The First I've Heard

She had a list. My mother always had a list. Grocery lists. To-do lists. Fix-it lists. Books she finished reading. Books she wanted to read. There were so many lists that she printed sticky notes with “Linda’s List” at the top. I still have a tablet of these that I can’t bring myself to use.

It’s 12 years ago. I’m visiting Louisiana because the cancer is back. This time it’s in her bones. She knows. But won’t talk about it. Pops won’t talk about it either. Medication by distraction is the order of the day.

She’s dreaming about going somewhere. Anywhere to take her away from doctor’s visits and thinking about what’s next. On her travel list: Rome, Paris, and Athens. We can’t go to any of these this week, but we can go to Arkansas!

Mom’s been talking about visiting Crystal Bridges in Bentonville. Being a Republican from Arkansas, Mom was thrilled to finally have something she felt was important come out of her home state. President Clinton was two years behind her in grade school, and even after he was elected to one of the most powerful offices in the world, she still called him “that twit Little Billy.” But the opening of a world-class American art museum in Arkansas? That was something she could get excited about.

Walking into the kitchen, I find Mom in her well-worn purple floral apron frying okra and cornbread. The mass of beans we’d shelled earlier in the day simmering with a slab of bacon. Sliced summer-ripe tomatoes topped with garden-plucked basil and arranged on Mom’s chipped tomato plate. Tomato Linda’s tomato plate.

Along with lists, my mother loved purpose-created kitchenware. The ceramic red and white plate decorated with tomatoes. The deviled egg plate with indents to cradle the white-and-yellow half-orbs. The asparagus tray painted with purple asparagus, whose artistic license always bothered me. I’d seen white asparagus and eaten mounds of green asparagus, but I’d never seen purple asparagus. What was this magical vegetable?

While it was one of her most beloved serving platters, the tomato plate was not, however, the origin of Tomato Linda. That late-in-life nickname came from the hats she always wore. Because, ahead of lists and kitchenware but behind books, my mother’s great love was hats. She had winter felt hats in a rainbow of jewel tones to match coats and scarves. She had straw summer hats with wide brims to keep the sun off her face. She had funeral hats, wedding hats, hats for fun, hats for golf…She had more hats than Brother Bear in Old Hat, New Hat—which was, of course, one of the first books she gifted my son.

As with a lot of family nickname stories, the name sticks even if it only makes sense to those present at the origin. My sister-in-law, slightly tipsy from one glass of terrible champagne at a family wedding, looked down at her plate, found a tiny tomato wearing a “hat” of curly parsley, and blurted out, “Look! It’s Tomato Linda!” An oddly appropriate name that stuck.

Popping a hot, crisp nugget of okra into my mouth, I say, “So we’re going to Bentonville tomorrow.”

Tomato Linda flips the cornbread onto a paper towel to drain. “Well, yes and no.”

Staring back in perplexed silence, I nab another nugget.

She continues, “We don’t have a hotel. But we’ll drive up and see what we can find.”

I’m incredulous, “It’s nine hours and a holiday weekend.”

Pops, who has been sitting at the kitchen table hoping for a pre-dinner snack, chimes in, “I told you to book the Hampton Inn.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of that,” she replies.

“You told me we were staying in a Victorian house…rolling lawns, nice food…” I protest.

“We are. But not until Saturday.”

“So why are we going tomorrow?”

“It’s nine hours, and I thought that might be too long a drive, so we should split it over Friday and Saturday.”

“OK…but, we don’t have a hotel.”

Pops repeats, “I told you to book the Hampton Inn.”

Mom waves a spatula in Pop’s direction, “This is the first I’m hearing about the Hampton Inn.”

“Why don’t we just go on Saturday?” I ask.

“Well, there’s nothing to do in Monroe, so we may as well go to Bentonville.”

Shaking his head, Pops picks up a bottle of Dewars and an armload of fireworks. “I’m going outside to drink scotch and light bottle rockets.” He disappears into the backyard.

Walking out of the room, I mutter, “I’ll get online and find a hotel for tomorrow.”

Tomato Linda shouts after me, “Check the Hampton Inn.”

The next morning we’re packing the car. Mom says, “We need snacks. Dr. Pepper and Chili Cheese Fritos.”

“Diet Coke and Cheetos,” I say, thinking we’re starting a list.

She stops me. “You can’t drive my car and eat Cheetos.”

“I wasn’t planning to drive.”

“I have CANCER. I can’t drive.”

“This is the first I’m hearing of this.”

She eyerolls, “It’s a well-known fact that I cannot drive after chemo.”

“You haven’t had chemo in over a week, and you’ve been running all over town doing errands.”

“I’m not driving.”

“At all?”

“At all.”

“Fine. But if I’m driving, I want Cheetos and I’m eating them in the car—I’ll wipe the steering wheel.”

A dozen bathroom stops, one stop for patty melts, one stop for gas station fried chicken, and we’re pulling into the Hampton Inn parking lot.

The rest of the weekend is a blur, with one exception. I vividly remember sitting in James Turrell’s Skyspace: The Way of Color, looking up at the open-to-the-air oculus, watching the light change the wall from light grey to intense indigo. Overhead, a flock of birds casts moving shadows across the space. Mom, calm and contemplative, watches the birds. I wait, open to a discussion about her cancer, her Alzheimer’s, any wisdom she wants share before she can’t.

I prompt, “So…what are you thinking about?”

“The birds.”

“The birds?”

“If they poop into the Skyspace, do they clean it, or leave it as part of the exhibit?”

Come with me as I figure out what’s next and rethink what “home” means in an empty nest, shaped by more than a third of my life abroad.

If my words resonate, please share with a friend. I appreciate your support.