Appalachia Year

The men of my family wait for our table at the bar.

My favorite restaurant in Dayton is a Thai/pan-Asian place downtown, housed in a factory that used to process and package peanuts - now it's polished wood and exposed brick and high ceilings. My family took me there for my birthday, or Mother's Day, or both, or neither.

My birthday and Mother's Day always fall in the same week. My mom and I, both given to social martyrdom, demand that no one make a fuss and then are quietly disappointed if no one makes a fuss. "I'm sorry" "It's fine, I'm sorry" "Well, don't be!"

My senior year of high school, when other family elements were things-fall-apart-the-center-cannot-hold-ing all over the place, my birthday passed without much fanfare. I'd celebrated Saturday night at someone else's birthday party where I knew no one, tagging along with my then-boyfriend to the event at a grubby punk house in Columbus. The five of us celebrated/uncelebrated Mother's Day and my birthday at a forgettable Indian restaurant in Columbus the next day where I stared into my cup of chai, taking inventory of my first ever hangover. There were no gifts exchanged, to or from me or my mother, but I remember my parents giving me a birthday card that said something along the lines of "you're a wildflower, go change the world" and feeling very touched. Given my condition at the time (adolescence), I was unable to express my gratitude.

At some point during the next week at school, my mom, wrecked by guilt over what she perceived as a weak birthday observance, made two dozen chocolate cupcakes and brought them to my English class. She was the school nurse at the time. My class erupted into hoots and applause at the sight of the cupcakes and my mom, who is shy, did this thing she does where she shields her eyes from the attention and then follows up by sort of sticking out her tongue and crossing her eyes a little bit. My eyes welled up and she quickly disappeared back to the clinic before I could go thank her.