A Silver Spoon
The moment I open the front door, I sense that something is not right. My little terrier dances around my legs, asking desperately to go out. I grab her leash and we stride down the driveway and up the country road as she sniffs the roadside for the perfect spot. I’m impatient with her, in a hurry; my meeting went too long; it’s past lunchtime, and I am hungry. When she has relieved herself, we head back to my forested hunting camp, home to the two of us.
Inside, she is still restless, unhappy and trying to communicate why, but I’m not getting the message until I enter my tiny bedroom and see the mahogany jewelry box on the bed with all its little drawers strewn about and empty. My heart surges into my throat. Someone’s been in here. I’ve been robbed. Pulse pounding now, I hurry back into the living room. Under the desk is dog poop; on the desk an empty space where my laptop should be. This dog never does that in the house; she must have been trapped under the desk while the robber took my computer. She would have been barking, snarling, fiercely defending the house.
Now, my whole body is trembling as I go to the kitchen and immediately see the wide-open sliding door onto my small deck. Is this how the thief departed? Was he still here when I drove in? Could he be downstairs? Shaking, I call 911 and try to control my trembling voice to answer the dispatcher’s questions. Bonnie Pooley, 575 Grover Hill Road, yes, I am alone. A deputy sheriff will be here as soon as possible. Now, in the kitchen I see another empty space where the walnut box containing my mother’s sterling silver has always perched on the counter. It is gone. Now, I grieve. Now, the tears come, and I really can’t breathe.
Mother gave me her silver because I was the oldest child. I determined that it would not be stored away for special occasions because life is short and every day deserves the silver. Every solitary meal in this house was made special with my mother’s silver…. and her cloth napkins. Now, I feel the loss, not only of my mother but of this ritual I have kept in honor of her. They say that a robbery makes you feel violated, and I do feel that, and horrified, and oh so sad. In this complex mix, there is also guilt. I wasn’t the perfect child; in fact, far from it, from the day I announced my pregnancy and had a “shotgun wedding” at seventeen to this day when I have lost the family silver with many bumps in the road between there and here.
When the young officer arrives, blue lights flashing on his squad car, we look through the house together. He takes notes and pictures. We walk up and down the road, looking for evidence. Did the robber drive or walk? Was there more than one? Had I locked my door? (No, but I will from now on.) What was taken? He advises me to call a friend to be with me for a while, and I do. The moment arrives when the officer has done all he can do to turn in his report. He gets in his car, turns off the blue lights, and is gone.
Alone now, I walk back to the kitchen, ever so aware of the empty space on the counter where the walnut box always lived. I no longer feel hungry, but a cup of mint tea might be comforting. I fill the bright red teakettle and put it on the stove to heat. No matter how rocky the road was in my relationship with my mother, we almost always could smooth things over with a cup of mint tea. We were so much alike in so many ways, and sometimes our conflicts came out of our similarities. Her dream was for me to be what she had wanted to be and to have everything that she, child of the Depression, never had. Because she tried so hard to give me all that she had wished for, I took those material possessions for granted. Like her, I was strong-willed and independent; like her, I needed to make my own path, find my own answers.
Picking up my favorite stoneware mug and a teabag, I realize that there is no spoon to add the sugar to my tea. No, wait, in the dish rack where drying dishes wait to be put away, there is one, just one, silver spoon. Tears flow again as I realize that, yes, there is still one of my mother’s spoons. I haven’t lost them all. As I stir the sugar into my tea, I do it with an odd sense of gratitude that the robber missed this one, and I can still have tea with my mother every day.