Mother Mary has gone back to Miami, and I miss her snowy white hair, her homemade meatballs, and her lab coat. And there’s one other thing I miss.
Her back scratcher.
Yes, you read it right. She has a back scratcher, which she brought to my house with her. Of course, like any smart-alecky daughter, I gave her a lot of grief when I saw it, as she was unpacking.
“Who travels with a back scratcher?” I asked.
“Who doesn’t?” she answered, because, as you may remember, Mother Mary always answers a question with a question.
So I let it go. Mother has had a back scratcher for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure if this is an age thing or a Mary Scottoline thing. I don’t know anyone else who owns a back scratcher, much less who won’t leave home without one. The back scratcher she had when I was little was of pink plastic, with a tiny hand at the end. It looked like a baby arm.
Borderline creepy.
Her new back scratcher was even odder. A foot long, made from a weird piece of teak or other endangered wood, and at the end where the baby hand would be was a bend shaped like an L, with long fingers carved half-heartedly into the bottom. Misused, it could put out an eye.
“They let you take this through security?” I asked her.
“Why wouldn’t they?” she answered. She slid the back scratcher from my hand, crossed to the dresser, and put it with the neatly folded shirts in her dresser drawer. Mother always uses the dresser drawers, no matter how short her visit, and even in a hotel. When she met me in Boston, she stayed in the hotel one night, and still she unpacked her neatly folded clothes and placed them carefully in the dresser. I didn’t ask her why, because I knew she would answer:
“What’s the difference to you?”
The other thing of note about Mother Mary is her suitcase. She always travels with a red canvas duffel, which she got free as part of a promotion for Marlboro cigarettes. She used it for almost ten years, until one of the pleather handles fell off and the Marlboro red took on a carcinogenic hue.
I hate the Marlboro duffel, and on her last trip, I finally persuaded her to let me replace it. This is a nice way of saying that we fought about it all the way to the airport, so that I had exhausted her by the time we reached the Brookstone in Terminal B, where I saw my opening and didn’t hesitate. I bought her a new black bag with wheels, then sat down on the floor of the store and transferred all of her clothes, including the back scratcher, into the new bag. Still she wouldn’t let me throw the Marlboro bag away, but insisted that we pack it inside the Brookstone bag.
Maybe she became addicted to the Marlboro bag.
It got me thinking about suitcases, in general. I remember perfectly our family suitcase, which we used growing up. I’m going out on a limb here, but I’d bet money that you can remember the suitcase your family had when you were little.
Our family suitcase was a rigid rectangle covered with royal blue vinyl, and it had white plastic piping. Inside it were all manner of fake silk pouches with generous elastic gathering. It was so heavy only my father could carry it. And we all four used it, so either we didn’t have much stuff or it was the size of Vermont.
The suitcase fascinated me, and I always imagined that someday it would be plastered with stickers in the shape of pennants, each with the name of an exotic city. Paris. Rome. Istanbul.
We went only to Atlantic City, but still.
Now nobody will grow up fascinated with their family suitcase, because everybody will remember the exact same one. A soft black box on wheels, like the one I bought at Brookstone. No decals. No tangy whiff of faraway places.
And barely enough room for a back scratcher.
Since my mother left, my back itches all the time. I got in the habit of using hers while it was here, and since she took it away, I’ve substituted a carving fork, a wooden spoon, and a bread knife. I ended up with a hole in my shirt and an itchy back.
Now I need to go out a buy a new back scratcher.
Preferably one with a mommy attached.