Wednesday, when the gardeners come, Big Mama pops in her ear plugs. (She swears by Mack’s Snoozers, made of silicone putty, uses them for sleeping normally.) Lawn mowers are notoriously noisy and these green-thumb guys also bring in a gas leaf blower. Even operated at half-throttle like our city law requires, they blast a big sound. But when I asked why she wore them, Big Mama said she turned to ear plugs because grass screams when you cut it and she couldn’t stand the noise.

Mom is a short five foot three, strong but skinny body, with race as mixed as a cake recipe—dark chocolate coming out on top. But she’s terrified of getting fat. She frowns at me every time I call her Big Mama, but we exist to tease each other. At twelve, I’m already taller than she is, whiter than she is (I suspect Dad was white but who knows, Big Mama’s not saying), and since I sprayed my hair purple, she says I’m doing that separation thing that happens to tweens. So, naturally I suspect the grass screaming story.

Wednesday’s the short-day schedule at Clark Middle School so it’s the day my girlfriends come over to hang out. It’s also Big Mama’s day off work at the Amazon Fulfillment Center (where she leads a team; I’m so proud of her) so she putters around the house, catching up on chores. I have the job of explaining why Big Mama ignores us, ears plugged. She’s like a deaf person, saying “What?… What?” every time we ask for snacks.

I make up a tale about how they’re not ear plugs but a new kind of ear buds she’s wearing. My story is that she’s addicted to the “Serial Killer, A True Crime Podcast” with its new episodes every Wednesday. They love that idea and I see them searching their phones to find it; we’ve all been fascinated with death and dying, after eighth grade President, Gracie Jackson, was killed in a car accident last month. I mostly wear black these days. We’ve tried a home-séance to talk to Gracie twice but she doesn’t answer. Probably doesn’t want to talk to sixth graders.

As soon as they left, I researched this screaming grass idea on the science channel. Yes, grass does elicit a high-pitched sound when cut, but it’s so high pitched it can’t be heard by humans. So, it’s confirmed. Big Mama’s not human. I’m the child of a woman from a parallel universe. Always thought so.

I don’t know what it is about Mom and turf grass. In the spring she lies down in our front yard, puts her ear to the ground and listens. She likes the rustling of the upward surge activity as the new blades push through, a gentle swishing song, she says. It’s common Zoysia grass. What kind of tune can that sing?

At dinner that night, she tells me she’s revised her will. I’m an only child. I’m all she’s got. And I’ll be the one to execute…if that’s the word. No, maybe it was “executor.” She explains she wants a completely green burial—no casket, no embalming, in the back yard, under her beloved grass. She has visions of hearing it grow above her as she joins the earth.

“Circle of Life,” she says.

This is beyond gruesome. Who tells their kid this kind of thing?

I did some google research on her latest. Turns out home burial is illegal next door in California. In our state, Oregon, you can bury someone on your own property, but if you sell, you have to inform the new owners there’s a grave onsite. Could interfere with selling a house. If people are superstitious.

That was my clue; she’d never do anything that would interfere with the value of the house. She’d paid off the mortgage with life insurance from my grandma who died of cancer the year I was born. Selling the house was our “safety net” in emergency.

But I let her think she fooled me.

Kissing me goodnight (she still demands to do this childish thing), she says she won this round of our tall-tale competition. She thinks I fell for the whole screaming-grass-home-burial story “hook line and sinker.”

I gave the win to her. I can permit her to believe I’m still that little girl. Now I know that you don’t need to confess everything that’s going on in your mind. Even to your mother.

– Jeanne Althouse