Auld Lang Syne, My Dears
December, 1968
The first time my mother died was on New Year’s Eve, 1968.
I got up that morning, wiped the sleepy seeds from my eyes and stumbled into the bathroom across the hall from the bedroom I shared with my older brother. As I peed, I stared at the little plastic tubs of teeth lined up on the toilet tank.
The tubs were about the size of both my fists put together. You got them for free when you bought big boxes of Polident from Washoe Market. That Saturday, my mom and I had used the coupon she clipped from Life magazine to get a free denture bath with every box. We bought two boxes, one each for her and my dad. When we got home, she let me open the boxes and use the Magic Marker to write names on the lids. The pink one said MOM, and the blue one said DAD. Every night they would fill the tubs with water, take out their teeth, put them in the tub and follow that up by plopping in a fizzy Polident tablet.
I wanted false teeth so bad. If I could take my teeth out and hold them in my hand to brush them, I just knew they would be cleaner. My brother told me I didn’t want to do that, but he was wrong. False teeth made people special. Everyone talked about them. People were always asking my dad about his teeth. And my parents were always talking about what they could eat every time we went to dinner. Even in their little tubs of blue water on the back of the toilet, the teeth looked a lot cleaner and straighter than mine would ever be.
There was a bang on the door. “Who’s in there?” my sister said.
“Me.” I flushed the toilet.
“Hurry up! You don’t have to wash your hands every time you pee!” she said.
“Jeez, Louise! Give me a break, huh?” I said, leaving the only place in our house I could truly be alone.
“You take all day to wash your hands,” she said, slamming the door behind her. There were five of us living in the house, and four of us were sharing one bathroom, but my sister treated us as if the bathroom were hers alone.
We didn’t usually eat breakfast together, but it was different during Christmas vacation. My mom joined us at the table as we ate cereal and toast.
“Where do you want to go for dinner?” Mom asked.
“What do you mean?” Donnie asked back.
“I don’t know. I just thought … well, it’s New Year’s, and daddy doesn’t have to work tomorrow. I thought we could talk him into going to a restaurant for dinner. And we get to pick the restaurant,” Mom said. She snubbed out her cigarette and picked up the newspaper.
“He’s not going to want to do that,” my brother said. He was right. My dad hated restaurants, especially with us along. I thought it was funny he hated restaurants so much, because every time he was late for dinner, my mom would make me call a restaurant and ask if my dad was in the lounge.
“Park Café,” my sister, B.J., said.
“The hotel,” my brother, Don, said.
“Grantsy? What about you? Where do you want to go?” Mom asked.
“The Jet Dinette,” I said. It was a safe bet. We could talk Dad into going because he could use the drive-up window and he wouldn’t even have to leave the car.
“Oh for cryin’ out loud! That’s a dive! We get to go someplace fancy,” my brother said.
“It’s true, Grantsy, you can get a grilled cheese anywhere,” my mom said.
“But I like the planes,” I said. The Jet Dinette was a really cool place because it had planes and jets painted on the walls. It also had a neon sign of a rocket. Then I thought it was probably a bad idea, because if we ate in the diner, there were only two tables and a counter so it was probably going to be full for New Year’s Eve anyway.
“Hey! Let’s go to the Sky Chalet!” my sister said.
My dad was never going to go for the Sky Chalet. It was what he called “swanky,” which meant it was just about the fanciest place in the world. It was the restaurant at the airport in Butte. We’d only seen it one time, when they had a grand opening for the airport, and it wasn’t totally finished. There were big rock walls, like on the Flintstones, and huge leather booths with shiny wooden tables. It looked like some place a movie star would eat. In fact, at school I heard that Evel Knievel ate there all the time. “Bobbi Jean, call your daddy and tell him we want to welcome the new year at the Sky Chalet,” my mom said. And that was the end of that. My dad always did what my sister said.
***
“Light another cigarette,” my brother said. It had been an hour since we had ordered dinner, and my mother had tried the trick of lighting a cigarette to make the food come faster. When it worked, my mother would say “See, I told you. Every time I light a cigarette the food comes.”
“I’m out of cigarettes,” Mom said, snapping her purse shut.
My dad stared into his third scotch. He was obviously peeved. He hadn’t wanted want to drive the 25 miles to Butte just for dinner in the first place. Yet here we were at the Sky Chalet, just a few hours before midnight.
“We aren’t going to be home in time to watch the ball drop,” my brother said.
I stared out at the smoky, packed restaurant. It was loud. A huge group was having some kind of party in the bar, and there weren’t any other families left. Everyone was eating. We hadn’t even had our shrimp cocktails.
