While talking to my friend one morning on the telephone, I hear the distinctive sound of a child’s heavy breathing from the upstairs extension. “Is someone there?” Silence. “Can you please hang up? I am using the phone.” I hear an abrupt click followed by fleeing footsteps and the slam of a bedroom door. The culprit was no stranger but rather my ten-year old son. I sat him down and explained that conversations are private and it is impolite to eavesdrop.
Oh the hypocrisy…
Flashback thirty years, to my teenage self, lying in the coolness of my suburban Long Island bedroom. It is midweek during the summer and raining. I am bored having not yet begun my summer job. I hear my mother downstairs in the kitchen talking to Lily, who is both her cousin and best friend. They grew up in Ireland together on nearby farms. I knew the drill well. The two would chat for a while and then Lily would suggest she might “come over for lunch” the next day. My mother always agreed. And so it goes.
Their lunches generally lasted all afternoon into evening and were filled with stories of family, mutual friends and news from Ireland. The whirr of the blender competed with their laughter as they created a favorite après lunch cocktail, their signature frozen daiquiri. I often wondered on some days, how Lily made it home.
On that fateful day, I strain to hear their conversation, but cannot. Knowing it is wrong, I pick up the phone extension gently and await the next pause between them. Putting on my best Irish accent in imitation of my mother, I ask “Lily, why don’t you come over tomorrow? “ Lily does not miss a beat, “Why I was just going to suggest that dear.”
The next few moments remain to this day, both vivid and jumbled in my memory. I recall a momentary silence as my mother dropped the receiver and then, her thundering footsteps ascending the stairs toward my room. In my haste to lock my bedroom door, I leave the receiver dangling on the bed. Lily is still on the line. I try to hold the door shut but am no match for my adrenaline pumped mother who with the strength of Goliath pushes the door forward and lunges toward me. Generally a nonviolent woman, the incident has unraveled her to the core. Grabbing the only available weapon in sight, the phone, she begins to pummel me with it. In the ensuing chaos, I do recall one thing oh, so clearly… Lily’s voice calling out from the other end “Hello! Hello?” HELLO? Is everything alright? Dear?” in between the strains of my screams of “Mom, NO PLEASE, I’m sorry!” MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Strangely enough, though I saw her numerous times after, Lily never mentioned the phone incident. There is no doubt in my mind that having lain witness to the payback, if not in physical presence but in audio, was all she ever needed. And, I learned my lesson in spades. Though sometime, at family reunions, my sister with a gleam in her eye will beg me to recount the story of mom “and the phone” which remains to this day, an all-time favorite.
Shangri-La 