Don’t Ask
Mary and I head to J.P. Licks to celebrate Mary’s Mum’s birthday. She’d have been ninety-one, and she loved ice cream.
“Did she have a favorite birthday desert?” I ask Mary.
Mary’s favorite is strawberry shortcake, but don’t make the mistake of preparing it with anything but fresh local strawberries.
“Not the same,” Mary says, and she’s right, though you can’t always find fresh strawberries exactly when you need them.
“Maybe Huckabee’s pie,” Mary answers, of her Mom’s possible birthday favorite. “But I don’t think she had one.”
Still, Clare’s Huckabee’s Pie has its own story — the recipe a kept secret. It was Clare’s go-to whenever she attended a pot luck, or was asked to bring a desert. But when her friends inevitably asked for the recipe, she demurred, “Sorry, can’t. Family secret.”
I’d not tasted Huckabee’s prior to my marriage to Clare’s daughter Mary, who by the way looks exactly like her mother.
“Take a good look at my mom,” Mary said to me when I first met Clare some thirty five years ago. “Because I’m going to look exactly like her.”
Mary and Clare don’t just look alike, they are alike. Their beauty, their smarts, their unyielding care for others, always. We lost Clare two weeks ago, but not her giving spirit. We carry it forward, and tonight, on her birthday, we take a moment to celebrate her special day with a vanilla Sunday from our favorite ice cream spot.
“Do you think they will let us light candles?” Mary asks, not wanting to make a scene.
“Of course,” I say, thinking we won’t ask. We’re not going to be smoking cigarettes, just lighting a few candles in memory of a wonderful woman.
It takes a few strikes, but we get the candles lit and start in on taking a few selfies to send to Mary’s siblings.
“Wait,” I say looking at the results. “Ugh! My phone’s covered in grease,” I say looking a the pictures. It’s like I’ve added a diffusion filter, to make us look younger or something. I kind of like it though, a kind of star filter to celebrate this special moment.
“Here, use my phone,” Mary says, handing me a pristinely clean iPhone 14 to capture a couple more images that might actually pass muster. When aiming to get the shot, I note a woman entering the frame from the back of the store.
“Here, let me take your picture,” she says, smiling. “Who’s birthday are we celebrating?”
“My mom,” Mary says. “It’s her ninety first birthday.”
“That’s so great,” the woman says, taking a couple of pictures of the two of us sitting there with our candle-lit ice cream sundaes. We thank her, and don’t mention that Clare passed last week. Not the point. We’re not here to grieve, not tonight, but to remember Clare on her big day. She lived a long and beautiful life, and left us sweet memories of her love. But don’t you wonder if she also also snuck that recipe off to someone for safe keeping? Hmmm. I do. But what ever you do, when you see Mary don’t ask. Family secret.
