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Frozen DinnersA MEMOIR OF A FRACTURED FAMILY BY Books by Elaine Ambrose Midlife Happy Hour Midlife Cabernet Drinking with Dead Women Writers–with AK Turner Drinking with Dead Drunks–with AK Turner Menopause Sucks–with Joanne Kimes The Red Tease–A Woman’s Adventures in Golf Gators & Taters–A Week of Bedtime Stories The Magic Potato–La Papa Mágica • Elaine’s Short Stories and Poems Appear in the Following Anthologies Faith, Hope & Healing–Dr. Bernie Siegel A Miracle Under the Christmas Tree The Dog with the Old Soul Hauntings from the Snake River Plain Tales from the Attic Beyond Burlap Daily Erotica–366 Poems of Passion Little White Dress Feisty after 45 Angel Bumps A Cup of Love – Stories from the Heart Laugh Out Loud – 40 Women Humorists at Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop • Find Elaine’s books on ElaineAmbrose.com BROWN BOOKS PUBLISHING GROUP Text copyright ©2018 by Elaine Ambrose Cover illustration: Ward Hooper. Book cover and design by Jeanne Core, DesignWorks Creative, Inc. Author photo by Dorothy Salvatori All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored without the prior consent of the publisher. ISBN: Printed in USA Dedication Dedicated to the memories of my parents Neal and Leona Ambrose and to my younger brother George Ambrose. Please save me a place at the table. Contents 1 The Quilt .................................3 2 The Trucking Company ....................15 3 Lullabies and Work Songs ..................29 4 Rebel Daughter ...........................41 5 Bringing Water to the Desert ...............59 6 Waiting for the Harvest ....................77 7 Potatoes and Poetry .......................97 8 Unfinished Eulogy .......................123 9 How to Steal an Estate ....................137 10 Judgment Day ...........................155 11 The Book of Leona .......................171 12 Finding Warmth .........................187 CHAPTER ONE The Quilt rritated clouds of old gray dust swirl behind my car and Isettle back onto the patches of scruffy sagebrush as I drive a back road into the village of Wendell, Idaho. I turn down 4th Avenue and stop in front of an insignificant old house where my family lived before my father became rich. Decades of decay and neglect are exposed as cheap vinyl siding sags on the outside walls and dead vines hang on crooked trellises over weathered boards thirsty for paint. I stare at the window of my former bedroom and wonder if it’s still nailed shut. I drive two blocks to the Wendell Manor and Nursing Home. Before I get out of the car to visit my mother, I follow a familiar routine: I pull the jar of mentholated cream from my purse, unscrew the cap, and dab the pungent ointment into both nostrils to mask the odors inside the nursing home. Despite the best efforts of the 3 ELAINE AMBROSE janitors who continually clean the facility and open the old windows on frigid winter days to exchange stale air for fresh, regular visitors anticipate the pervasive smells of bleach and urine and take necessary precautions. The analgesic rub originally was designed for temporary relief of aches and pains, but the ritual of using it in my nose enables me to enter and greet my mother with compassion. Sometimes she doesn’t recognize me, and that leaves an ache that no balm or medication can soothe. The building is 100 years old and so are many of the residents. My father was born there in 1928 when the building was a hospital. After it became a nursing home, my grandmother died there, curled into a fetal position after several strokes. My 87-year-old mother occupies a tiny room down the hall. On good days when she can concentrate, she turns on her CD player and listens to her favorite artists: Lawrence Welk’s orchestra, Tennessee Ernie Ford, several religious selections, and her collection of big band music from the 1940s. She can’t remember how to use the remote control for the television, so the music is her daily companion. Her room is simple. Furniture consists of a single medical bed, two antique nightstands from a home my parents once owned in Butte, Montana, her music table, and a wardrobe closet. Beside the unused TV sits a life- sized, wood carving of praying hands, a gift from my father after she “lost that one baby” seven years after I was born. Family pictures line the walls, and after she forgot our names I added colorful name tags to each photograph. There is a pendulum wall clock, perpetually tilted and five minutes slow. Two bookcases support 4 FROZEN DINNERS scrapbooks, large-print novels, assorted