We didn’t know how to behave at a restaurant, we didn’t understand the concept, it was dark when Uncle Tim came for us, he must have known we were hungry but it felt so strange going into that place at dawn, and I couldn’t shake the feeling he was dropping us off. Tommy must have felt it too because we both crawled into the same side of the booth as he did, to barracade him in.
What would you kids like? the waitress said and I didn’t really get that she meant to eat, I just thought it was a general question and I was thinking about it when Bobby said a warmer coat and the waitress practically fell apart, it was like she melted, her smile went perfectly straight and her eyes went from Tommy’s, crashed through mine, and into Uncle Tim’s.
Moth, she said in a windy whisper, who are these kids?
Honestly I was so green I looked around for an actual moth, we didn’t have much of a grasp on reality back then although it was about to crash through in the form of bacon and eggs, I don’t know if you’ve ever been hungry enough to cry over food but we were, both Tom and me we cried as we ate, didn’t matter about our manners the waitress said, she sat across from us, she helped Uncle Tim with cutting and stacking our forks, we didn’t know if we should laugh or cry or die. When I looked at Uncle Tim he seemed undecided also.
We heard but didn’t notice they were talking, they seemed almost like one person instead of two, her name was Jane, she called him Moth, I asked why she called him Moth when his name was Tim.
I started calling him Moth in grade school. Why would anybody shorten Timothy to Tim when they can shorten it to Moth?
When I look back on that morning now it’s crowded with names.
First Moth shouted our mother’s name for I don’t know how long, and then the waitress, hers was the same as mine which was shocking, it had never occurred to me this was a possibility, then Uncle Tim turned into Moth, and finally the restaurant was called Tommy’s Place although the neon was out on the TOM and the apostrophe S so all we saw at the crack of dawn was MY PLACE.
Jane across the table like she was, I remember it felt like I was looking into a far-away mirror, she cried when we did and laughed when we did, she scrunched her face up when I ate a slice of grapefruit thinking it was orange, she had crooked teeth like me although nice and white.
We slept the rest of the way to the farm.
She said she couldn’t get us out of her head, that’s what we heard when the doorbell rang at dinnertime and Moth opened the door, I just can’t get you and those kids out of my head.
She sort of flew in and sat at the extra chair around the kitchen table. Me and Tommy, at exactly the same time, we stood up and slid our chairs right against hers, we pinned her in so she could never leave.
