When I was four years old, I came up with a plan: I was going to make my mother well. “Mom, I’m making you an energy machine,” I announced from the kitchen table. My mother was at the counter preparing lunch, her dark hair pulled back in a long, loose ponytail, her legs pale underneath cut-off shorts. The machine was fueled with orange juice: we used to keep those cylindrical containers of Minute Maid concentrate in the freezer. Someone once told me that orange juice gives you energy. When the machine was ready, my mother sat down at the table and drank the juice. “I know this will make me feel better,” she said, her amber eyes twinkling. A part of me believed her. A part of me knew she was playing along. Sure enough, come afternoon, my mother curled up, like always, on the brown plaid couch. While she napped, I played house with three dolls named Amy: Old Amy, New Amy, Big Amy.
All through my childhood, my mother’s lupus was present in one way or another. It gave structure to our quiet days: as my father left for his machinist job at a factory, my mother cooked breakfast and cleaned the kitchen. If she was well enough, she quilted or sewed while I played. With afternoons came her nap; she’d wake up around the time my father returned. The sound of the Plymouth station wagon scraping into the carport was our cue. My mother was too tired to cook in the evenings, so when Dad got home we’d grab our things, pile into the Plymouth, and drive to Denny’s. There weren’t many restaurants in Woodland, California, but there were several Denny’s franchises, so we rotated — Mondays at Denny’s on Main Street, Tuesdays at Denny’s on West Street, Wednesdays at Denny’s on East Street. As the years went by, we followed this routine — breakfast, lunch, nap, Denny’s — faithfully, although in time my mother moved more slowly on the way out the door, her naps became longer, and quilting projects languished half-finished in the sewing room.
