“I’ll just have some rice pudding,” my mother says. We’re in a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint in Bridgeport, Connecticut, meeting halfway so my parents can hand off their car to my daughter. I’ve come by train; they’ve crossed on the ferry. What could go wrong?
They pick me up at the gritty Bridgeport ferry terminal. Its location directly across from the train station makes it convenient and walkable, but also shifty and unsavory. Both hubs attract a slightly dangerous edge. Everything about the handoff seems a little dirty, but I have a nice luncheon planned for the interval between my parents’ arrival and their return on the next ferry. A short drive to a quaint, nearby town should offer a welcome refuge.
From the moment I get into their red Honda CRV, the vibe is weird. My mother is upset, her displeasure on full display. Story of her life, story of mine. Whoever is to blame, presumably my father, my mom is aggrieved and I know exactly what I’m supposed to do. Like my father, I am expected to soothe and mollify.
It is under these strange circumstances that we find ourselves seated at a run-of-the-mill pizza joint twenty minutes away from the ferry. Despite my efforts to find a charming lunch spot, the place I’d chosen is boarded up. Perfect. We are now short on time before their return ferry and the only real alternative is Sal’s Pizza House next door. My mother’s disposition isn’t improving and, as we make our way into the one room restaurant, we jockey uncomfortably before seating ourselves in a booth. We are the only customers and are staring at our menus when an Italian man, maybe Sal himself, stops at our table. “What can I get yous?” he asks, hovering over us.
My mother exhales and sets the menu aside, “I’ll just have rice pudding,,” she sighs as the server looks at her in disbelief.
“Lady,” he says, “we don’t got rice pudding.”
My mom shrugs and gazes into the middle distance. It’s like she’s picturing an old-fashioned refrigerated dessert carousel, the kind that was a staple in the fancy restaurants of her youth. That’s where her rice pudding rests on a clear glass shelf, spinning in slow, imaginary circles.
“In that case, nothing,” she replies. Her performance is masterful, a study in self-imposed despair.
I refuse to acknowledge what is now clearly a hunger strike. When the server turns to me, I smile politely and ask for a steak and cheese sub with everything.
When it’s my dad’s turn, he hesitates, frozen and unsure. He is suspended between his desire for a roast beef sandwich and the unstated prohibition on his freedom to enjoy food. What kind of husband eats lunch when his wife is so obviously suffering? It may be one thing for me to ignore my mother’s antics, but for him it is a dangerous act of betrayal.
“I guess I’ll have… a salad?” he says to the server, as if he’s asking permission. I bow my head in resignation and file the tableau of this moment in the annals of my family’s fucked up history. My father’s complicity in indulging my mother’s martyrdom is an old schtick, but somehow, I’m surprised every time I see it. An hour later, I exhale an enormous sigh of relief as I drive away from the ferry dock in the donated car. I can’t get home fast enough.
I didn’t know it then, but I’d filed the pizza-shop scene away. That day in Connecticut was before my divorce. Almost ten years later, it replayed in a quieter house, under different circumstances. By then I had met the man I now half-jokingly call my current husband. We’ve been together for eight years, married for two, and still call ourselves newlyweds. But marriage in midlife is something else entirely. We carry so much history—stories that don’t include each other, and whole lives already behind us.
Case in point: it’s a chilly February weekend when my husband’s college roommate, John, flies up from New York. The visit is compact and when he arrives, the three of us have a lovely lunch together at the modern kitchen table of our old farmhouse. That night the gents attend a reunion dinner in Boston and we plan a quick brunch for the next day. At the last minute, my husband invites his twin brother and sister-in-law to join us. They are all old friends from college.
Though I’ve enjoyed the visit, I’m less enthusiastic about brunch. I can already feel my chest tighten at the thought of talk turning to old friends — strangers to me, but vivid in their shared shorthand and laughter. Worse, I can feel that old sense of illegitimacy stirring — the one I carry as a second wife.
Despite a warm welcome early on, recent interactions have sharpened the feeling that my place in my husband’s family is provisional, my children an asterisk. The old, prickly sense of illegitimacy hums under my skin — quiet but insistent.
While my sensitivity is partly to blame, it is also the case that my husband’s brother and his wife have displayed a kind of glib exclusivity. Invitations to family dinners or holiday parties sometimes include only my husband’s children. My kids are left out, reinforcing the needling sense that my standing in this modern family is largely probationary.
Anticipating more of the same, I consider hiding away upstairs during brunch. While I generally maintain a high standard of hospitality, I’m not quite ready to forgive their persistent blindness to me, the irrefutable evidence of my past: my four children, who deserve better.
I get up early on Sunday, brooding and silent. In the kitchen I hull strawberries, compose a beautiful fruit salad, and pop a coffee cake into the oven. I set some coffee to brew and retreat to our bedroom.
When my husband’s brother and his wife arrive, I dawdle. I tidy, brush, and moisturize. When I’ve stalled for as long as I can, I come downstairs, say hello, and take my seat at the breakfast table.
Thankfully, people are pressed for time. John will leave soon for the airport, and my husband is a one-man band, madly frying eggs and scrapple at the stove, busily assembling plates, dishing out fruit salad, and coffee cake.
When he hands me my plate, I hesitate, then shake my head and pass it along. I’m not eating,” I say, my voice too light, almost casual. But I can feel the quiet heat rising in my cheeks, the way the table stills for just a moment, as if my refusal lands heavier than I intended. Then, laughter resumes a touch too brightly, as though to smooth the moment. Talk turns to old friends and the party the night before. Brunch ends quickly. I have a nice chat with my brother-in-law as he leaves, but my sister-in-law slips out without saying goodbye.
***
A week later, the cleaners come. To stay out of the way, my husband and I decide to meet for lunch at a nearby restaurant.
On the way, a memory comes to me unbidden: picturing my mother’s dramatic refusal to eat at Sal’s, I laugh out loud. Suddenly, another image springs to mind — this time, me. My husband composes brunch while his wife quietly weaponizes the moment, refusing to break bread among friends.
And then it hits me: I am witness to my own hunger strike.
I’ve spent most of my life studying my mother, like an anthropologist trying to decode the rituals of an unknowable culture. My motives are simple. Maybe if I understand her moods, map the logic of her anger, I might shield myself from the chaos she creates.
Would understanding save me?
More than anything, I do not want to become my mother. And yet, some days, I see her in my own reflection: in my silences, my quick retreat when I feel overlooked.
Heading to meet my husband, I am surprised and embarrassed by my expert imitation. I can’t wait to see him, to confess my revelation, and to laugh together. Later, alone, it’s not quite as funny.
On the drive home, squinting into the late afternoon sunlight, the truth settles in:
Despite my best efforts, I will never outrun my mother.
She is a part of me.
Always there.
Always ready to emerge.
Always ready to surprise me.
But so is the chance to notice — to stop, to soften, to choose differently the next time the script beckons.
***
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