RNC Week is The Week She Died. I Will Only Remember Her

Overwhelm and the moments we cling to.

I remember watching the pool of white milk spread like ghost blood over the brown Formica. It was dark outside the window. The glare of the overhead light inside shone on the surface of the milk.

I tucked my chin like a turtle into my neck and slumped in my seat, anticipating the scold, the leap to reach for a towel, the hurried rush to wipe up my mistake. They’re mad I spilled. My lower lip would’ve perched. Stick that lip out any further and a bird’s gonna come poop on it, my Grandma used to say.

I was six or seven in this scene. The cup was a royal blue Tupperware, a similar shade to the blue background on the cover of my upcoming memoir, A Well-Trained Wife. I’d recently wondered what those cups would look like if run through our electric can opener, and I’d tried it. I liked the ruffled effect on the edge and felt sure my mother would agree, so I put the entire set of her expensive Tupperware through the machine. When I spilled the milk, I think she was still angry. Maybe it was even the same day.

At any rate, I didn’t remember the milk scene until this week. The Tupperware edges are part of our family lore, a case exhibit of how challenging it was to raise a creative, probably-neurospicy, child like me. My wonder, coupled with a lack of common sense to know the can opener would ruin the cups, is the punchline.

The case exhibit demonstrates I follow the wild hairs. Get into mischief when not watched closely. A handful. The summations don’t allow for how I was also a child, one with ADHD, unattended hours, and a creative, intelligent mind. We skip the reasonable explanations and go with “precocious.” Years out, everyone can laugh about it, including me.

But in 40-some-odd years I’ve never expanded the view to how it felt to be the child in this particular story. What else happened in that time, when I was six or seven? And why would the memory surface now, the circle of wet milk slowly ever-widening across the table, the blue cup with the ruffled edge laying on its side, my chin tucked while I slump and brace myself for the reaction?

I’ve spilled. A Well-Trained Wife releases in just over two weeks. The hardcovers are here. I’ve held her. My dreams and memories entwine.

Now, like then, a lot is happening in the periphery. Each of the topics on my plate this week could be its own post—

• the peculiarities of Vance as Trump’s VP choice,

• the reel I shared on “We don’t have a democracy” rhetoric,

• the mob rule of the GOP,

• Trump’s verbiage around unity,

• My friend died.

I’ve had a headache. My nerve endings buzz with a restlessness that demands movement. The hours race by, the days a blur. How has another week passed with a blink? How many moments will obscure into summation; what moments will become new punchlines?