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the grape I’d been holding back in the bowl. “Sam and I are agreed: we keep our names in the race, but we do no more than the barest minimum.”
    “And that’s your final word?” asked Lola.
    “Yes,” I said. “That’s my final word.”
    My mother was in the kitchen when I got home. There were several opened cookbooks, a notebook, and a glass of wine on the table in front of her.
    She looked up as I came through the door. “There you are! Where have you been? I was getting worried.”
    “Didn’t you get my message?” I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I left one on your cell phone.”
    My mother blinked. “Oh your message … yes … of course…” Even her smile seemed to be blinking.
    “Have a good day?”
    “Yes,” said my mother. “Well…” She continued to blink and smile. It was really eerie. “Mrs Mopper passed away this morning.” Mrs Mopper was my mother’s favourite old lady in the nursing home. They both went to Sarah Lawrence, and they both married lawyers, and they both had one child and liked golf and bridge and gourmet cooking.
    “Gee …” I stammered “… I’m sorry. I—”
    “I know… I know…” chanted my mother. “But she was very old…” I could hear her take a deep breath. “Anyway, when I got home I got so involved with the menu for the arthritis lunch that I forgot all about your message.”
    I didn’t know what to say now. I hadn’t gotten past Mrs Mopper yet. I said, “Oh.”
    My mother was still blinking and smiling. “I just didn’t think you’d be so late.” She laughed. It sounded as if she were gargling. “It’s your father who’s always late. Not you. Your father’s always late.”
    “Dad’s not home yet?” I kept my voice light and casual; as if I thought my father might be home, or that it wasn’t unusual that he wasn’t.
    “Work, of course.” She picked up her glass and downed it in one. “Work, work, work, work, work. You’d think he was one of the Seven Dwarfs.”
    It didn’t seem like a good time to tell her about the election. It would only set her off. Most of the time my mother was totally normal, but sometimes instead of a couple of glasses of wine in the evening she had a couple of bottles. And when she did, instead of getting all happy and dancing around with a lampshade on her head like you’re supposed to, she got depressed. The mention of my father always working was a sign that the lampshades were safe.
    “Have you eaten?” I asked. “You want me to stick something in the microwave for you?”
    My mother’s eyes widened in mock horror. “But what about your father? You don’t want him to eat alone, do you?”
    “What about a snack?” I suggested. “I could fix you a bagel with grilled cheese.” My mother can cook any food from French to Thai, but I stop pretty much at radiated cheese.
    She was already getting up, however, holding her glass the way the Statue of Liberty holds her torch, only not as steadily.
    “What I want is more wine,” she announced. “That’s what I want.”
    I watched her go over to the refrigerator. She was starting to wobble. “Cheese goes well with wine,” I said.
    My mother wasn’t listening. She was yanking a bottle out of the fridge.
    “I want you to promise me something, honey,” said my mother. “Don’t you become a workaholic like your father. It’s important to have some fun, as well.”
    “I know,” I said. “I do.”
    She shook the corkscrew at me. “Fun is very important. You cannot live by bread alone.”
    I watched the corkscrew. Or by white wine.
    “You don’t know how fast your life slips away,” my mother went on. “You think you have forever … you think there’s always more time…”
    I sort of stopped listening. I’d heard this all before – and I didn’t really want to hear it again. It was one of my mother’s monologues that could end in tears.
    I was trying to ease my way out of the kitchen when I was literally saved by the bell. The