knickknacks, and her Bible. A stained-glass dove hangs in the one window, and a smiling cloth doll in a frilly dress perches on the bed. A calendar on a small table notes that she is scheduled for a shower twice a week and her hair is curled on Wednesdays. My mother once lived in a mansion on a hill. Now she has one room with a private bathroom. The room is tidy except for the scars on the corners of the wall where her wheelchair has rubbed as she maneuvers to get into the bathroom. She is completely incontinent, even after several failed surgeries to correct the problem, but she still attempts to get to the bathroom, often with disastrous results. If she falls, she pushes the call button hanging from her neck and the staff comes running to help and then lifts her back into her chair. They tried attaching an alarm to her chair so they would know when she moved out of it, but she stubbornly continues to attempt to stand. It’s that feisty spirit that keeps her alive. Though her body and mind are weak, her heart and motivation remain strong. The rules at the nursing home are strict but understandable. No hot plate, no candles, no refrigerator. Her scissors were taken after she accidentally stabbed herself and needed stitches. Her three moments of daily adventure come when she wheels herself to the dining room for meals. She usually declines the games of checkers or Bingo after lunch and returns to her solitary room after finishing a typical meal of meatloaf, warm vegetables, and soft potatoes with creamy gravy. She has been a widow for 25 years and is well-accustomed to living alone. I visit at least twice a month, and she has a 5 ELAINE AMBROSE regular group of friends from her church and from her women’s association who stop by with cards and small gifts. I enter her room with a cheery “Hello, Mom” and place a vase of flowers and a new air freshener on her table. She sits in her wheelchair, too weak to walk after breaking her back and her hip in separate falls. She looks sweet. Today’s outfit is a comfortable sweatshirt covered with appliquéd flowers, black knit pants, and sturdy black shoes. And imitation pearls. Always the pearls. She has a strand of real ones but hides them in a drawer because she says they are “too nice to use.” She glances up, focuses on my face, cocks her head, and then her eyes widen with a look of anticipation. “You’re finally here,” she said. “I keep watching for y ou .” “Yes, Mom,” I say as I kiss her cheek. “I’m here.” “Did you bring soup?” she asks, her face hopeful. “No soup today. It’s too hot outside. I promise to bring you some potato soup in the fall.” She loves my potato soup, made with new spuds, fresh cream, browned sausage, celery, onions, spices, and mustard seeds. One of her favorite Bible verses describes how virtuous people can move mountains if they just have faith as small as a mustard seed. Her mountains haven’t budged despite a lifetime of adding countless seeds into every recipe. I smile into the weathered face, take her eyeglasses and clean off the smudges, gently reshape the bent frames, and ease them over her ears again. She often falls asleep in bed wearing her glasses so they become 6 FROZEN DINNERS contorted in various angles on her face. Today, her mood is agitated, and my filial offering of fresh flowers and clean, straightened glasses does not soothe her. She leans forward and whispers, “They took my quilt!” “Your grandmother’s quilt?” I ask, looking quickly around the room. At almost every visit she rues the loss of one thing or another and every time the item is never really gone, just moved from its usual place. “Yes! It was on my bed. And they took it.” I know this expertly-crafted quilt, hand-stitched by my great-grandmother in the 1930s. She used one-inch scraps of my mother’s baby dresses to patiently sew each section and bind and pad the cover onto white cotton material. The quilt remained in my mother’s cedar chest for decades until I took it out and placed it on her bed in the nursing home. I thought it would make her feel more at home but she had been alarmed about using it. “No, Elaine, put it back in the chest. I don’t want it out because it’s too good to use.” “But it was made for you,” I said. “Why not enjoy it?” “Because,” she said with an unexpected tone of firmness, “someone will take it.” The quilt looked at home on the bed, a colorful and familiar splash in a drab environment. I didn’t fold and store it as she requested. I wrapped her bed with the quilt, smoothed the center, and tucked in the edges.

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