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was.”
     This made Jo
and I both blush and turn away.
     My mother
just laughed at that. “Well come on in then,” and we followed her into the
kitchen.
     My mother
was a great multitasker, much better than I ever was, and cooking for her was a
chorus in motion. The ground beef sizzled in one pan and beans sizzled in
another. Potatoes boiled in a pot and a loaf of fresh bread rose in the little
bread machine I had bought her for Christmas.
     “Why don’t
you kids help yourselves to something to drink. There should be some cold sodas
in the fridge.”
     “Is Pepsi
okay?” I asked Jo.
     “Great,” she
said bobbing her head.
     “So, tell me
about yourself Jo, do you have any siblings? What are your parents like?” my
mother asked fishing two or three beans out of the pan, blowing on them and
taking a taste.
     “Well, I
have an older sister, Susan, who’s a year older than I am, my dad teaches
philosophy and my mom works at a nursing home three-days-a-week.”  
     “Married?”
     “Yeah, they’ve
been married now for...twenty-two years I think?”
     Sitting on
the kitchen counter was a padded yellow envelope with my name printed across
the front. I tore it open and let the contents fall into my hand. It was my
brand-new passport. Finally. I had been waiting for it for nearly three
months.
     “And are you
from around here? I think Alex mentioned you live in Aurora?” Mom asked poking
the potatoes with a fork and wrapping a tea towel around the handle of the pot
to pour the steaming water into the colander sitting in the sink.
     “Yeah. I’ve
lived in Aurora my whole life.”
     “Aurora’s
beautiful. Alex has probably told you that I own the Thimbles & Lace there
in old Aurora.”
     “Yeah, he
took me by there one night when we went to Blue Moon for coffee.”
     “Alex, you
should have brought her by when I was open,” my mother scolded looking over her
shoulder. “Come by sometime when I’m open Jo and I’ll let you pick something
out,” she continued with a smile and turned back to dump the potatoes into a
glass bowl. The golden, fluffy lumps piled like wet dough.
     “He also
said you are a photographer too. You just had a show downtown didn’t you? I
heard it went well,” my mother said looking at Jo as she went to the fridge for
cream and butter.
     “Yeah,” Jo
replied shyly turning away.
     My mother
caught this and told me later that it was that single gesture that made her
like Jo. She always said that women have a way of seeing things in each other
that us guys just miss. I don’t know anything about that other than I trusted
her and it meant a lot to me that mom liked her.
     “Oh, shoot,”
my mom said kneeling down in front of the open refrigerator door. “It looks
like I’m out of cream. Alex, I need you to run as quickly as you can down to
the store and get me a carton of whipping cream.” She walked over to her purse
sitting on the kitchen counter and pulling out a five. “Jo, do you need
anything while he’s out?”
     “No,” she
said smiling. Jo told me later that she appreciated being treated like an adult
dinner guest. Some of her parents’ friends had a way of talking down to her
since she looked slightly younger than she was.
     Seven-Eleven
was just down the street and thankfully they had a pint of whipping cream so I
was only gone for about ten minutes.
     Now, I don’t
know exactly why I took my camera with me just to go to the corner store for
some cream. I guess it was just instinctive, but I’m glad I did.
     When I got
back to the house, I saw mom and Jo, through the kitchen window, laughing over
an album of me in my younger years. I lifted my camera and clicked off a frame.
     The three of
us ate our Shepherd’s Pie and laughed together for probably three hours.
     After dinner
my mother showed Jo around the house, and they talked a little bit about how my
mother started selling jewelry.
     “Can I show
her my room?” I asked.
     My