Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Mother's Day - The House Next Door & The Pot

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

"Coming into Dave and Morley’s house is, quite frankly, a bit of a feat. You have to really want to get in.”In time for Mother’s Day, this week’s episode is all about Morley – the beating heart of the family and the calm to Dave’s chaos. In The House Next Door, Morley fantasizes about a life very different from her own; and in The Pot, meditates on her role as both a mother and a daughter. And Jess talks about how becoming a mother herself has changed her perspective on so many of the Vinyl Cafe stories.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. Today is all about Morley. And I am really looking forward to this. We don't spend as much time with Morley as I'd like to. And whenever I do, I feel better for it. So let's get right to it. This is a story that we recorded in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This is The House Next Door. So they moved into the neighborhood two years ago in the autumn, into the Tomlinson place. No one knew anything about them before they arrived, not even the Tomlinson's. All Joe could say was that they seemed nice enough. A young couple, no, no kids, but probably, you know, they would have kids.

Time for some young blood on the street. A renewal. Joe and Millie had renewed themselves in one of those condos by the water Our kids are gone, said Millie 37th floor Wait till you see it, said Joe You can see forever, said Millie The new people had a dog First Dave saw of them was the dog

And then the wife, jogging along behind him. She was wearing a stretchy running outfit, gray with yellow piping. It was the day after they moved in. Dave reported the sighting as soon as Morley got home. A black dog, he said, about the size of Arthur. She looked, and he was talking about the wife now, not the dog, and he almost said pretty. He almost said she looked pretty, but at the last moment he thought better of that. Instead of pretty, he decided to say nice. Instead of pretty, he decided to say nice.

She looked nice, but pretty was already halfway out his mouth, so it came out price. She looked price, said Morley. Pricey, said Dave, not missing a beat. She was wearing one of those expensive jogging outfits. Now that was a professional move, thought Dave. That was smooth, except Morley was shaking her head. Amateur move, said Morley. Thankfully, the phone rang just then. I'll get it, said Dave And he jumped up and ran from the table The Turlington's had everyone over for a barbecue To welcome the new couple They seemed charming enough

Maybe she was a bit enthusiastic A little smiley But not unpleasant Her name was Joanne Jo, she said, hand extended. She was in publishing, publicity. She told stories about authors they had all read, Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Clancy, and the British guy, the spy guy. John Le Carre, said Jo. She had toured with him twice. John Le Carre, said Jo. She had toured with him twice. She called him David. Le Carre is a pen name, she said. His real name is David Cornwell. He likes Indian food, curries. Dave liked her.

I like her, said Dave, when they got home. Morley was less effusive. Name dropper, said Morley. You don't go on and on about all the people you've worked with. And you've worked with just as many interesting people as she has. Then she said, and he seems a little precious, don't you think? He was a corporate lawyer, real estate stuff. Jordan. Jordan and Joe. J and J. You watch, said Morley, they're going to start renovating any day.

They started in the spring. And it wasn't one of those upgrade the kitchen cabinets and do the windows type renovations. By the second summer, the Tomlinson place looked completely different. Even from the outside. Nobody had been inside. But from the outside, it looked like the Tomlinsons had taken their place with them when they left. And Jordan and Joe had built a different one in its place, a modern one. One afternoon that fall, Morley was standing on the sidewalk with Mary Turlington and they were watching two guys in

canvas jackets drop some sort of dwarf tree into the center of the newly graveled yard. You know what this must be costing, said Morley. Now she didn't say that bitterly. Her feelings were less complicated than that. She was just put off. Something about these people irked her. Probably it was the extent of the reno, as if her neighborhood wasn't good enough the way it was. Mary Turlington, on the other hand, was straightforward envious. You know how much this must be costing, said Morley. I know, said Mary enviously. They must have spent a fortune. Dave called it the first night, said Morley. Price-y.

Then one afternoon, this is back before Christmas, this is last autumn. One afternoon last autumn, Morley was home alone around 5 o'clock, fixing supper, and the doorbell rang. And there was Joanne standing on the stoop. Hello, said Morley. Come in, come in. Which she immediately regretted saying. which she immediately regretted saying. She was immediately embarrassed, thinking to herself, why did I say that?

Because coming into Dave and Morley's house is, quite frankly, a bit of a feat. You have to really want to get in. Through the front door, anyway. There are shoes everywhere and shopping bags and backpacks and junk mail. And while you're stepping over and around the shoes and the backpacks, you have to avoid the coats protruding from the wall hooks and the banister and the hall table. Why, to get from the front door to the relative safety of the living room, you have to slide down the hall like a surgical scope. Morley didn't actually mean for her to come all the way in, certainly not all the way to the living room. That part happened inadvertently. There was no room to stand comfortably in the front hall, so once she was

through the door, they both sort of shuffled along the hall, where things got worse and worse until before Morley knew what was happening, they had passed the living room and they were staring at the cat who was standing on the counter drinking out of the sink. I wasn't intending on coming in, said Joanne. I wasn't intending on it either, thought Morley. But there they were. And Joanne was telling Morley how she and Jordan were going away for three weeks to Italy, Tuscany, Cinque Terre, Rome. The dog was going to the Casa de Canine. But there was a fish. Joanne was going to say she was wondering if she could hire their son, Sam, to look after the fish,

