Page 25 of Red Hot Roaster

We filled our plates, and then Rose declared, “You should be thankful it’s not Thanksgiving.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, taking the bait like a sucker.

“Because before you can eat, you have to present a three-minute, memorized speech detailing what you were thankful for in the past year,” she replied with a perfectly straight face.

“Each and every person at the table has to do this?”

“Oh, yes. We have a huge family-and-friends-giving here at the house.” She hesitated before adding, “So the speeches may last over an hour before we can dig in.”

Rose frowned and stopped talking, maybe thinking about the first Thanksgiving without her mom. Bet her mom had been one of those who made a big deal out of all the holidays. Bet she’d gone overboard in the best possible way—feeding everyone and their dog within shouting distance.

Rose looked sad, and I wasn’t going to allow that. Not that she didn’t have a right to be sad or to take as long as she wanted to grieve.

I wasn’t going to avoid asking Rose about her mom like people often did when somebody you loved died. I’d get her to talk and share stories.

When my mom died, nobody ever talked to me about her again. Nobody asked me what she’d been like. Nobody asked me if I missed her. Nobody even said her name again. And I’d been a kid, just seven. I didn’t even have one photo of my mom—before smartphones and too poor for cameras. And my mom’s family and my sperm donor had deserted us, so nobody was there to help.

Rose had photos all over the place—living room bookshelves, dining room buffet, even the kitchen counters. Framed pictures of her at all ages—with her mom, Finn, a gray-haired guy I took to be her dad, an elderly couple holding hands, her girl crew. Photos of Pirate and earlier generations of chocolate Labs filled an entire wall.

So, yeah, I was going to go there. I was going to talk about the elephant in the room. Or, in this case, the Elvis in my bedroom.

“You know, Rose, I had to promise Princess one of your mom’s meatballs to get her out of the apartment this afternoon.”

“Wait, what? Why?” I understood her shock—Princess always wanted to come over and hang out with Pirate in the backyard.

“I may be exaggerating a bit, but she loves that Elvis in the corner of the bedroom. Anytime we’re there, morning, evening, whenever, she lies pointed toward the guy, worshipping him with her doggy eyes. Whatisit with you women and Elvis? Why did your mom love him so much?”

“Oh my dog, I forgot he was there. I got that for Mom as a joke when she was sick. Jen must have left him behind when she cleared out the place. I can come get him out of your way!”

“No, don’t you dare. I think it would break Princess’s heart to see him go. But tell me more about your mom, about Ellie—why didshelove Elvis so much?”

A grin lit up Rose’s beautiful face. I got distracted for a moment and then caught up to what she was saying.

“He was the entire package! Elvis could sing, dance, act—all wrapped up in those shaking hips, sensuous lips and hooded eyes. Mom was a teenager in the sixties, and that was pretty racy stuff for those times. She bought the records, watched him on TV and went to his movies. I’m surprised my grandparents permitted it, but Grandpa usually went along with what Grandma said. And itwaspretty innocent compared tothesetimes.”

She kept going, and I was happy to see her talk about her mom. “Elvis didn’t disappear entirely when Mom and Dad got married. He kinda took a back seat for a while. Grandpa was gone by then, Dad was busy setting up our first roastery, and Mom was helping Grandma in the coffee shop.”

Rose paused and ladled some more mashed potatoes, meatballs and sauce onto my plate. She popped up to push past the dogs and grab a couple of small saucers from the kitchen. As she came back to the table, she continued talking a mile a minute.

Mission accomplished.

“Now you’d think my dad would’ve been jealous—after all, they’d played ‘Love Me Tender’ at their wedding, and Elvis albums were background music in the coffee shop—but he was a wise man. He knew he was always number one on Mom’s hit charts. Dad even took Mom to Graceland a couple of years after it opened—I still have the photos somewhere around here.”

Princess and Pirate stood, tails and hind ends wagging hard, as they watched Rose spoon two meatballs each on the saucers along with a little sauce and broccoli. No mashies because…garlic. She set them on the kitchen floor just over the threshold, and the dogs gobbled their treats up. In five seconds flat. Like they hadn’t hadtheirsupper a half hour ago.

We smirked at each other and settled back into finishing our meal. Rose continued telling me about her mom and her lifelong crush on Elvis.

“After I came along—she was an older mom at thirty-nine, they’d tried for years before they had me—she’d moved on to collecting Elvis CDs and his DVDs. So I guess I grew up listening to Elvis and watching his movies. Even though”—Rose grinned at me here—“by the time I was in my teens, I was more into Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake.

“But Elvis was always our ‘thing’—especially in those final months. That’s when I found the Elvis cutout. That’s when we’d cuddle on the bed like a slumber party and watch movie after movie on an old DVD player connected to the TV.”

She’d turned inward, humming a little and singing under her breath. “Love Me Tender,” if I wasn’t mistaken.

She looked at me, her green eyes glassy, and said, “Thank you for asking, Rafe. She was a wonderful mother, and I miss her every moment.”

Rose paused, seeming to gather herself. “You’ve probably figured it out—I was ayoungermom when Finn was born. As in, still-a-teenager young. And single, with his father not in the picture. I was so lucky to have my mom there. Dad was great too. Yet it was Mom who taught me how to be a mom. But that’s a story for another time.”

She stood abruptly and clapped her hands. The dogs jumped up, and I jumped a little too at the sudden change of direction. So immersed in her story—and in her—I guessed.

---