Millie and Me

I’ve had a revelation about my mother-in-law, Millie. Let me just admit up front I’ve never liked the woman.

Our relationship has been mostly one of tolerance, a precarious pretense that we don’t bother each other. I have my list of gripes: Millie’s bigotry, her lack of curiosity, her provincialism. I turn up my nose at what I perceive as her low-brow interests: the bowling team of “girls”; the forays to the casinos to play the slots; the television that’s left on, at full volume, 24 hours a day. Our aesthetic differences can be summed up by the crocheted doily skirt on the toilet paper roll that resides in her bathroom. Enough said.

“She goes to the SAME PLACE every year for vacation for 60 years!” I complain to my girlfriend. “Down the shore,” versus my preference for international destinations, adventures, surprise. “What am I supposed to talk to her about? We have nothing in common.”

Except that we love the same man. And now that my son’s in the mix, make that men.

Luckily for me, Millie lives on the east coast and doesn’t travel often. Safely ensconced in the Bay Area, I’ve breathed a sigh of relief at not having to spend much time together. I can’t imagine what I’d do if we had to socialize with her on a regular basis. When my husband invented his “Boyz at the Beach” trips to take our son to New Jersey each summer to see his family and east coast friends, I got off the hook from having to see her for years. A week of solitude to boot. I had it made.

But recently my husband’s sister sent a wedding invitation and this time, there was no getting out of it. My husband comes from a family where the women talk on the phone at least ten times a day. If one goes shopping, they all move together in unison. If I didn’t attend the wedding, they’d definitely perceive it as a snub. I had to suck it up or risk feeling responsible for irreparable damage. Clenching my teeth, I prepared to suffer through it.

Instead, my revelation. I brought along yarn and a crochet hook and dragged Millie outside to sit with me on her stoop. I let her be the expert about something I really do want to know how to do. As we leaned our heads together, she demonstrated the various types of stitches, and in the process, I discovered something new. Every week, Millie and her girlfriends volunteer at a hospital where they crochet lap-blankets for the patients. “Then,” Millie told me with a sly smile, “We hide some snacks in our crochet bags and go to the Senior matinee.” Looking up and down the street as if to make sure her neighbors weren’t eavesdropping, she added, “We watch one film and then, we sneak into a second movie. Isn’t that terrible?” She laughed nervously.

I cracked up and patted the back of her age-spotted hand, the one that was skillfully whipping through rows of stitches while my yarn was a big jumble.

“Millie,” I said. “Finding a deal is something we definitely have in common. You’re a woman after my own heart.”