie said. “You don’t need to have a talent for Reiki. The energy flows through your body into the person receiving. You are merely a conduit.”

  “If you con-du-it, then I con-du-it,” Elvina said, proud of herself for the quip.

  Karen laughed. The circle of women around her reacted in various ways, but the underlying impression was of camaraderie and mutual trust. Following a brief history of Reiki, Hattie demonstrated the series of hand placements over energy centers of the body, using Karen as a volunteer.

  “What’s it feel like to you?” Melody asked.

  “Warm. Just like someone is holding a heating element over the spot. Not a burning heat,” Karen said. “Sometimes, during our sessions in the past, I’ve felt a tingle shoot down from my head to my toes.”

  “Sounds scary,” Wanda said. “Kind of like the first time I kissed Pinky Green.”

  Elvina propped her hands on her hips. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Wanda.”

  “Okay.” Hattie clasped her hands together. “I’m going to take each one of you into the kitchen and pass a level one attunement. Nothing to be anxious over. I’ll be placing four Reiki symbols into your aura—the energy field we all have around our bodies. They will aid you in channeling the energy more effectively. It only takes a few minutes per person.”

  Following the attunements, the group took a quick break for a snack and tall glasses of ice water with lemon.

  “One thing I worry over,” Evelyn said, “is about someone blaming me for not being healed afterwards. You ever run up against that, Hattie?”

  “Good question, Ev. And it leads me to an important point: never, never, say you are going to heal a person. You are not doing the work. The energy of the universe—God, the great collective consciousness, spirit, whatever you choose to call it—is in charge.”

  Hattie frowned slightly. “I’ve searched for years for an explanation of why sickness happens. Why do good-hearted, loving people fall prey to cancer, strokes, and the like? And why am I powerless to heal them?”

  She hesitated before continuing. “This is what rings true for me; you may all find your own answers. Sometimes, the disease or condition brings to that individual great gifts: understanding, peace, perhaps a resolution of long-standing issues. If the person needs those lessons to grow in spirit, then no amount of Reiki will dissolve the disease.”

  Hattie stood and paced the kitchen. “It really frustrated me at first. Here I had this wonderful tool at my disposal, and I could not stop pain and suffering.”

  Elvina rested a hand on Hattie’s shoulder. “No one expects you to be God, sugar.”

  “I guess that’s my point, Elvina. You hit the nail square on the head.” She rested her gaze briefly on each woman. “None of us are God. But we can provide relaxation and an atmosphere where healing can occur, if that is what the universe intends.”

  “Makes good sense to me,” Wanda said. “All of Alice Jo, Pinky’s sister’s, herbal concoctions didn’t save her life. In the end, they surely helped her passing to be less traumatic, from what he told me.”

  Evelyn said. “And after all, aren’t we put here to help each other get by?”

  “Till we leave for the great by and by?” Elvina’s lips twitched with the start of a grin.

  “ ’Vina,” Mandy slapped the old woman playfully on the back. “You do have a way with words, old gal.”

  “Don’t know who you’re calling old, less you’ve caught sight of your own self in the mirror.” Elvina snorted. “And I still think that diamond’s too small.”

  Hattie motioned the group to the center of the room. “The last thing I would like all of us to take part in, is a Reiki circle.”

  “Sounds kinky,” Mandy said. Elvina jabbed her in the ribs with a bony elbow.

  Hattie smiled. Without a doubt, this had proven the most enjoyable c
lass she had ever taught. “We’ll take turns on the table with everyone else performing Reiki. I’ll ground the energy at the feet, with the rest of you around the table. It doesn’t matter much about hand positions for this, as long as one person is at the crown chakra at the top of the head. And because each session lasts only a few minutes per person, we will all be able to experience the power of a group healing circle.”

  Karen was the final recipient. Soft harp music played in the background. She felt the intense warmth at her feet as Hattie took her position. Elvina’s hands rested on Karen’s head, with the rest of the women in a circle around her body.

  As Karen relaxed into the session, allowing her breathing to become deep and even, she envisioned the people she held close to heart. One by one, their faces appeared in her mind’s eye, each leaving a lingering impression of love and concern. Then, a steady white-golden light filtered through, obliterating all images. Her skin tingled and the base of her spine burned.

  The intense heat climbed steadily higher until it reached the base of her skull. Her body felt as if it was pulsating—not only on the surface, but deep within—every cell dancing in the white light’s infinite energy.

  After a few moments, the heat crept higher and stopped at the top of her head. The colors of the spectrum flashed by: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Her spirit bubbled with limitless peace and joy. A rush of emotion washed over her: pain, happiness, love, anger. Karen began to cry.

  “What’s wrong?” Melody asked.

  Hattie’s voice was gentle and reassuring. “Be with her. Don’t be afraid.”

  Karen sobbed for what seemed an eternity. The fear, the doubts, all the negativity held for a lifetime, surged to the surface and shattered into iridescent bubbles, washed away in the glow of white light.

  Karen heaved a shuddering breath and opened her eyes, smiling.

  “Have mercy on my soul,” Elvina said. “Was all that inside of you, gal?”

  “It was. Not anymore.” She turned her head slowly to rest her gaze on each of the women. “Thank you, all of you.”