I am sitting at the counter sipping a peppery Syrah, watching my mom make enough appetizers to feed the University of Michigan football team. She is making a charcuterie platter, and the massive slab of wood is overflowing with cheeses, meats, olives, grapes and dates.
This is just the start of my mother’s appetizer blitz.
She is also making spinach artichoke dip, baked Brie with fig jam, wontons, rollups, crostinis, stuffed mushrooms, spring rolls, caprese kabobs, mini pizzas, potato skins, deviled eggs, phyllo tarts, not to mention dessert.
Ever since I was young, my mother has loved making apps, more so than normal meals. It started in the late ’70s when a surprise blizzard canceled my parents’ annual New Year’s Eve party. Appetizers for seventy-five guests, and no one to eat them.
Except for us.
And we did. For weeks.
My mother figured out that none of us got sick of eating them. It wasn’t like we were eating pot roast or lasagna for a week straight. It was like eating a new dinner every night. We could pick and choose, mix and match. We could go from New Year’s Eve, to the football bowl games on New Year’s Day, through our winter break and right into school again on that smorgasbord.
“Your appetizer fetish is a sickness, you know,” I say.
“So’s watching me do all the work,” she says, pushing dough into a muffin tin. “Grab a knife.”
I’m not what you would call a chef. Or even a capable cook. I’m what you’d call a good reservation-maker. My job has made my eating schedule a bit off-kilter, to say the least. Since I anchor—used to anchor—the evening newscasts at 6:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., I would usually eat a healthy breakfast and a bigger lunch, as I didn’t like to feel bloated or puffy on air. I would often workout midday and then head out for a lunch at a local restaurant when it was quiet. Then I’d head home to get ready, arriving at the station early to prep my segment and meet with my weather team.
“Here,” my mom says. She takes the knife from my hand and slides it across some green onions. “Do it on a bias. Makes it look prettier.”
“Is that what you used to tell the doctors in surgery?” I tease.
“No. I used to say, ‘Let me do it, if you want it done right.’”
She laughs and takes a sip of her wine.
My mother should have been a doctor, but that wasn’t a real option for her—like so many women of her era—growing up. So she became a nurse, and she was a damn good one. I’ve never been able to go anywhere in town without a stranger stopping to tell us how my mom saved a relative’s life, or stayed in touch after someone passed. My mom has always been an open book. I’ve always seemed like an open book. On TV, you think you know everything about me.
But you don’t.
I look at my mom, her cheeks flushed from the heat of the kitchen. She has always been beyond proud of me, especially for building a successful career in what was once a male-dominated profession. She has not been so proud of me for running away.
“Like your sweatshirt?”
I look down at one of the Christmas gifts my mom got for me, which reads in big letters across the front: EAT, SLEEP, PLOW, REPEAT.
“I love it,” I say.
“You don’t sound convinced,” she says.
“Just tired,” I lie.
“I bet,” my mom says. She walks over and hugs me. It takes every fiber of my body not to collapse into tears.
“Thank you,” I say instead. “For everything. Opening your home back up to me for who knows how long. For listening. For not judging. For every gift…” I stop and stretch out my sweatshirt. “All of which seem to have a common theme, by the way. Winter coat, scarf, mittens, boots, hand balm…”
“Sweetheart, you’re a hothouse flower. You haven’t lived anyplace where the temperature drops below fifty degrees for decades.”
“I will be now,” I say. “I took the job.”
My mother stops cold. “You buried the lede, sweetheart! When?”
“Before I left California. My agent said it was the right thing to do.”
“Again, you don’t sound convinced.” She puts her hand under my chin and looks me in the eye. “Well, I’m thrilled to pieces, but are you ready for this?”
“That’s a loaded question,” I say.
“I know this is hard.” My mom continues to look me in the eye. “I’m here for you.”
