The Cake That Said 312

“Let me take some of it,” she said.

“Pam, you live three hours away.”

“I work in claims, Jodi. I can work from a laptop at Mom’s kitchen table as well as I can in Bloomington. Give me something. Give me a day. Let me learn it.”

I thought about it. I thought about how much I had wanted to be the one, and how tired I was, and how Mom had looked at Pam’s lavender blouse like it was made of gold.

“Tuesdays,” I said. “In January. For a month.”

“January,” Pam said. “Fine. Tuesdays.” Then she laughed, a wet little laugh. “Why January?”

“Because if you can do it in January,” I said, “you can do it.”

When we went back inside, Pam went straight to Becky and Sue, who were standing by the coffee urn with paper plates. I watched her from across the room.

I couldn’t hear what she said, but I saw Becky nod and put a hand on her arm.

Then she went to the head table and knelt down beside Mom’s chair in her good slacks on that Legion floor, and she put her head in Mom’s lap, right on the lavender blouse. Mom put her hand on Pam’s hair and left it there.

Aunt Kathy came over to me later with a piece of the 312 cake and said, too loud, “Well, I guess that settles that.”

I said, “Nothing needed settling, Aunt Kathy. Pam’s taking January.” Kathy looked surprised and then pleased, and went to tell the quilting ladies.

That night, after the Legion was swept and the balloons were tied in bunches in the back of Mark’s pickup, Pam and I drove Mom home together.

Pam sat in the back seat, which she has not done since we were girls.

At the house, Mom wanted her tea, and while the kettle was going she said, “Pam, get my calendar down off the nail. The farm co-op one by the phone. I want to show you girls something.”

Pam took it down. It was the free calendar the co-op gives out every year, with a different combine or tractor for each month.

Mom has hung one on that nail by the wall phone for as long as I can remember.

“Turn it over,” Mom said.

On the back of each month, in pencil, in Mom’s small careful handwriting, there were tally marks.

Little bundles of five, four straight lines and one across, the way she used to count jars of beans in the cellar.

Next to some of the marks there were notes. “J. snow.” “J. deer by cemetery.” “J. brought rolls for the girls.” “J. pressure low, J. came from route.” “J. tired today.” “J. sang with radio.”

Pam turned the pages slowly. October, November, December, all the way through to this October.

Then Mom said, “There’s last year’s too,” and pointed at the drawer under the phone, and there it was, folded flat, the whole first year.

I had to sit down at the kitchen table. I had never once seen her do it.

All those mornings, she must have made the mark after Mark brought her home, when I was out on my route and nobody was watching.

“Why, Mom?” I said. “Why would you count?”

She poured the hot water over her tea bag and didn’t look at me. “Because I couldn’t pay you,” she said.

“You wouldn’t take a dime, not even for gas. So I counted. It was the only thing I could think to do that was any use.”