“There are fifty latkes on this tray,” my 94-year-old mother says. “How many are you going to make?”
“At least one hundred,” I answer, struggling with the potato peeler.
My sister is frying. My niece is chopping onions. My mother spreads another paper towel on a cookie sheet and continues counting.
It’s that time of year. When the women in our family gather to make latkes while gossiping about life and sharing secrets.
My mother’s handmade cookbook is open to the latke recipe, now splattered with grease and flour stains. We all know the recipe by heart, passed down from my grandmother, but keeping the book on the counter brings the past into the kitchen.
“I have news.” My niece stops the blender. “I’m using an iPhone app to help get pregnant.”
“Five, six, what?” Mom’s eyes widen. Birth control was not around in her day, let alone using a phone to track one’s menstrual cycle.
As my niece explains the details, my mom’s expression turns to wonderment, much like a toddler’s. She’s trying to categorize this information. But unlike a toddler who will hold the answer tightly in his little fist and move on to the next curious item, my mother will forget and ask me again. And again. And again. Dementia is taking her to foreign places.
“How many latkes are you going to make?” she asks, tossing the app discussion aside.
“One hundred,” I say.
“That many? One, two, three.” She looks up. “What about this app?”
My niece explains in detail how the app works. She is patient, repeating the details several times. But her grandmother is back to counting. That’s her job now.
I want her to cut the onions. Crack the eggs. Or add the flour. But the simple things in life have become as confusing as new technology. Dementia does not discriminate.
And so, she counts.
“There’s forty on this tray.” Mom picks one up and takes a bite. “Thirty-nine. How many are you going to make?”
“One hundred,” I answer. The batter sizzles. The latkes turn a golden brown.
Something in the crackling of the oil, or perhaps the whirring of the food processor, or the taste of the crispy latke, snaps my mom into awareness. “Your phone tells you when to have sex?”
“Not exactly.” My niece explains again, but within minutes, the mom that could understand, has traveled away.
“Whose recipe is this?” my mom asks. And then resumes counting.
My tears start slowly, then fall into the batter. I want her to remember. I want her to stop growing older. I want her to look at me with those eyes that scolded me as a kid.
“It’s your recipe, Grandma. From your mother.” My niece picks up her phone. “Let’s take a selfie.”
They lean close together, staring up at the camera. My mom’s smile is as distant as the look on her face.
I wonder what she is thinking, where she is going in her mind. And how long before she goes too far to return to us.
“I’m going to frame this and give it to my baby,” my niece says.
“You’re having a baby?” This time my mom’s smile comes from her heart.
“Not yet. But if the app is right.”
“What app?”
My niece nods her head at me. The tears in her eyes match those in mine. “It’s not important,” she says. “How many latkes do we have now?”
One day it may be me who can’t remember, who asks the same questions over and over.
But one thing I know: The women in our family will forever carry on our tradition of sharing secrets while frying, eating and counting latkes.
