I walked into my older sister’s house just as she was pouring a bright orange substance down the drain. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“I spent the entire morning making carrot chowder because Mother said she had a taste for it,” she said. I shuddered slightly; when we were kids Ma made carrot chowder to punish us. “Why are you pouring it down the drain?” I asked.
“Mother said it tasted like poison,” said my sister bitterly. I looked at the orange mess in her sink; it certainly looked like poison, but I kept that to myself.
My mother is almost 90. Several years ago, after a bad fall, she moved in with my older sister and recently, after a change in her medications, there has been almost daily conflict at mealtimes. Mom’s doctor claims that her new medication affects both the way food tastes to her and her personality, but the upshot is that Mom’s gustatory preferences change with maddening speed and her editorial comments tend to sting.
“Maybe you need a break,” I told my sister. “Why don’t you go away for the weekend? I’ll stay with Ma,” I said, adding weakly, “It will be fun.” This was patently untrue but my sister didn’t hear; she was already booking a ticket on Expedia.
I arrived at my sister’s house on Friday at noon. After she left, Mom said she wanted soup for lunch, so I heated up a can of chicken noodle soup. As Mom came into the dining room she said, “If what I smell is lunch I don’t want any.”
Twenty minutes later I had opened four more cans of soup, each of which was rejected. The potato soup was too thick, the minestrone was too salty, the tomato soup was too bland and the clam chowder was too clammy. “Never mind,” Mom said, “I’ll eat crackers.”
Mom eats dinner promptly at 7, and my middle sister, my younger brother and my partner were joining us, mainly to offer me moral support. I had decided to order take-out so I asked Mom what she wanted and she requested Italian food. I ordered a tray of Chicken Marsala, her favorite, from her favorite Italian restaurant.
As we sat down, she regarded her meal with suspicion. “Whatever this is,” she said, “I don’t like it.”
My middle sister stepped in, “It’s chicken Marsala,” she said soothingly, “your favorite.” My mother smiled condescendingly. “How can it be my favorite” she asked logically, “if I’ve never had it before?” She took a miniscule bite and spit it into her napkin. “That’s awful,” she said. “I’ll just have an egg.”
Fifteen minutes later, I put a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of her, and settled down to my own, now cold, dinner. I looked at Mom and was startled to see tears in her bright blue eyes. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
She sniffed. “Everyone else got restaurant food,” she said, “but I have to eat eggs.”
Dessert was predictable. She requested apple pie but developed an aversion to apples by the time it was served; her coffee was too hot so I dropped an ice cube into it but then it was too cold. As we cleaned the kitchen my brother congratulated me that I had not yet run shrieking into the night. “She’ 90,” I said “she’s 90; she’s 90.”
Later, my older sister called to see how the evening went and Mom answered the phone. “I wish you were here,” Mom said, ”Guy is a terrible cook. He made me eat eggs for dinner.”