Mint Condition

When my mom turned fifty my husband and I took her out for lunch. We brought her to a lovely little restaurant called Piquant in the Hyde Park neighborhood of South Tampa. I’d been raving about this place for months, and had tried to take my mom there before, but she never wanted to go. Then her friend Barbara told her that it was “the place to be” in South Tampa, and all of a sudden she was dying to go.

“We should check out that place Piquant some time,” she said to me one day in the car on our way back from Ikea, “Barb says it’s pretty happenin’ over there" and the food is supposed to be outta this world!”

I swallowed my frustration. We’d had a decent day together so far, and I didn't want to ruin it by pulling out the ‘I told ya so’s.’

The next weekend, my husband Dave and I took her to Piquant for lunch, and she loved it. My mom ordered an iced tea--that’s all she ever drank--and when it came to the table there was a little mint leaf floating in the glass.

            “Oh, isn't that nice?” she said with an excited smile, in awe of the tiny green garnish. She pinched the lemon wedge and dropped it into the glass, brought it up to her lips and took a sip.  

“Mmmmm. Now that’s a glass of iced tea--Barb was right about this place.”

She looked around the room, sipping her iced tea, charmed by the pleasant decor, the exposed brick walls, the ritzy air of the place. She looked so happy in that moment it made my stomach turn. All my life I tried so hard to please my mother and this one little mint leaf put a smile on her face that I could never compete with.

The next day I bought her a little Spearmint plant from the grocery store and put it in her kitchen window. Then a week later I stopped by to do laundry, and in the kitchen window was a whole row of Spearmint plants, half of them plucked clean.

When Dave’s birthday came in February, we stopped by my mom’s house after dinner for cake and coffee. The cake was dried out, and crumbled like potting soil, but we all ate it, smiling. Dave and I sat there nodding along, half-listening to my mom who was still going on and on about how much she had loved Piquant. Dominating the kitchen windowsill were four Spearmint plants, two Rosemary plants, two Basil plants, and a cluster of Thyme. But they were no longer in the flimsy black plastic cartons that they come in at the store; they were in different colored mason jars--pink and purple, blue and red, lined up like a little glass rainbow, overflowing with lush green leaves of all shapes and sizes. It was adorable, like something out of a Martha Stewart magazine.  

By spring, my mother’s windowsill forest had doubled in size and now included Sage, Parsley, Lavender, Dill, and Cilantro. It was then that she decided to relocate the herbs out to the backyard. She asked Dave to come over one Saturday and Roto-till a 4 foot by 4 foot plot near the lanai. We suggested she drape chicken wire over the herb garden, to keep out the birds and squirrels, but she pooh-poohed our suggestion.

“Why would I want to cover them up? Then I wouldn't be able to see them.”

When we returned a week later there was chicken wire covering the herb garden.

My mom spent the next few months in the backyard, down on her knees, pruning the herb garden in her floppy wicker sunhat and bright green gardening clogs. The garden kept getting bigger and bigger, and by now she had taken the Roto-tilling upon herself.

“Developing quite the green thumb, huh?” I asked her one day over coffee.

“I’m just trying to keep busy, that’s all…everyone needs a hobby.”

By August she had outgrown the herbs and was on to tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants and peppers. Two weeks later she added pumpkins, watermelons, and butternut squash. She was out there from dawn until dusk, always misting and clipping and pruning.  

            I stopped by last Saturday, on my way home from the grocery store, and she was out back as usual, down on one knee, working the garden. It was a particularly hot day, even for Florida, and through the kitchen window I could see she was flushed. Her cheeks matched the color of her pink paisley shorts. She looked exhausted. Happy, but exhausted. From my bag of groceries, I pulled out a Spearmint plant. I placed it on the kitchen windowsill which had been empty ever since she moved her plants out to the backyard. I dropped a couple ice cubes into a glass, sliced up a lemon, and poured her a tall glass of iced tea. I plucked a little mint leaf and dropped it in.

She slowly rose to her feet when she saw me coming outside. Her ruddy face beamed with a prideful smile, her cheeks speckled with beads of hard-earned sweat.

            “Lookin’ good, farmer Joe, why don’t you take a little break?” I joked, handing her the glass of iced tea. Her smile curled back into a twist of repulsion. She eyed the glass as if there was a bug in it and handed it back to me.

            “Ewww, this has mint in it, honey. I don’t care for mint in my iced tea.”

I took a deep breath, and then turned around and walked back inside, feeling the hot sun beating down on my back every step of the way.