The Past Can Make You The Loveliest Present
written by: Lola Ulani Giljon
It is 9 am on a grey November morning and the mother is sitting at the kitchen table, dipping a liver sausage toast into her mug of steaming black tea. Fingers trembling, she pulls out the soggy square, inspects it, folds it twice, and then stuffs the entire piece into her mouth. Closing her eyes, she chews.
Her lips part with a smacking sound and come back together with another. A static rhythm, overlapping with the tick tick of the clock hanging over the counter.
She swallows hard and her eyelids softly flutter open again.
Her gaze meets that of one of her daughter’s. She is sitting in front of her at the wooden kitchen table. Silky brown hair falling on broad shoulders, calm blue eyes, observing her mother.
The mother smiles. The daughter smiles back. Two mouths, the same straight line with crooked edges.
She takes the fingers to her mouth and starts licking off the remaining crumbs, letting each one disappear with delight.
‘How was school today?’
The mother’s voice is low and heavy, carrying the weight of genuine curiosity. A lightbulb flickers above their heads.
‘School was good today. It always is.’
The way her mother grabs another slice of bread from the basket and reaches over for the jam, tells her daughter that she is pleased.
‘When your dad comes home from work later, he’ll help you with your homework.’
The mother pats the empty chair to her right. A clean plate is set in front of it, cold silverware on warm wood, left untouched. Orange juice, freshly poured into a glass. Drops of condensed water forming on the outside and run over the cool surface, like tears down a cheek. She turns back to her daughter, beaming.
‘He told me he will be able to finish earlier today.’
The mother’s hand again reaches over the table, shaky fingers hovering over a block of cheese, a stick of butter, the jar of Nutella. Confusion in her eyes. She grabs the salt.
And pours it into her tea.
The daughter nods while her mother raises the mug to her mouth, taking a sip of her tea.
A thought strikes the daughter’s mind.
Tea on the tongue. A swim in the Black Sea on an October morning. Both are too salty and already a little too cold to be enjoyed.
Her mother coughs and gulps the Black Sea water back into her mug.
The mother laughs. The daughter laughs with her. And again, there are two separate bodies in the kitchen, two different mouths, but only one and the same sound echoing within the walls.
The daughter stops laughing and turns around to look at her father’s face. Her mother had pinned him to the kitchen wall the other morning.
He is smiling, and it is summer. His left arm is put around the daughter’s shoulders, the other one resting on her mother’s waist, green grass in the front yard. The three of them are standing in the shade of the old oak tree. It was cut down 38 years ago.
The daughter gets up from her chair.
‘We have to get ready; we don’t want to be late.’
She moves over to the other side of the table and takes the soft hands of the mother. Skin-like parchment paper, blue veins of ink, and lines in the most ancient language written all over it.
‘I don’t remember where we have to go.’
The mother gets up. Confusion in her eyes, her daughter’s cheeks glistening.
A framed father on the wall, watching both women leave, dressed in black.
- The Past Can Make You The Loveliest Present - February 21, 2025