“Is it hot in here?” Mom asked.
No one answered. We just looked at her in her good winter coat. She loved that coat. Made of sculpted black velvet, it looked a lot like my Aunt Pauline’s carpet, except as a coat. She called it a foe fur coat. I thought that was funny, because it looked pretty friendly to me, and it sure didn’t look like fur. It had a collar made of real fur though, I knew that. It was a fox or a bunny or something small. Every winter she’d pull out the coat and dig in the mitten box for the collar. When she wore it, like to church or to Christmas dinner, she rarely took it off.
“Take off your coat,” my dad said to the bottom of his empty doubles glass. “Someone will steal it,” she said.
I tried really hard not to whine. I was hungry and tired. My sister had started collecting the paper doilies out from under the coffee cups on our table, and my brother was slumping down in his chair. I knew that was going to get him in trouble, because Dad hated slouching.
“Sit up, Donnie,” my dad said.
After a while, Mom said “Well, I’m going to get some cigarettes. Grantsy, why don’t you come with me?” As we walked toward the door to the restaurant, I noticed my mom’s face was shiny. “Hot … hot, hot,” she said under her breath.
Most entryways in Montana are windbreaks. The Sky Chalet was no different. There were big glass doors with stainless steel handles on the inside, and heavier glass doors to the outside. The sets of doors were separated by a small room with an industrial-grade runner on the tile floor and a cigarette machine along one wall. The room was chilly, but not nearly as cold as the sub-zero night air. Because the restaurant was so hot, the inside doors were foggy and the outside doors were covered with frost. It felt good to get out of the heat, and as the door to the inside closed, the sounds of the busy restaurant faded away.
I liked being alone with my mom. Even when she didn’t talk to me, it was good just to be near her. She smelled like Skin So Soft and always looked like the prettiest mom in the room. Sometimes, when it was just the two of us, I’d reach up and grab her hand. She’d grab back and just keep doing what she was doing. Every once in a while, she’d look down at me and wink. She called me her baby. Even though I was 6 years old, I didn’t mind at all.
“So much better out here,” my mom said. She rifled through her purse looking for change. “Do you have a quarter, honey?”
I reached in my pocket and pulled out two dimes.
“Okay, we need another nickel,” she said. Then she dropped her purse. The handful of change clattered on the tile. A hint of a smile came over her face, and she looked down at me with worry in her eyes.
“Grant, I’m going. Grab my teeth,” she said.
I’m not sure if she actually spit both uppers and lowers out, or if they just hung in the air as she dropped away from them. Nevertheless, I reached out as if Joe Namath had just thrown a spiral my way, and caught the teeth as my mother fell to the floor like a stone. She was gone—slumped against the cigarette machine with her fake fur coat puddling around her.
She looked at peace.
I wanted to puke.
Disoriented, I opened the wrong door and my face was battered with harsh wind. I spun around in a complete circle. Then, teeth held high, I ran through the restaurant crying “Dead lady in the doorway! Dead lady in the doorway!”
The path back to our table was a confusing mass of drunken adults and leather-backed chairs. Every table I stopped at looked unfamiliar. People would look up startled, and smile at me. I continued to panic. Once they saw the teeth, their looks would change. But I would move on. I didn’t have time to explain.
“Mom’s dead!” I proclaimed to my tired family.
“What?” my dad asked. He hit the end of the word like he was picking a fight.
“Mom’s dead. Here’s her teeth,” I said. I laid the teeth down next to her napkin, and turned to my sister for support. My dad wasn’t used to me talking—my sister usually said everything for the two of us.
“Did you say dead?” she asked.
I nodded yes.
“Dead, like dead, no-longer-alive, not deaf, like deaf, can’t-hear-a-word?” My sister was going to roll her eyes at me, but something about my expression must have stopped her.
I just kept nodding.
My father sprang to his feet. “Don’t move!” he said. Then he rushed away from the table.
He came back seconds later. “Where is she?” he asked.
“Doorway,” I said.
“Holy. Oh. God!” He turned, and half-ran toward the front of the restaurant.
By the dimming sound of the crowd, I knew people were starting to understand what was going on. Slowly, everyone in the restaurant turned toward our table. Donnie slumped in his chair. B.J. looked down at her hands. I tried to return the stares, but once my eyes rested on the teeth, my face started burning, and I felt the tears coming up under my eyes.
***
Later that night, we welcomed in the New Year with cream of mushroom soup my dad made and grilled cheese sandwiches we picked up from the Jet Dinette. My mom sat at the end of the couch in her summer nightgown, sweating and fanning herself.