The Wooden Spoon

Jacqui Wiley

Mark opened the drawer. He couldn’t believe it was still there: Mam’s wooden spoon. Well, what was left of it. It once had an oval-shaped bowl-like top, back when he was a child.

Mam had many wooden spoons. They all rested in the second drawer from the top, to the left of the kitchen sink, the cooker directly behind. Mam always took her position up right there. Chief cook and bottle washer, she called herself.

Her wooden spoons posed as ordinary wooden spoons. Spoons for stirring stews and soups to the right, the savouries. Spoons for stirring puddings, cakes and deserts to the left, the sweets. Many he noticed, worn down from stirring, some with tiny pieces missing from their edges.

And then there was Mam’s weapon of choice in the middle, the main wooden spoon. The big fella. The same size as the others, but this spoon had personality, power and authority.

He reached out, touching the handle. He was surprised at how smooth it felt. How could it still be here after all this time? He slapped it into the palm of his hand. He didn’t flinch. How had this piece of shaped wood instilled so much fear in Mark and his siblings when they were young?

Mark had grown up in this house. Looking around, nothing had changed. He hadn’t been home in years. He was too busy, he consoled himself: college, work, social life, girlfriend, wife, family. It was so much easier to pay Mam’s fare to visit him, to ring her, to send home presents, flowers.

He lives in England now. One day, he researched the phrase ‘the wooden spoon’, Cambridge University, 19th century, a giant wooden spoon was awarded to the student who came last in a Maths exam. ‘Imagine that, Mam – a wooden spoon taller than you were. Five foot two, with the strength and power of several men. With that spoon, you took no prisoners. Dad would say a sally rod would be better, but you had your weapon.’

All Mam had to do was hold the handle and slap it into her other hand.

“That we may be alive in this moment again,” he could hear her say.

‘Mam,’ his internal dialogue continued, ‘it’s just a spoon made of wood. Why did you keep it? A souvenir perhaps?’

He smiled to himself.

Mark knew mothers do not need to act to be believed. They only need to use their tongue.

‘All you had to do was reach for the drawer and we’d stop in our tracks. If we pushed you a little further, you’d hit it off the counter. We’d duck knowing a piece might fly.

‘You never once placed it near our flesh. The authority it had… you had. Or was it the mutual respect we had for each other, wrapped in love?

‘Now you’re gone.

‘You gave me the wings to fly. This was my nest and I’ve finally come home...too late.’

“Mark, have you chosen a keepsake?” Anna, his sister asked.

He looked back at the space where his Mam used to stand. Mark smiled at her image in his subconscious eye and turned to Anna to answer.

“Yes. Mam’s wooden spoon.”

“That old thing!”

“Yes. This old thing.”

His hand wrapped around the handle his Mam once held, and felt her close again.

Jacqui Wiley is a member of Inklings Writing Group, who meet on Tuesdays at 11am and Wednesdays at 7.30pm in the Annebrook House Hotel. Aspiring Writers welcome and there are no wooden spoons as nobody finishes last.