Breaking Bread

Last night, 6:00 p.m.

"Where's my Bach CD?"

"Huh? What?" Tab blinked sleepily in the darkened bedroom, where he'd been taking a quick nap before dinner.

"My Bach CD. Musical Offering. It was a double CD with Art of Fugue. You put the first CD in one of your sleeves, but I can't find the other."

"I didn't know there were two."

"It was right there in the jewel case! Did you throw it out?"

"Uhh, I guess."

"Oh, for crying out loud! I just got it. I haven't even listened to it yet!"

I stomped off down the hallway, downstairs, and out the front door, without even donning a coat against the cold night air. The trash can was out on the curb awaiting pickup the next day. I pawed through the bag, trying not to inhale the odors, and found the jewel case, fortunately not too deeply buried. The CD was in there.

This wouldn't have happened if Tab hadn't decided to store all our CDs in archival sleeves in a special cabinet, I thought, angrily. Tab himself had come downstairs by the time I entered the house. "I'm sorry I threw it out. I would have gotten it for you," he said.

I wasn't in the mood to accept an apology just then. I've never liked Tab's system of CD storage, and I was particularly annoyed that it almost cost me a new CD I hadn't even listened to. I said as much, and from there the conversation degenerated into a nasty argument.

"Well, what's your solution, then?" Tab asked. "Leave the CDs in piles like the rest of the clutter in the house?"

The topic of clutter has been an occasionally inflammatory issue between us for months, and the accidentally discarded CD just fanned the flames. We had a tense conversation with raised voices in the kitchen, but stopped short of shouting at each other because the kids were in the living room. Daniel was concerned and came in to ask what we were talking about, but we sent him out of the room.

The quarrel ended when I just walked off into the bathroom. I sat in the dark on the throw rug, trying to get control of myself. A few minutes later I heard soft footsteps in the hallway, and the sliding door opened a crack. "What are you doing, Mama?" Matthew asked.

"Just sitting, Matthew. Close the door, OK, honey?"

I sat there for a few more minutes, then I got up. I had hungry children waiting to eat. The spaghetti still needed to be cooked, and the salad had to be made.

I finished preparing dinner, wondering whether Tab, who had gone back upstairs, would be joining us. When dinner was ready, I sent Stephen upstairs to tell Tab that dinner was ready. Tab came downstairs. I felt relieved.

We said grace and started eating. I told Tab about a call I'd made to my mother earlier in the evening. He asked a few questions about the call, but did not himself offer any conversational gambits.

"How do you hypnotize someone?" Daniel asked, apropos of nothing.

"Why? Are you planning to hypnotize your brothers?" I asked.

"I was just wondering."

"First of all, Dans, the person has to want to be hypnotized," Tab said.

"But how do you do it?" he persisted.

"You have to get the person to relax and concentrate on your voice," Tab answered.

Daniel picked up a strand of spaghetti and waved it back and forth in front of him. "You will not fight with Mama," he said in his version of a hypnotist's voice.

"Don't play with your food, Dans," I said.

I found myself thinking that it is hard to stay angry at someone with whom you are sharing a meal. Maybe that is why the breaking of bread is so important in most cultures and in religious ritual. When dinner was over, I got up and passed out cookies to the boys. I brought a couple to Tab and then hugged him. "I'm sorry I got mad. I don't want to fight with you."

He hugged me back. "I'm sorry I threw your CD away."

"That's OK. At least we figured it out before trash pickup tomorrow. Then I would have been really annoyed."

So the evening ended better than it began.

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