Rooms & Kisses - One Mom's Fairy Tale

Chapter Two -  “Milk and Honey”
As hostess I felt an obligation to show Praline around Nowhere, particularly the part of it that I love. Her coat had dried, she was wearing it and she looked curled up and ready for the weather. Winter this year had been especially cold and wet. Because there was no building in Nowhere important and high enough to block the wind, it raged around to its heartʼs content. I took the empty jam jars from the kitchen and knew just where I was going to take my
guest.

A pair of sisters manages the little coffee house called “Milk and Honey”. Itʼs not clear whoʼs the younger and who the older - the difference in their age is blurred. Today they look like girls exactly the same age. Their hair is already white, but I feel that beneath the white is hidden a purple tint and that weʼre part of the same family.
Only insiders and true friends know about their jam. They donʼt offer it to people whoʼll eat it as if itʼs something ordinary. They offer it to people with longing in their eyes: for a parent whoʼs no longer here, an unrequited love, for childhood, when their feet were lighter and they could skip above the ground. I was fortunate to get some and taste it. Maybe because of the purple, maybe because of my longing, maybe because I remained a girl. Only my body grew up and so my heart was a little more broken than others.
When my children were especially good I took them to “Milk and Honey” to celebrate and the sisters would serve us all their good things. We would shout and crow from our throats with importance and eat with our hands. I’d bring the jars back to be filled when they were empty - it was a wonderful outing. I put Praline in my pocket and she stood in it quietly. We left the house, me trying to walk very slowly since I didnʼt want to upset her stomach. Every time someone passed us Praline lowered her head and hid.
Eve and Ruth were busy - “Milk and Honey” was packed with old people and mothers with new babies. I caught their eye, and they rushed to finish. I made my way through the people and went on past the counter - there was an old wooden chair back there, and I seated myself on that. Eve, who was the first to finish with her customers, invited me into the kitchen. In their kitchen there was a smell that made me want to be a better person - a fragrance that had been in the world since before we started with our mess. There were herbs, balls of dough waiting to rise, roots and vegetables...and I had a weakness for anything that had once been connected to the earth.
I pulled off a stem from a bouquet of Louisa above my head and prepared myself some tea. A little movement in my pocket reminded me...
With a lightly limping, almost unnoticeable dance, Ruth entered the kitchen, and the two of them looked at me. The sisters had grown up by the sea and they missed it. This longing gave birth to fascinating stews and unbelievable dishes, but still, it hurt, and every day, they tended their wounds.
Ruth and Eve claimed that I brought the sea with me. They looked into my eyes and saw its waves. They tasted its salt. I told them a few of Motherʼs stories, about ships and lights and a sunray carried by the foam. About gifts that it's given us without our asking.


“Iʼve got something to show you,” I said, and lifted Praline out of my pocket. “Mother sent her.”
It was hard to know if they were surprised, so difficult was it to read their faces because of all the wrinkles. I was delighted when Praline was the first to speak up. “Do you have any chocolate cake?”
Suddenly I remembered we hadnʼt eaten breakfast. A generous slice of cake was cut immediately, and Praline sat on her knees and went at it with her fingers. We just watched her. Praline filled up in a minute and asked to take the rest home. Eve wiped her mouth for her, and Praline thought this was very funny. “People think Iʼm a baby because Iʼm little, but Iʼm really no less than a million years old.” The sisters, who had survived The Flood and crossed The Sea when it split, were extremely happy to finally hear that someone had been here longer than them. Eve took her to help fill the jars with jam. I thought Ruth would pounce on me with questions, but she just looked at me lovingly and asked, “Howʼs Mother?”
They had already seen so much, nothing could disturb their calm.
I told her that Mother was fine and that she was looking forward to their visit in March. Ruth and Eve always asked me about her and loved hearing me invite them and remind them of the awaiting visit in the spring. Eve returned with the jam and as always her wrinkles organized themselves into a smile. Ruthʼs wrinkles too were whispering to describe a smile. I smiled too and so did Praline, who already felt that she had more than one home.

                               Doll and hat by Natcase1