Sunday Morning

My mother slides her stocking feet into her navy rubber gardening clogs, jogs outside to the front sidewalk to collect the Sunday Times. Her breath billows around her, a frothy cloud of late February white.
We sit at the kitchen table, her feet propped up on the seat of my chair. She takes Sunday Styles, I take Arts & Leisure. We listen to NPR in the background, occasionally making comment on this year’s Oscar nominees or the latest speed skating scandal in the Winter Olympics. But mostly the time passes quietly. The minutes are defined by this quiet – just the crunching of our favorite breakfast food, mushrooms on garlic toast, or the gentle slurping sound as we sip at our coffee.
I finish an article on a new HBO series; share what I’ve read with her. She likes to read the wedding announcements, and we often end up shoulder-to-shoulder, playfully debating which couples look more like siblings than newlyweds.
As the rest of the house wakes, the sizzling of cooking breakfast cautiously intrudes. Someone flips off the radio; turns on the CD player. Our attention is now focused elsewhere, but peacefully so. The moment has passed, usually without comment. These are the moments when the line between mother and daughter seems vague, and we are more like sisters, more like friends.