We never had one when I was a kid because Mum was British. Well, my grandparents were British, Mum was born in Charleston, South Carolina. But she picked up the accent at home and worked hard not to lose it. She would say things like loo, and carpark, and petrol. So, when my father came home from the bank with it under his arm, Mum was less than pleased.
“I won’t have that contraption in my house,” she said, dismissing him with a flick. So, he did what any man who values a happy house does; he took it to the garage and placed it next to a Folgers can filled with odd nuts and bolts on the shelf above his workbench. And that’s where it sat, for a while at least.
“A hot pan and butter are all you need,” she said as the crispy edged, golden crusted slice of toast, slid from the black iron pan to the paper plate clutched in my ten-year-old hands. “A hot pan and butter.” I folded the toast in half and pushed two links of Jimmy Dean in the little pouch I created, one for me, and one for Papa. And I ran off to take Papa his share.
Papa was in the bathtub, crouched over in the soapy water, chrome toaster floating proudly by his head.
Mum and I dressed in black, we buried Papa, we ate casserole, and we let everyone tell us it would be okay. We even let ourselves believe it. Papa’s life insurance paid off the house, but that was about all. So, mum got a job as a waitress at the Waffle House, and we got along okay, for a while at least.
The summer I turned fifteen, Beatrice Maxwell moved in with us. She worked at the Waffle House with Mum and needed a place to stay after her boyfriend beat her up and cut off her ears with a hunting knife.
“Where did that come from?” Mum asked me as I stood in the kitchen with my arms hanging at my sides staring at it.
“Beatrice.”
“It’s okay, it’s just a toaster,” she said. Two days later I came home to find police cars and an ambulance in front of our house. Beatrice was sitting cross-legged in the front yard, sobbing madly. Her crimson hair stuck to the salty wet streaks on her red face. That poor girl always had her hair in her face.
I watched as they rolled Mum’s grey body out the front door. She was followed by an officer in blue carrying the toaster by its cord, leaving a trail of incriminating bathwater drops on the porch.
Again, I dressed in black and ate casserole.
I stayed with my grandparents until I graduated high school. And then, thanks to a fundraiser put on by the Charleston Fire Department and a local motorcycle club, I went to college. I graduated, got a good job, and met Jane. We dated for a little over a year and we were married yesterday.
The ceremony was beautiful; all our friends and family were in attendance. We sang and danced, they wished us well, and they gave us gifts. We got a blender, a microwave, and a vast array of gadgets and trinkets for our new life together. And two toasters. One for each of us.
