Scrabble

The week of her exam, my mother and I play Scrabble nearly every night after dinner. Each game begins with the same routine, which she initiates with the same questions. 

    Now how many tiles do I take?

   

    Seven, Mom.

    Now how do we tell . . .?

    Who goes first? Let's each pick a tile and then we'll know.

    Okay. 

She picks one of the tiles from those I have amassed in the top of the old beat-up Scrabble box and stares at her letter. She looks up at me expectantly, but I don't speak. (Why do I make her ask? I know what she needs. Maybe I don't believe or understand yet. I am willing her to be my regular old mother, the one who knows and tells me what to do.)

    Is it closest to the beginning or the end?  

Her mouth is already getting set to say Oh to my answer. Almost like a pucker, a kiss, but if she was preparing for a kiss, there would be intention in her eyes. She is all reception, capitulation. And trust.

    Whichever tile is closest to A. So you go first.

I watch her fingers hesitate above the spread tiles turned face down. Her eyelids flicker. She looks at me and waits. She still has that expectant Oh ready for my next instruction. 

    We each pick seven tiles, I prompt, and her fingers begin to pluck and collect.

Once the game begins she is alright though. She comes up with as many high-scored words as I. Even when I decide I should try to win a game, she bests me half the time.

   Is zen a word? She asks me several times. (Funny that that word should occur to her repeatedly during the week. Is she channeling a reminder from my inner self? Does her receptivity go that deep?) 

   Sure, Mom. It's a form of Buddhism. I try to tell her what it is, even go so far as to read aloud a definition from the dictionary, but she is not interested. She has become absorbed in the game, where she can rely on her old skills. She only wants to use her z.