Meet the Parents

My mother had a saying: “Guests are like fish. After three days they begin to stink.” Here’s the thing about my mother, though. She never bought fresh fish. She bought Mrs. Paul’s frozen fish sticks, which she served us every Friday along with Tater Tots, leading me to think that good Catholics ate golden-brown food on Fridays. Here’s the other thing about my mother. She never had guests. Only once in my childhood did someone from her or my father’s family stay overnight at our house. In my father’s case, it was because his family lived in England, and he’d lost touch with them. In my mother’s case, who knows. Possibly it was her cooking.

I’m guessing the fish line must have been something her own mother said.

I wouldn’t know, because I only met my grandmother once. When I was five, we took the train out to Walla Walla to visit my mother’s family for the first and last time. I can’t remember any interaction with Grandma, or even if that was what we called her. I remember that Uncle Al had a farm with a hayloft to play in, and ripe strawberries we could pick and eat until our bellies were bursting.

I know Uncle George had a red-haired daughter named Cacky, whom I adored, and that Aunt Louise scolded my brother and me for winding up the chains on the swing set and spinning ourselves dizzy. And that’s it: the sum total of my memories of my parents’ relatives. To this day, my family in Washington are strangers to me.

My husband’s mother also has a saying: “We love you. When are we going to see you again?” Ed’s family—his parents and his sister and her husband and little girl—come out to stay with us, or us with them, three or more times a year. When they come to town, they all pile into our home, and when we go to Florida, we all pile into theirs. Neither place has a guest room, but both have sofas and floors, and that’s enough. The first time we came to visit, Ed’s parents insisted on giving us their bed. His dad slept on the couch and his mom took the love seat. We thought the love seat was a pullout sofa bed, but in the morning we found her with her legs hanging over the arm. If anything could stink after three days, you’d think that would, but as always, Jeanne couldn’t bear to see us go.

Of course, I know what my mother meant. For the first three days of a visit, you are caught up in the joy and novelty of seeing one another. You’re busy catching up. It doesn’t bother you that you have no time to yourself, that you have to wait to use the shower and have to drink coffee that’s not made the way you like it. From day four onward, there’s a subtle shift. You’re running out of news to talk over and outings to pass the time and meals that everyone can happily eat. Patience begins to fray. By day six, something as trivial as a coffee table water ring can seem like grounds for a NATO tribunal. You begin to view your guests through the magnifying glasses of the put-upon host. A TV set turned four decibels higher than you like registers as “blaring.” Making a 13-cent long-distance call is perceived as “running up my phone bill!”

Ed’s family often stays six or seven days. By the last day, I admit I’m ready to have my home back to normal, to get dressed in the room where my clothes live. Six rooms aren’t enough for five guests, but I blame the apartment for my feelings, not the guests. I don’t want them to go after three days, I just want the building to get larger.

I’ve come to love Ed’s relatives. I think of them as family in a way that I never thought of my own relatives in Walla Walla—that collection of names and faces on Christmas cards. And I couldn’t have these feelings about Ed’s family if they didn’t come visit as often as they do, or if they stayed in a hotel and dropped by for meals. Family are people who live together—if only for a week at a time. They’re people who drop towels on your bathroom floor, put your cups and glasses back in the wrong place and complain about your weather. You do it to them, they do it to you, and none of you would have it any other way.

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