Sometime during the seventh grade two things happened to me. The first was that I got hooked on salami (腊肠). The other thing was that my mom and I weren’t getting along really well. We weren’t fighting really badly or anything, but we didn’t laugh together much anymore. Things were changing, and my mom and I were the first to feel it.

As far as the salami went, my mom wouldn’t buy any because she said it was too expensive and not that good for me. To prove my emerging independence, one day I used my pocket money to buy a full sausage of dry salami. I didn’t want my mom to see it. So I hid it in the only place that I knew was totally safe — under my bed. There was a special corner under the bed that the upright hoover couldn’t reach. Under the bed went the salami, back in the corner — in the dark and the dust.

A couple of weeks later, I remembered the delicious treat that was waiting for me. I peered beneath the bed and saw... not the salami that I had hidden, but some green and hairy object that didn’t like anything that I had ever seen before. The salami had grown about an inch of hair, and the hair was standing straight up, as if the salami had been surprised by the sudden appearance of my face next to its hiding place. Being a picky eater, I was not interested in consuming any of this object.

Some time later, my mom became obsessed with spring cleaning, which in her case meant she would clean places that had never seen the light of day. I knew in my heart that the moment would soon come when she would find the object in its hiding place. During the first two days of her cleaning, I watched carefully to judge the time when I thought she would find the salami, She washed, she scrubbed, she dusted... she screamed! “Ahhhhhh... ahhhhh... ahhhhh!” The screams were coming from my room. Alarms went off in my head. She had found the salami!

“What is it, Mom?” I yelled as I ran into my room.

When my mom continued pushing it hard, I finally burst out laughing.

My teenage son, Jordan, always complained about having to be home earlier than all his friends. He would tell me that he was already seventeen, but still had a curfew (宵禁). He believed he was practically an adult. I pointed out that he was not an adult as he was still in high school.

“You don’t trust me!” he yelled. Before I continued, he rolled his eyes, slammed the door and walked away. I sighed. How could I make Jordan see that I only wanted to keep him safe?

I decided to go for a walk, hoping the December air would clear my head. I opened the front door and nearly stepped on her: a small black cat, just like a meatball. “Hi, Meatball,” I said, bringing her into my arms. I walked back in, touching her neck gently. Meatball seemed happy enough to come in the house, but after an hour or two, she sat by the door, meowing to go back outside.

“Why won’t she just stay in with us all the time?” Nathan, my youngest son asked.

I explained to him that she was happy here but she liked being able to come and go as she pleased.

“That must be nice,” Jordan muttered from the other room, complaining why the cat, not him, could come and go. He even asked me to give Meatball a curfew.

Meatball became a regular.

One night, temperatures were unusually low. Meatball stood at the door, meowing to go outside.

I shook my head at her, afraid that she might freeze to death. She stared at me and meowed again. I patted her head, “I know you’re not happy, but it’s for your own good.”

“Mom’s not being mean to you,” Nathan told the cat. “She’s just trying to keep you from turning into a frozen meatball.” We both laughed at his joke.

The next morning, I couldn’t find Meatball. I asked the kids if anyone had seen her.

Jordan nodded, “I let her out last night.”

As I drove to the animal hospital, Jordan sat in the back, holding Meatball inside his coat.

My dad worked in construction. His day started early and ended late. All he wanted to do was crash on the couch and relax when he got home. For the most part that was what he did. No one complained; we were just happy when he was home.

But one hot and muggy summer, when my parents’ nineteenth anniversary was coming up, they made plans to go out, just the two of them. The big day finally arrived and Dad got home at seven. Mom had fed me early. She was dressed in her finest and wearing her favorite pair of high heels when he came in. He came through the kitchen and headed for the family room. It was obvious he was hot and tired.

“Honey, I just need a thirty-minute nap and then we will go out to eat,” he said as he sat down on the couch. Mom was already on her way over to the couch to give him a fresh cup of hot coffee. She bent over and kissed him on the head and said, “I’ll be ready whenever you are.”

I knew how important this evening was to my mother, but before long Dad was fast asleep. Then I watched my mother do the strangest thing. She reached into the refrigerator and took out eggs and bacon. Soon she had a batch of biscuits baking in the oven.

Before my eyes she piled a plate full of his favorite foods. As she set another fresh cup of coffee on the end table she bent down and kissed him while whispering in his ear. “It’s time to wake up.”

He sat up on the edge of the couch. As he looked up he found my mom standing in front of him with his dinner. “Honey, I promised you I would take you out to dinner and I meant it.” he said sincerely.

Mom sat down beside him on the couch as he took the plate of food. She said, “I know you would, but I also know you’ve had a hard day and you’re tired. What’s important is that we are together. We can go out any time for dinner.”