TV Dinner

Your laughter breaks my heart.

You’re curled up on the left side of the couch, criss-cross-apple-sauce on the plaid cushions, waiting for me to join you for an episode of Saturday Night Live. We’ve watched and rewatched the tapes dozens of times over the years, but to you, they’ve never gotten any less funny.

I set two plates on the counter. You found them in a thrift store when you were six, toddling over to show me with a big old grin on your chubby, happy little face. 

Mommy Mommy Mommy look! It’s Snoopy!

Today, I might as well be cooking supper for a six-year-old. Silly smiley face fries and baked macaroni - the kind with bread crumbs - and a dewy glass bottle of peach Nehi. A pecan pie sits in the refrigerator for dessert. All your favorites.

Of course, your kindergarten self would rarely get a meal like this. No, there would be the screaming and fits over the OUTRAGE of the limp brown broccoli touching your meat, or the unceremonious unveiling of a pan of leftovers mixed with rice, topped with cheese and zapped in the oven for good measure. This is a special-occasion dinner, and oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry, so very, very sorry…

My hands shake as I ladle pasta over Snoopy’s dog house. The rattle of spoon on ceramic is as jarring as the Red Baron’s engine.

You laugh again, your voice rising over the clatter. “BOOOOOOOOOF! With NINE O’s!” Your atrocious Stefon impression used to make me roll my eyes. Not today. Tuck your hair behind your ears, paint your smile on, it’s showtime. I take our meal into the living room.

You turn to me, laughter still dancing in your eyes and your sweet, sweet face. You’ve changed so much over the years, so tall and strong, so different from the pudgy baby who used to eat ants from the kitchen floor. You traded your curls for a crew cut. You traded your Skechers for clunky brown boots. But your smile has stayed the same, dimpled cheeks and one eye squinched up in a mischievous wink. 

I’m going to miss that smile.

“All packed?” I ask, God forbid my voice should betray the tightness in my throat.

“Yup,” you say around a mouthful of fry. You dice them up carefully with a butter knife. I used to tease you for being such a prissy eater. The french fry’s grin becomes a scream.

I try to focus on the screen. I want to laugh with you at Bill Hader and Seth Meyers, but it sounds canned to my ears. I just want to sit and look at you, commit to memory every freckle and eyelash, and never forget.

You don’t know, but I know that tonight is our last night.

My last meal with you.

I have always known how it would turn out for you in the end. I can do nothing to change it. Oh, I have tried in the past, to protect my baby from the visions of violence and pain I saw in my head. Once I dreamed you were going to get a concussion. I kept you home from school, I hid your tricycle in the shed, and still you cracked your skull on the bathroom sink. When I bundled you up in layers of coats, you still caught pneumonia. When I begged you not to drive to school one particular morning, a car jumped the curb. I thought you were done for that day, but broken bones will heal.

Then you raised your hand and swore to defend, and that night, my dreams told me the end had truly come.

"Earth to Mom," you nudge my shoulder.

I look into your earnest face and see it blanched waxy white, I look into your eyes and see bruised, sunken sockets, I look at your faded Aerosmith tee and see a mass of mangled flesh that the too-short body bag does nothing to hide. I see years and years of bringing bundles of your favorite sunflowers to one of hundreds and hundreds of identical white headstones, I see your bedroom going cold and dusty and not being able to bear the thought of taking down the Marvel posters, folding up the crazy quilt, putting the tennis shoes and textbooks away in the closet...

"Don't cry, Mama," your voice sounds so much younger than nineteen, and in my heart, you ARE so much younger than nineteen, my child, my baby, please, Mr. President, don't send him away, don't leave him to bleed in the sands, don't make him be your hero, let him go fishing and play football in the park and sing along to Foo Fighters and let him stay...

"We won't be over there very long," you're trying to comfort me. "Six months, at the most, and I'll write, and send pictures, and then I'll be home, I promise..." I can't let the last time you see me be like this. I want you to leave with one last sweet memory of home, and the knowledge that I love you, will always love you.

So I lie that I'm alright. Just a mother's worry is all. I know you'll do a good job, be a good soldier, your whole family's rooting for you. I love you, sweetie. Can I get a hug?

Later I'll sit on the couch, listening to you brush your teeth and thump around upstairs. I'll peek in on you to make sure you're sleeping well, arm crooked around the hideous stuffed monster your girlfriend won for you at the fair, face relaxed in blissful slumber, dreaming of something peaceful and good. Early in the morning, I'll wake to the sound of the door clicking shut. I'll watch your taxi's taillights disappear down the road. I'll get a couple of letters describing the heat and the shitty food. Then the Red Baron will come for you. And then I'll get the phone call.

For now, we'll just live in the moment, finishing the actors' sentences, letting you steal my fries, singing along to the commercials just to hear your exasperated moooOOOM, laughing till our sides hurt.

Take these memories with you, my only son. Goodbye, baby boy. You've made your mama so proud.