The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg Read Free Book Online

up in her. A scary feeling. A thought that she cannot go downstairs. She cannot.
    “Mom?”
    Melissa.
     
    O v e r t h e H i l l a n d i n t o t h e Wo o d s 41
    “Don’t come up here,” Helen calls.
    A pause, and then the stairs creak. “Don’t come up!”
    she says again. But there is her younger daughter before her. “Hi, honey,” Helen says. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
    Melissa crosses her arms. “What are you do ing, Mom?”
    Helen stands, feeling one knee buckle briefly, and brushes off her behind. She’s wearing pants, an old gray wool pair, and a white blouse and a red cardigan sweater, an outfit she could just as easily wear to Sears to get a replacement gasket for the washing machine. She has given up on getting dressed up for family dinners: her silk dresses and double-strand pearl necklaces, her theme sweaters. They never get dressed up. “I’m looking for something,” Helen says. “I told your father to serve the relishes, is he serving the relishes?”
    “Yes, they’re out. We’re eating them.”
    “Well, then, that’s fine. That’s all. That’s all for now. Go and eat some more.”
    “Ma, do you . . . need some help?” And there it is, Melissa is looking at her strangely.
    “How’s Clayton?” Helen asks. “Is he feeling better?”
    Melissa’s husband.
    “Oh, my God, he’s fine now; his temperature has been normal for two days.”
    “What a relief, huh?” Helen does not now nor has she ever liked Clayton. Chews with his mouth open and doesn’t he just know the answer to everything, just ask him. Insisted that his son be named Rolf, his daughter Enya, never giving a second’s thought to Helen’s suggestion that his son would be regarded as a neo-Nazi and his daughter a New Age lightweight. Not that she put it quite so bluntly when informed of the name choices. She offered her opinion in Wisconsinese. She said, “. . . Oh?”
     
    42
    t h e d a y i a t e w h a t e v e r i w a n t e d
    “I brought some flowers,” Melissa says. “Where’s your pumpkin vase? That smiling pumpkin?”
    Helen sees that smirk. Don’t think she doesn’t. She tells Melissa, “Well, it’s the flowers, isn’t it? It’s not what holds them. Just put them in anything.”
    Melissa says in a voice not quite her own, “All right, Ma.” Then she heads back downstairs.
    Helen sighs and sits back down again. She hears the muted clatter of pots and pans. Someone’s in the kitchen.
    Earl, probably, though it could be Clayton, who could have been a famous chef, just ask him. Though Clayton did comment on the Susan Stamberg cranberry chutney last year. Commented favorably. He was the only one.
    And now here is the smell of turkey, always her favorite smell. So Earl has taken the bird out of the oven; it is time to make the gravy and put the side dishes into the oven, the green bean and mushroom soup casserole, the candied yams, the cloverleaf rolls that don’t taste anything like they used to even though the company insists it hasn’t changed a thing, Helen wrote to them asking what they were doing differently and they said nothing.
    Now the creak of the stairs again, and Elaine is standing before her, saying softly, “What’s wrong?”
    Helen tries to laugh. “What did Melissa tell you? Did Melissa tell you something?”
    “Is there something to tell?”
    Helen puts her hands over her face and begins to cry, and Elaine gasps. “Mom?”
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Helen says. “No.” She wipes at her eyes and smiles. “It’s nothing. I just need a minute. Go help Dad.”
    Elaine stoops down next to her mother. “What’s going O v e r t h e H i l l a n d i n t o t h e Wo o d s 43
    on?” She looks around the closet. “Are you really looking for something? Or is it something else? Are you okay?”
    “So many questions!” Helen says.
    “But are you?”
    “Give me five minutes. That’s all. Please.”
    After Elaine has gone downstairs, Helen looks at the garment bags, at the out-of-season