By Two weeks since Jess died and I have not been to class. I should be more alarmed by this. I'm a student who has never missed a class on purpose, who highlights textbooks like a woman possessed, who once went to a lecture with a 102-degree fever because we were covering due process hearings. I have not been to class in two weeks and I cannot make myself care. The textbooks are on my desk next to the lentils. Everything is exactly where it was on September 14. I have become a museum of the last day things were okay.
Katie called my mom. I know this because Mom showed up on Thursday without warning — drove the sixty-three miles from Oak Lawn in her Camry with the passenger seat full of grocery bags and the kind of determined face she gets when one of her kids is broken and she's going to fix it whether they want fixing or not. She didn't knock. She had the spare key I gave her in August "for emergencies." This qualifies.
She sat on my bed and looked at me and I could see her calculating — how much weight I'd lost, when I'd last showered, whether the granola bar wrappers on the floor were a good sign or the whole diet. She didn't cry. Patty Kowalczyk does not cry in front of her children during emergencies. She cries later, in the car, or in the bathroom, or never. She said, "Amanda Jean, you're coming home." I said, "I have class." She said, "You haven't been to class in two weeks." I didn't argue. I didn't have the energy for arguing. I barely had the energy for breathing.
She packed my bag while I sat on the bed. She packed clothes, my toothbrush, my phone charger. She did not pack the lentils. She took the textbooks. She left the lentils. I think she understood that the lentils were something else now — not food, just evidence of a person I used to be three weeks ago who thought she was going to make soup.
I slept the whole drive home. When I woke up we were on Ridgeland Avenue and Mom was pulling into the driveway and Dad was standing on the porch in his work boots, still dusty from a job, and he opened the car door and picked up my bag and said, "Your room's ready." Mom made scrambled eggs. I ate four bites. It was the most I'd eaten in days. They tasted like nothing. Everything tastes like nothing. But Mom made them and I ate them because when Patty Kowalczyk makes you eggs you eat the eggs. That's the rule. That's always been the rule.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to write about this recipe, because the honest answer is that I don’t even fully remember eating them—I just remember my dad picking up my bag and my mom moving around the kitchen and then there was a plate in front of me. That’s what these eggs are to me now: proof that someone loved me enough to do a small, ordinary thing when I had nothing left. I’m not going to pretend I have some technique revelation or a fancy twist; Mom’s scrambled eggs are just scrambled eggs, made the way she’s always made them, and that’s exactly why I needed them.
Mom’s Scrambled Eggs
Prep Time: 2 minutes | Cook Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 7 minutes | Servings: 1
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons whole milk or heavy cream
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Crack and whisk. Crack the eggs into a bowl. Add the milk, salt, and pepper. Whisk until the yolks and whites are fully combined and the mixture looks uniform — about 30 seconds.
- Heat the pan. Place a small nonstick skillet over low-medium heat. Add the butter and let it melt slowly until it foams but does not brown.
- Add the eggs. Pour in the egg mixture. Let it sit undisturbed for about 20 seconds until the edges just begin to set.
- Fold gently. Using a silicone spatula, push the eggs slowly from the edges toward the center in wide, unhurried folds. Do not stir. Do not rush. Every 15 to 20 seconds, fold again.
- Pull early. When the eggs are just barely set — still slightly glossy and soft, not dry — take the pan off the heat. The residual heat will finish them. Slide onto a plate immediately.
- Serve. Eat as many bites as you can. Four is enough. Four counts.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 280 | Protein: 18g | Fat: 22g | Carbs: 1g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 420mg