Tailored Bite

"Hi, Mom!" I walk into her room.

She is standing by the kitchen counter.

She smiles as she turns to me.

"Hi, Ann." She says softly.

She is wrapped in a beige cardigan that my son gave her a few birthdays ago.

It’s frayed everywhere and has mismatched buttons that she has apparently replaced many times.

I need to tell Ben to get her a new one.

I hear the bump of a sliding door behind me as I walk toward her.

I give my mom a hug and sit on a chair. The room is very clean and tidy, as usual.

Brisk wind is hitting a window and making the glass shiver.

In contrast, the air in this room is warm and filled with the rich scent of fine tea. Earl Grey, the kind she always brews when I visit. She is already holding two cups of it.

Steam rises from them, freshly brewed.

Always.

She sits in a chair across from me and places the cups on the little round table between us.

Only mine has a splash of milk, and maybe a little honey too.

She knows my taste and never gets it wrong. I to myself.

Then she notices the thick book in my hand.

It used to be white but, from the burden of holding 54 years of my life, has turned grey, just like my mom’s hair.

"Is it your photo album?" Her eyes shine enough for me to notice her excitement.

"Yes, I found it when I was cleaning my house. I thought it would be fun to look at it together." I say, holding it up to my chest.

She grins, putting her hands together in front of her chest.

"Let’s do it!" she taps the table a few times with her both hand to hurry me.

I am glad that she is up for it. Her 80th birthday is coming up, so I’ve wanted a quiet and peaceful mother-and-daughter time before then.

I take a sip of the tea. I taste a little bit of honey.

Perfect amount of sweetness.

I catch myself smiling in the reflection on the tea.

I put the cup down on the table and I open the album.

Photos on the first page are me as a baby.

My mom makes a quiet and soft laugh. Her face is glowing with love and affection like everyone do when they see a video of cute puppies.

I would make the same face if I saw a picture of Ben as a baby. But this is me, so I can be honest.

Baby me is ugly.

I won’t say it out loud because I don’t want to ruin my mom’s mood. She reaches for the album and turns the page.

On the next page, there are many photos of me when I was around one or two.

Then I notice something.

My baby aprons are spotless.

I’ve raised my own child.

When he was little, he made a mess every meal.

Was I a genius?

I find the answer in a picture on the next page where she was feeding me a small portion of jelly that could fit only on the tip of the spoon, and also perfectly into my mouth.

I was too little to remember the jelly, but that reminds me of her delicate and thoughtful care, just like her tea.

We chat about the photos between pages, but the chatter become less and less as we turn more pages.

Because I become occupied with thinking about the tailored bites I’ve received in my life, and she becomes absorbed in reminiscing about memories evoked by the photos.

The door is knocked when we finally get to ten year old me.

She looks up at the clock on the wall. I do the same. It’s 5 p.m.

"It must be dinner." she says cheerfully. She turns to the door.

"Come in!" she calls.

"Ms. O’Dell, I brought your dinner."

As the nurse comes in, I close the album and move the cups aside.

The nurse sets the dinner on the table. She smiles at me and leaves the room.

The dinner looks ordinary, some slices of chicken, mashed potatoes, some boiled vegetables, and a cup of jelly.

"Okay! Let’s call it a day then." I say, picking up the album by my side.

I stand up and prepare myself for the cold outside. She stands up and helps me wear my coat.

"Is Ben coming next week?" She asks me from behind. I turn around and answer.

"Of course! I heard he got a day off. It’s your birthday. Everyone is coming!"

I give her a hug and gesture for her to take a seat.

“Eat your dinner!” I say and start walking towards the door.

When I turn around to close the door, I see her eating the jelly first, a huge portion on a plastic spoon.

The clock on the wall in my bedroom is about to reach 9 o’clock.

I still can’t shake off the thought about the tailored bite.

I light a candle and put it on the nightstand.

I sit on my bed and open the album again.

My attention is completely drawn to food in the pictures, and one picture catches my eye.

The one where my whole family, my mom, my dad, and my little brother, sit around a table after making sushi rolls.

I remember that my mom cut all the sushi rolls into specific pieces, tailored to each one’s preference.

My father’s and my brother’s rolls were cut into 6 pieces because they loved to fill their mouths with food, it probably gave them more satisfaction.

Mine and my mother’s rolls were cut into 8 pieces because we had smaller mouths.

I can see a little mountain of wasabi only on my father’s plate and an excessive amount of soy sauce for my brother because he loved to drown his sushi.

She even set my chopsticks the other way around from the rest of my family’s because I was the only one who was left-handed.

Every time I turn pages, I realize how meticulous and perfect her care was and is.

Then one picture catches my eye, because the memory of it pierces my heart like a spear.

It is a family photo taken on Christmas when I was 30 with Ben, my husband, my mom and my little brother.

This was the first Christmas without my father.

That August in the same year, he had a heart attack at the age of 60 and passed.

She seemed to have overcome the loss by Christmas time until little Ben mentioned one extra plate with huge slices of turkey.

I thought it was for my brother, but he already had his.

I saw my mother freeze for a second, then quietly began cutting the turkey slices into small pieces, placing them on Ben’s plate.

She made a smile like it was nothing, but I caught a flicker of undefinable emotion behind it.

It was one of the few nights in my life when I saw my mother drinking alcohol.

I start turning the pages again to find some good memories, family picnics, Ben’s birthday parties and her birthday parties.

In those beautiful memories, I find tremendous amount of my mother’s care, the tailored bite.

I didn’t even expect that I would find something new about my mother at this age.

I thought I’d be like her once I became a mother, but I’m not even close.

I close the album and blow out the candle.

I grab the door handle. I take a deep breath before I slide open the door.

“Hi, Mom!” I walk into her room.

She is lying on her bed, she tilts her head toward me and smiles.

There is no scent of Earl Grey anymore.

Her condition started worsening a few weeks after her birthday.

I’ve been advised to visit her more.

Even though I have been visiting her in short intervals, my mother’s bites noticeably have gotten smaller and smaller.

I’ve offered to help her bring food to her mouth.

Every time I offer, she says the same thing.

"I want to do it myself as long as I can."

I sit beside her.

“Mom, you want me to help you with your lunch?”

I offer her to help, expecting the same sentence.

“Yes, please.” She says feebly.

My heart skips a beat at her answer and then it starts pounding way more faster than it needs to make up a skipped beat.

Even though I’ve always wanted to help her, my eyes start welling up tears.

I notice my hands trembling when I’m reaching for a spoon.

I prepare a scoop of jelly, just the same amount she gave me when I was a baby, a small portion that is on only the tip of the spoon.

It is my turn. I bring it to her mouth, my first tailored bite.

She holds my hand when she swallows the jelly.

“Thank you.” She says, smiling.

Her hand tightens for a second and loosens.

In this moment, my first tailored bite becomes my last tailored bite.