Cake In Virginia

I'll never understand this but for some reason Mom booked me a first class ticket to and from the funeral. Burial costs, food for the wake, morticians...they all cost money. Why make it worse? But that was Mom for you. She always knew how to spend money.

"Do you want some almonds?" she asks. We are in American Airlines Terminal 13B.

"Mom, you know I'm allergic to almonds. They make my throat itch. Christ!" I say this with more anger than it deserves. I realize how silly it sounds as the words leave my mouth.

"Bruce, watch your mouth!" she pauses and comes back in more tenderly with an "I'm sorry" and "I didn't mean to snap".

We sit there in silence. I think about how this time last year I was vacationing at my old girlfriend's house in the country. How we would take a couple of bikes down to the river with some sandwiches and swim in the sun.

Ladies and Gentlemen. We are now boarding for Flight 1322. Non-Stop from Richmond to Washington D.C.

Mom rises instantly to hug me goodbye. "I guess this is you, Bruce"

"Yeah"

I rise and hug her. She feels different than she did before it happened. She's lost weight. Since William collapsed. She's a little more bitter, a bit angier maybe. She runs her hands through the back of my hair as she pulls away from me. She smiles slightly. She wants to cry right now, I can see it on her face.

"Bye, Mom"

"Call me when you get in. You know I don't trust these planes"

"I know"

"And it wouldn't kill you to call to just say hello every once in a while. It gets lonely in that house"

"I know"

She gathers her things and begins to walk away. She drops an almond from one of her little plastic bags full of snacks, she picks it off the floor and puts it in her mouth.

"3 second rule!" she shouts and laughs. William hated almonds too. I remember this as I board Flight 1322 for home.