She turns back to cooking. “And, do you even remember what snow is? How to predict it? How to survive it?” She stops and grabs my face yet again, just like she does my leg. “How to enjoy it?”
I start chopping again.
“That would be a no then?” My mom laughs at herself. “Well, then, I have an idea after we eat.” She walks over and grabs the bottle of Syrah. “And after you have another glass of wine.”
“You told me the other day I couldn’t handle my liquor,” I say with a laugh.
“You can’t,” she says, before looking around the kitchen very dramatically. “But I don’t see any TV cameras around, so I think we’re safe.”
“Ha-ha, Mother.”
We listen to old holiday songs and eat our fill of appetizers while gazing at the tree in front of the blazing fire. The wine, food and warmth make me sleepy, and my eyes begin to droop.
“No, way, Amberrose!” my mother shouts, her legs curled beneath her in an oversize chair, a blanket over her lap. “If I can stay up, you can stay up! We have to make it to midnight.”
“Why?”
“It’s a big year,” my mom says. “And it requires big dreams and wishes.”
My mom clicks on the TV, and we watch for a while, waiting for the ball to drop. When it does, she leaps up and pulls me to my feet. We count down, “Ten! Nine!” And then she hugs me with all her might when we get to one. “To 2022!”
“Happy New Year, Mom!”
I give her a kiss.
“Do you know the importance of the number two?” she asks.
I look at her. “Am I supposed to make a potty joke right now?”
She laughs. “No. The number two is associated with harmony, balance, consideration and love. When the number comes to you, it means that you should have more faith in your angels.”
My mom has always been the queen of obscure facts. I think it’s because she had to learn to make conversation with patients who don’t often talk back to her. But my mother’s trivia always seems to make perfect sense at the moment.
“It’s 2022!” she says. “Lots of twos. Lots of harmony. Lots of balance.”
My mom twirls me. I spin out of her grip and begin to head toward the stairs.
“Hey!” she yells. “I had an idea, remember?”
“Does it involve my pillow and sleep?”
“Humor me,” she says.
“I’ve been doing that my whole life, Mother.”
She walks over and grabs my opened gifts, which are still sitting under the tree. “Here, put all this on,” she says, handing me my coat, scarf, mittens and boots.
“Why?”
“Put it on and follow me.”
I sigh dramatically, but do as I’m told.
My mom pulls on her winter garb, opens the kitchen slider and steps out onto the patio. I follow her and shut the door. The cold air sobers me instantly. The wind chills my cheeks, and my eyes water. It has stopped snowing, and the sky is crystal clear.
The moon is bright, and I watch two moms—real and shadow—walk into the backyard. I follow, and when I step into the yard, the snow is up past my knees. It’s thick and heavy, and I have to trudge through it. My mom walks into the middle of our yard, into a giant clearing, and by the time I reach her, I am out of breath.
“What are we doing out here?”
“We’re going to make snow angels. Have you forgotten?”
I don’t answer. I can’t answer.
“Oh, honey.” She squeezes my hand. “You need to remember. You have to remember.”
She doesn’t add your sister, your father, the holidays, winter, the snow, to the end of her sentence because she knows I already understand.
“It’s not as if not remembering has allowed you to forget, has it?” She shakes my hand. Hard.
I can hear my heart pound in my head.
“We’re going to fall straight back in the snow, just like you used to do as a kid. The snow is fresh and powdery, so it’ll be like a pillow. But you already know that, right? You’re a weather professional.”
I nod.
“Try to land in a T, with your arms out. Makes for a better angel, remember? I’m going to let go of your hand now, okay? We’re going to jump now, okay?”
My mom grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze.
“Together.”
“What on earth, Mother?”
“Just trust me. One, two, three… Go!”
My mother, at seventy-five, is a force of nature, and she literally pulls me through the air. She lets go of my hand in midair.
We fall backward together, and I can’t help but scream from the excitement. We land with a big Poof! and snow billows up and around our bodies. My heart is racing, and I giggle.
