The Chow Chow Table Under the Oak

Then I washed my face and went to bed, and at five the next morning I drained the vegetables and started the vinegar.

I put up thirty-six pints in two batches. Ten minutes in the water bath, the way the card says, and the way the extension office says too, because Mama and the county agent agreed on that one thing if nothing else.

I listened to the lids ping on the counter while I drank my coffee. Thirty-six pings. Mama used to count them out loud, and I caught myself doing it.

I made my own labels with a pen on plain white stickers. They said “Ida Mae’s Chow-Chow.” Nothing else.

I got the picture of Mama off my hallway wall. It was taken behind her house the summer she turned eighty, under the pecan trees. She is wearing her white Sunday blouse with the collar pinned, looking right at whoever held the camera, which was Wes.

I put it in a plain frame from the dollar store, because the old frame was too heavy to stand up on a table.

I made one more sign, on a piece of poster board. It said, “Ida Mae’s Chow-Chow. $6.”

Six dollars. Not to undercut her. I want to be honest here. Part of me wanted to undercut her, and I will not pretend that part was not there.

But six dollars is what Mama would have charged if she had ever let herself go to six. It covers the jar, the lid, the sugar and the vinegar, and a little over. That is what I told myself, and it is true, and it is also not the whole truth.

On Saturday I put on my yellow cardigan over a plain white t-shirt. Mama always said yellow was my color. She said it made me look like I had some sense.

I loaded the jars into two laundry baskets with dish towels between them so they would not knock, and I drove to the square.

I got there at seven thirty. Ashlyn was already set up. The sun was coming in low across the courthouse lawn, and it was going to be a clear, pretty day.

The other vendors were putting up their canopies. The egg man. The woman with the soaps. The young couple with the sourdough who drive in from Thomasville.

There was an empty spot right next to Ashlyn’s table. I had called the market manager on Thursday and paid my fifteen dollars for it. He remembered Mama. He did not ask me any questions.

I carried my folding table over and set it up right against hers. She looked up when the legs clicked into place.

I watched her see me. Then I watched her see the jars. Then I watched her see the photograph, when I stood it up in front.

She knew whose face that was. There is a picture of Mama in my living room she has looked at a dozen times. She knew.

She did not say anything. She just stood there, staring, with her arms hanging at her sides and a jar forgotten on the table behind her.

I said, “Good morning, Ashlyn.” That is all I said. Then I arranged my jars.

She said, “Morning,” so quietly I almost did not hear it. Then she turned back to her jars and did not touch one for a long time.