The Tiny Server
CHAPTER TWO from CAUGHT UP Truth and Metaphor | An Imaginary Tale
The Tiny Server
2
Petra knew how to set a dinner table. Her mother, a product of the 1950s, majored in home economics and married a rising, self-made executive. Lou’s mother Evelyn, a “Daughter of the American Revolution,” a blue blood through and through, insisted her daughter was marrying beneath her. She had envisioned a marriage to a gentleman from old money.
After all, wasn’t that what all this debutante business had been about?
Lou’s role as an executive’s wife included throwing lavish dinner parties. Unlike the other wives, who followed their parent’s advice and married well, she did not have any hired help. There was a nagging sense that they were and would always be the smallest fish in a big pond.
She spent hours watching Julia Child, practicing and conquering her recipes. Petra became her prep cook, server and dishwasher. In all honesty, she didn’t mind. Once they put on their aprons, Petra’s a mini version of her mother’s, a rare camaraderie followed. They worked in unison from early morning until Lou took her seat at the dinner table. After that, it was all on the tiny server.
A volatile, often violent woman, Lou’s rages, fueled by gin, came from a place deep inside her, a place of incomprehensible pain and suffering. She had no control over it. It was commonplace for her to lash out. On one occasion, she threw Petra to the floor, her knee holding her down at the hip with her hands wrapped around her six-year-old daughter’s throat. Far away, in the distance, her voice drifted in and out.
“You will listen and you will obey me when I speak to you! I am your mother and I’m sick of you ignoring me. You better start minding me, or I’ll kill you!”
Petra could not breathe. The moment her mother’s grip relaxed, she gulped in a breath of lifesaving air. She did not know where the rage was coming from and had no clue what she was going on about.
At her yearly physical, the doctor asked Lou, “Do you know your daughter is eighty percent deaf? Her tonsils are so swollen that they’ve blocked the fluid to her ear canals. We need to take them out as soon as possible.”
The color drained from Lou’s face as she connected-the-dots.
Later, in the hospital, over Petra’s favorite ice cream, she said, “I’m sorry I was mad at you. I didn’t realize you couldn’t hear me.”
It was the only apology she ever gave to her daughter, or anyone else, for that matter.
Worse than the physical rages were the emotional wormholes she dug into her child’s soul, wormholes created by impossible expectations and full-bodied expressions of disappointment. No child wants to let down their parent. Lou slathered Petra with a sense of worthlessness designed to control and manipulate her to do better. There was a false presumption that her child could somehow make her feel better about herself by giving an outstanding performance.
It was impossible and while, occasionally, Petra rose to the challenge, more often than not, she failed. Her expanding awareness that she was unlovable and worthless transformed into self-loathing core beliefs. Like all the generations before her, she was being trained to seek approval from the outside in, a systematic brainwashing linking her value as a human being to her performance and accomplishments.
Her mother terrified her, and she longed for her love. As a result, she remained in a constant state of internal conflict, unable to process the two opposing emotions. The situation was a perfect breeding ground for confusion and distress.
During the days they spent together preparing for dinner parties, Petra found it easy to pretend that she had a loving relationship with her mom. Lou focused on the job at hand and had a calm about her, something reminiscent of a meditative state. Of course, Petra had to be very careful to follow her mother’s instructions as directed. She had learned from experience not to spill ingredients or miscalculate measurements. Regarding table settings, she understood the art of perfect placement. She knew one serves the dinner guests from the left and clears from the right. As long as her help was seamless, they worked side by side, in perfect harmony.
Lou, in a calm sternness, directed her, never a word of praise, but no criticism either. Petra would imagine them in a television show, a show where the family got along, helped each other out, and had each other’s back. She would ignore the silence and grand expectations by imagining words of encouragement, compliments, the clapping of hands, and appreciation. In reality, all she could expect was a pat on the head, the ultimate sign of approval. It would come at the end of the dinner service, if all went as planned.
In the meantime, she had all these hours to daydream. Eons of uninterrupted time spent in proximity to her mother, feeling the warmth of her, arm brushing arm, feeling the swish of her dress as she moved around her, her mother’s hand on her hand guiding the knife, stirring, whisking batter or icing a cake. Behind her, directing her, showing her how to line up the place settings, how to polish silver and crystal. Petra cherished her mother’s touch, even though there was no love in it. In truth, it had a certain desperation, fueled by a fear of failure, but in Petra’s imagination, she transformed it into warm sunshine and butterfly kisses.
Doorbell ringing, greetings, laughter, cocktail glasses clinking, these were the joyous sounds, heard but not seen, by the tiny server as she worked behind the scenes. Keeping her eye on timers, checking temperatures, plating appetizers, pulling desserts and placing them on cooling racks; she was too busy to greet the guests.
The kitchen had a swinging door, which she cracked open to listen for her mother’s approach. With expert timing, she stood ready with two platters of appetizers, one for each of them. Petra loved circling through the guests, loved their cheerful faces and their delight as they interacted with the tiny server.
“Oh my! Yes, lovely, I will have one of those. Isn’t this wonderful? I wish my daughter was just like you. Your mother must be so proud! Honey, do you see this? Isn’t she darling?”
At the end of the meal, it was always the same.
A guest, clinking their crystal wine glass for quiet, offers a salutation to Lou for the lovely dinner. They turn and acknowledge the tiny server, so well-behaved. They declare their jealousy, toasting the amazing parent, and the tutelage that produced such a daughter. Right on schedule, Lou fills with pride and puffs up. As she inhales the exhilarating avalanche of appreciation, her self-worth explodes within her.
And then, like a bucket full of holes, within thirty seconds, Petra watches all the approval, overflowing just moments before, drain out and disappear into the floorboards, leaving in its wake a dreadful emptiness. All that hard work, all that preparation, for thirty minuscule seconds of euphoric pay-off.
Afterward, as they head side by side, towards the kitchen for clean-up, Petra steps ahead and turns. Her mother hesitates.
“Mommy, it’s alright. You’ve worked so hard. Sit down, relax, I’ve got this.”
Off the tiny server goes to clean it all up, putting everything back in its proper place while her parents self-medicate themselves into feigned, congratulatory oblivion.
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A harrowing tale, shot through with unlikely humor and fantastical creatures.
This autofiction (autobiography and fiction) novel revolves around a lifetime spent underwater struggling to find the surface. The narrative follows the journey of an unlikely heroine from the bondage of childhood trauma to self-awareness and freedom.
It is a roller coaster ride from the depths of hell to triumphant success that finishes with a big Hollywood ending.