“You remember the rest now, right?” my mom asks. “Just move your arms and legs like you’re doing jumping jacks, then gently press your head into the snow to make an indentation.”
We push our arms and legs through the powder, and I can feel chunks of icy snow sneak down the back of my coat and underneath my shirt. The cold takes my breath away but makes me feel incredibly alive.
I look over at my mom. In the moonlight, her face ruddy from the cold, her now wet bangs hanging from her stocking cap, she looks like a girl.
She looks just like Joncee.
I inhale the cold air sharply. In fact, she looks so much like her that I feel as if I’m trapped in a dream from forty years ago.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” I lie.
She reaches over and hits my shoulder, without messing up the snow between our two angels. “Ope, I’m sorry,” she says with a laugh. “You’re a terrible liar.”
My mom even sounds like my sister. She has the Michigan accent. “Ope,” for “Oops.”
“About” sounds like “a boat.” The vowels are often pronounced differently in certain words.
I lost my Michigan accent long ago. In J-school, my broadcast journalism instructors worked with students to lose their accents, so we could be hired at any station around the country. It was something to hear my Southern classmates end up sounding just like me. I’m sure it was instrumental in me getting hired—I mean, does a Californian want their news from a Michigander or someone with a Jersey accent?—but it’s also sad that our uniqueness was washed away, our personalities watered down, our voices—quite literally—silenced.
“Pick a star and recite the poem.”
“Mom,” I start.
“Pick a star and recite the poem.”
It’s not really a poem, I want to say. It’s a song. Joncee’s favorite from Pinocchio.
“‘When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are…’” I say in unison with my mom.
We did this ritual every New Year when Joncee was alive. She believed there was nothing more pure than newly fallen snow, and that if you made an angel on New Year’s Eve then God would most certainly see it and all your wishes for the new year would come true and—like the song’s lyrics promised—anything your heart desired would come to you.
“Now, we have to stand up as carefully as we can, so our angels—and our wishes—remain intact,” my mom says.
I sit up and try to position my legs underneath me, so I can stand without messing up my creation. But I am not used to the snow, and I slip and fall back on my rear.
“Here,” my mom says. “Take my hand.”
She reaches out, her arm sliding across the snow. I take it, and we stand. Together.
We leap from our snowy silhouettes and turn around. There is a muddled line attaching the two angels, thanks to my mother’s assistance in helping me stand.
“We ruined them,” I say.
“No, sweetheart,” my mom says. “We made them better. They’re connected.”
I look at my mom. My heart feels like it’s made of ice, and her warmth is making it crack.
“It’s good to have you home,” she says. She hesitates. “What did you wish for?”
“Mom! You know I can’t say. Then it won’t come true.”
“Mine already has,” she says, looking at me, her voice as hopeful as church bells in the cold air.
I look at my angel. I wished for so many things right now, I don’t know if God can even make heads or tails of them. I wished for everything—and everyone—I used to have, all of which is gone now. I wished for a new start. I wished that life wasn’t so painful and God wasn’t so cruel.
I just want to spread my wings and fly, I can hear my sister say. Just like an angel.
I stare at my angel, and then I look up into the sky. I don’t just see one star tonight, I see the entire Winter Hexagon. While not one of the officially designated eighty-eight constellations, it is easily recognizable because of its six-sided pattern of bright stars in the Michigan winter night sky. The Winter Hexagon is really an asterism, which are imaginative ways to connect the stars.
Looks like a baseball diamond, Joncee used to say.
This has six sides, not four, I’d correct her.
I don’t care. I just want to hop from star to star.
How could she always see the light in the dark?
Just make a wish and shut up. Don’t be so sciencey, she’d say to me.
I think of what my mom just said about the number two: 2022. A year of harmony. I look back one last time at our two snow angels.
A year to have more faith in my angels.
I shake my head.
I just wish that wishes actually came true.