My mother’s refrigerator was jam-packed—with jam and every other foodstuff that could be crammed onto its shelves. “Please find me some black olives,” she’d say, and I would dive into the chaos.
“We have three jars of black olives,” I would finally announce. “Two are moldy.”
“Oh, goodness!” she’d say as if surprised, though she had bought them herself. “Throw them away before your father gets home.”
Inheriting my father’s frugality, I have kept a Spartan refrigerator. At any given moment, I know exactly what’s in it and, if I can’t see the back wall, I get anxious. My daughter had the opposite reaction. “I always feel hungry when I look in our refrigerator,” she used to say. I tried to explain about the moldy olives.
But when she became an adult, she kept a refrigerator that looked just like my mother’s. Opening the produce drawer, I would see the same head of lettuce I saw the last time I was there—weeks ago.
The Bible says that the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children and their children’s children. Mothers, too, evidently. Lord knows I’ve tried to manage the mayhem. But there it was, behind the casserole leftovers, another jar of olives.
