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The Kitchen Table
i.
A long wooden table takes up more than half the space — a slab of wood their father
had hauled out of the back of his truck and axed legs to one afternoon after too many
complaints of not enough seats to accommodate their ever-growing family. Twin long
benches sit on either side, wood a dierent grain and color but sturdy enough to hold 10
wiggling children of all dierent ages, weights, and shapes banging their sts on the surface
and clambering over each other to get the best picks at dinner rst. The table almost
stretches from wall to wall — one end resting near the front door ready for kids to slide in
when they get home from school and work and take a load o. The other end nearly juts
against the stove their mother cooks at for what seems like days at a time. Once they
wondered if their mother ever left, wooden spoons and spatulas clinking against metal pans
as she makes enough food to fend o teenage starvation and small children begging for a
snack despite the fact that she just served them breakfast not but an hour before.
ii.
The children are grown now. The wooden table and its mismatched benches long
since hauled out of the room and replaced with a sleek modern glass rectangle with shiny
silver legs to match the new paint on the walls and the tile on the oor. It cannot hold 10
wiggling children anymore, but it can hold two small children of ages two and ve —
siblings with matching tan skin and heads of curly black hair from their father. A white,
lacey tablecloth covers the glass surface from spills and messes as the mother — now the
grandmother — tries lifting a spoon to the toddler’s mouth only for her to close her lips in
protest and knock the spoon away again and again splattering the shiny glass surface with
muck and bits of food until the lacey white cloth turns into a rainbow of mess only a toddler
can make. The grandmother looks forlornly until the brother picks up the spoon and turns
it into an airplane. His small lips buzzing together in the form of a mock engine while his
sister giggles and laughs and opens her mouth to accept the spoon’s safe landing. The
grandma smiles and the mess is forgotten.
Emily Elvoid
8
1
Elvoid: The Kitchen Table
Published by Carroll Collected, 2022
iii.
Now the table is wood once more but instead of a slab of wood put together with
man-made love and labor, the wood is machine carved and handpicked from a magazine to
show her kids what she wanted. The lacey tablecloth is cut and folded to adorn the table
center, more for decoration and memory than protection against wayward messes. Instead of
10 or three now the table seats ve or six bodies every Monday and Wednesday night.
Grandkids complain about school and teenage woes as their parents look on in exasperation
and fondness and their grandmother shakes her head in mock disappointment.
iv.
Still made of wood, the table holds generations both new and old. Grandmothers,
mothers, and children adorn each side, packed together like sardines as they reach for bowls
of chips and dip adorning the table’s surface. Laughter lls the air as memories are traded
back and forth of tables both old and new as glasses clink and mouths crunch and smile.
Then the table tremors, a glass breaks and the laughter stops. Panic and chaos ll the room as
chairs scoot away and reach for mother and grandmother and softly in the distance the
sound of a siren slowly approaches.
v.
The room is silent. No more singing. No clinking of wooden spoons against metal
pans. No titters of laughter. No exaggerated stories or exasperated sighs. Nothing. Only
silence punctuated with the soft sounds of sobs from down the hall. Silence.
vi.
For a long while the table is empty. The kids grown and gone; the grandchildren on
the heel of adulthood and starting families of their own; and the lacey tablecloth packed
away into a box marked for storage. The table is once more replaced with another — the
number of chairs changing, the faces of the children and grandchildren older, sadder, but
still smiling softly. Slowly the chatter returns, the music starts again, and the silence slowly
fades.
9
2
The John Carroll Review, Vol. 74, Iss. 1 [2022], Art. 6
https://collected.jcu.edu/jcr/vol74/iss1/6
