100 Years From Now

I have only ever heard my mother call one man “Sir.” I call him Capt. Edie, and the only person who calls him by his first name is his wife. He is a doctor. But mostly he is one who never stands on ceremony. Ten years ago he told my mother she had to quit drinking before it killed her. They sat at his kitchen table and he looked across and told her, “No more beer.” My mother is a writer.
Out back of his house now he cooks two steaks, one medium, one rare. The flames sear through the meat, turning its blood brown. I think it smells good even though I won't eat it. Mrs. Edie has been vegetarian for 25 years.
“Did you graduate yet?” he asks me.
“Magna Cum Laude.”
“Good. Good. ... Your health good?”
“Yes, Captain. Except I finally got the chicken pox last year. That was bad. They had to give me pills to stop them coming.”
“I had a surgery last year. The doctor asked me when I'd had my coronary bi-pass. I never had one. I had a coronary without knowing it. My blood pressure's good now. I hope to get ten years more out of life. ... I know that's nothing to you.”
I looked at him, not wanting to disagree. “Ten years is a long time.”
“I have to get this perfect for her.” He turns the steaks another time and when he takes his off the flames go all the way down.
Their house has many things in it. Collections from when Mrs. Edie shut her gallery down and things brought home from Japan and Europe. Many things make squares; tables, paintings, sets of things. Capt. Edie has a collection of 25 muskets from more than one war. The are made of metal and wood designed as simple as death. They hang on the wall safely, in a hallway filled with painting supplies. In his bedroom is a cabinet full of scrimshawed whaling tools made of ivory.
Mrs. Edie brings vegetables and bread to the table as we sit. Capt. Edie holds a curiously large pepper mill above his meat. He pushes the top and we look over, responding to a sound like a battery-operated battle toy.
“What the expletive is that?”
“It's a pepper mill.”
“It lights up.”
“It was a gift.”
“It's heavy.”
“They're fancy people, the Morrisons.”
“Must be the batteries.”
“You have another book coming out?” Capt. Edie says to my mother.
“It's due in six months and she only has eighty pages!” I'm trying to be light, or carefree. It's just something I throw out there. A light gibe, maybe. I never teased my mom about anything.
“Miss, in a hundred years it's not going to matter if she starts today, next month or next year!”
But it would if she'd never started the book or never finishes it, I think.
“How is your steak?”
“Terrific.”
“If it's too rare we can put it back on, the coals will be hot almost an hour.”
“It's great, Sir.”
“You should never sign a contract until you've finished, then you know it's yours,” he says.
When I was eight Capt. Edie gave me a scrimshawed ivory bodkin made into a necklace with four-pound test.
Tonight I lie on their couch under heavy blankets to fend off the severe air conditioning wondering what it will be like a hundred years from now and which things will matter and which won't. It seems someone will keep the scrimshaw and the muskets, as they are already so old.

Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
Miami Beach 1998