transcend the old cowboys-and-Indians genre.
It’s really a profound critique of racism, about Ethan Edwards’s projection of the
savage part of himself onto the Native Americans.”
“Pleeeeese … pretty please with a cherry on top.” Omar holds up his hand. “I give
my word of honor.”
“It’s scary,” Adam says, “but nothing is really shown.”
“I’ll cover my eyes if it’s inappropriate.”
“Why don’t you get into your pj’s and brush your teeth first,” Myra suggests.
Adam heads upstairs to help Omar and to get the video set up in the music room while
Myra goes out to water her garden. Rachida says she has to make a work call, leaving
Caro to help Eva with the dishes.
Caro assumes the position at the sink, rinsing the dishes and them handing them to
Eva to load into the dishwasher. She can see her mother in the garden below moving
among the plant beds with her snaky hose. Leaning over to prune the white begonias,
her mother appears in the soft dusk slender and limber as a girl.
Stuffed with the macaroni and cheese, Caro feels old and heavy. She watches her mother
rewind the hose and then disappear, heading inside, Caro assumes, through the doors
to her office. A few minutes later, Caro hears her mother’s steps on the front stairs,
and then the piano as she begins to play.
“Your mother, she plays so beautifully,” Eva says. She looks at Caro shyly. “I never
hear anyone play so beautifully.”
“She does.” Caro listens, trying to identify the music—one of the Bach Inventions.
Despite her persistent efforts, her mother had not been able to get either of her
children to stick with an instrument. Adam had hung in for two years of clarinet,
before hurling it on the floor in a moment of frustration. Caro had quit the guitar
after six months of lessons, during which she’d developed painful calluses and failed
to tune the damn thing.
For her fiftieth birthday, her mother, having never played anything more than a schoolgirl’s
“Chopsticks,” bought herself a grand piano. Even the bow-tied salesperson questioned
the purchase; perhaps, he suggested, she would like to rent a console on which to
take her first lessons. Her mother was resolute. She had already found a teacher,
an Austrian man who’d looked at her hands and had her sing the melody of a Chopin
waltz before declaring that she would be playing the Mozart Sonata in C by the end
of a year.
On the day the piano arrived, her mother began her practice schedule: one hour, five
nights a week. Indeed, by the end of her first year of study, she was playing the
easy Mozart sonatas, Beethoven’s “Für Elise,” and the Chopin Waltz in A Minor.
The first time Caro heard her mother play, she was filled with wonder tinged with
a strange resentment. Glancing up from the keys, her mother had seen Caro’s expression.
“Yes?” her mother said, placing her hands in her lap.
“I can’t believe how well you play. After so little time.”
Her mother raised her eyebrows.
“It’s a little overwhelming to have a mother who can do so many things. It leaves
me feeling like a klutz.”
On her mother’s face was a familiar quizzical look whose melancholic undertones, depending
on Caro’s mood, provoked the wish either to get away as fast as possible or to wrap
her arms around her mother. “You were lucky,” Caro said. “All your mother could do
was clean.”
“Very lucky. All I ever saw was my mother’s backside sticking up in the air as she
crawled around on her hands and knees scouting for dirt.”
Caro smiled, imagining her shrunken, dour grandmother. “But if it were you, it would
be a perfect backside that would make mine look enormous in comparison.”
“Oh yes, my pathetic daughter. Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard, director at twenty-six
of a preschool she’s since made nationally renowned.”
“Seriously, Mom, how do you do it?”
Myra closed her
It’s really a profound critique of racism, about Ethan Edwards’s projection of the
savage part of himself onto the Native Americans.”
“Pleeeeese … pretty please with a cherry on top.” Omar holds up his hand. “I give
my word of honor.”
“It’s scary,” Adam says, “but nothing is really shown.”
“I’ll cover my eyes if it’s inappropriate.”
“Why don’t you get into your pj’s and brush your teeth first,” Myra suggests.
Adam heads upstairs to help Omar and to get the video set up in the music room while
Myra goes out to water her garden. Rachida says she has to make a work call, leaving
Caro to help Eva with the dishes.
Caro assumes the position at the sink, rinsing the dishes and them handing them to
Eva to load into the dishwasher. She can see her mother in the garden below moving
among the plant beds with her snaky hose. Leaning over to prune the white begonias,
her mother appears in the soft dusk slender and limber as a girl.
Stuffed with the macaroni and cheese, Caro feels old and heavy. She watches her mother
rewind the hose and then disappear, heading inside, Caro assumes, through the doors
to her office. A few minutes later, Caro hears her mother’s steps on the front stairs,
and then the piano as she begins to play.
“Your mother, she plays so beautifully,” Eva says. She looks at Caro shyly. “I never
hear anyone play so beautifully.”
“She does.” Caro listens, trying to identify the music—one of the Bach Inventions.
Despite her persistent efforts, her mother had not been able to get either of her
children to stick with an instrument. Adam had hung in for two years of clarinet,
before hurling it on the floor in a moment of frustration. Caro had quit the guitar
after six months of lessons, during which she’d developed painful calluses and failed
to tune the damn thing.
For her fiftieth birthday, her mother, having never played anything more than a schoolgirl’s
“Chopsticks,” bought herself a grand piano. Even the bow-tied salesperson questioned
the purchase; perhaps, he suggested, she would like to rent a console on which to
take her first lessons. Her mother was resolute. She had already found a teacher,
an Austrian man who’d looked at her hands and had her sing the melody of a Chopin
waltz before declaring that she would be playing the Mozart Sonata in C by the end
of a year.
On the day the piano arrived, her mother began her practice schedule: one hour, five
nights a week. Indeed, by the end of her first year of study, she was playing the
easy Mozart sonatas, Beethoven’s “Für Elise,” and the Chopin Waltz in A Minor.
The first time Caro heard her mother play, she was filled with wonder tinged with
a strange resentment. Glancing up from the keys, her mother had seen Caro’s expression.
“Yes?” her mother said, placing her hands in her lap.
“I can’t believe how well you play. After so little time.”
Her mother raised her eyebrows.
“It’s a little overwhelming to have a mother who can do so many things. It leaves
me feeling like a klutz.”
On her mother’s face was a familiar quizzical look whose melancholic undertones, depending
on Caro’s mood, provoked the wish either to get away as fast as possible or to wrap
her arms around her mother. “You were lucky,” Caro said. “All your mother could do
was clean.”
“Very lucky. All I ever saw was my mother’s backside sticking up in the air as she
crawled around on her hands and knees scouting for dirt.”
Caro smiled, imagining her shrunken, dour grandmother. “But if it were you, it would
be a perfect backside that would make mine look enormous in comparison.”
“Oh yes, my pathetic daughter. Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard, director at twenty-six
of a preschool she’s since made nationally renowned.”
“Seriously, Mom, how do you do it?”
Myra closed her
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