but before she said anything more, Morley, anxious to get her out of there, jumped in. I'd be delighted, said Morley. And that is how Morley came to be the first one in the neighborhood to go inside their house. It was, simply put, out of this world. It was unlike any house Morley had ever been in, ever. She'd seen pictures in magazines, but nothing like this. Nothing like this because, well, first off, because it was effectively empty, not

literally empty. There was stuff there, but empty is the sense that it gave you. there, but empty is the sense that it gave you. It was face to face, nose to nose, eyeball to eyeball, the calm to Morley's storm, the up to her down, the counter, the contra, and oh my god, look at that. It was the big empty table in the foyer, marble with one solitary flower. Oh, don't worry about the orchid, said Joe. It's going to the conservatory. It's stunning, said Morley. The orchid was white. The floors were gray, polished concrete, heated, polished concrete.

There was one couch in the living room, one, a big white couch. The ceilings were high. The walls were empty except for the wall beside the gas fireplace. On that wall, there was a huge portrait of their dog playing poker. The fish was upstairs in the den. There was a package of frozen blood worms in the stainless steel stand-up freezer imported from Iceland. The worms, that is. The freezer came from Denmark. As she walked home, Morley was imagining how she was going to describe the place to Dave, chewing over the words she might use.

Modern, contemporary, minimalist. It was certainly that. She actually said it out loud as she walked onto her porch. Minimalist. It applied just the right degree of sophistication. And Morley was feeling pretty sophisticated herself for having just been there. Then she reached out to let herself into her house, and her front doorknob came off in her hand. A few days later, at work, Morley was trying to describe the place to her colleagues there.

Three of them sitting in the office, eating sandwiches. Morley sitting on her desk. The bathroom, said Morley. I'm not sure I can do the bathroom. Take your time, said Darren. Three nights she had been going, and she'd only just found the bathroom. It's not like I'm snooping, she said. Why not, said Darren. For God's sake, snoop.

And so she told them about the bathroom. Well, it's big, she said. Imagine a bedroom, a good-sized bedroom. Now empty it out and dim the lights. She was clearly loving the bathroom. I'm not sure she said that there were flowers, but imagine flowers. The walls are gray. There are seven shower heads, one on top and then two rows aimed at your body. And it's in the corner with no stall. It's a wet room. And in the middle of it all,

while she had put her sandwich down now, she had her eyes closed because she could see it perfectly in her mind's eye. The tub in the middle of the room, not tucked apologetically into the corner, maybe the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. An infinity tub, said Morley, big enough for two, a perfect rectangle with a rim around the edge so you can fill it completely to the top, and the water pours over the rim and into a gutter. She went over every night after supper.

First few nights she fed the fish and then left, in and then out. The third night, the night she saw the tub, that was also the night that she first sat on the couch, just for a moment, just to see what it felt like. There was a design magazine on the glass coffee table. She sat down, and then she picked up the magazine and leafed through it, but not for long. The next night, she brought a book.

Just one chapter, she said. Sitting on the sofa, after all, wasn't snooping. By the end of the week, she decided she could spend an hour, but no more. It wasn't snooping, it was house-sitting. Anyway, whatever it was, it was probably a good idea if it looked as if people were living in the house. She sat on the couch under a cashmere throw that she found in the den. found in the den. Next Monday, as she was heading over, a smile on her face, and was that a skip in her step? There was Dave. What are you doing over there, he said. Seems to be taking you longer every night. Exactly how many fish are there? She stared at her husband across the kitchen.

He was standing between a basket of dirty laundry and a half-unloaded dishwasher. Okay, she said, you can come, but we're not snooping and we're not staying. But we're not snooping, and we're not staying. I've been sitting here, said Morley, pointing at the couch. Dave picked up a remote control and pointed at the fireplace. The fireplace flared on. Dave, said Morley. He grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

Come on. Well, said Morley, okay, but just five minutes. The thing was, without the clutter of all her things, Morley felt completely relaxed. It's so tranquil, she said. She glanced at their couch when they got home. There was a week's worth of newspapers piled up at one end. No wonder she felt the weight of the world settling on her. So Dave started going over there with her.

Without talking about it, they established a routine. They would finish supper, do the dishes, and then head over. And Saturday, Dave flipped on the fireplace and produced a bottle of wine from his coat. Morley was already curled up on the couch. Just one glass, said Morley was already curled up on the couch. Just one glass, said Morley. On Sunday, Dave produced cheese and a baguette. As he flipped on the fireplace, Morley said, Last time.

Really, she said, half an hour later. Last time. It was past 11 when she said, we should go. But she didn't sound convinced. On Monday, Sam said, what are you guys doing over there anyway? Seems to be taking you longer every night. Morley said, just checking on the fish. Sam said, it takes two of you to look after a fish. Morley said, okay, you can come. But no snooping. And just 10 minutes. We're not staying. While she fed the fish, Sam found an elliptical trainer in the basement. When he came upstairs, he said, there's a sauna. Can we use the sauna? Morley reacted with horror. No, she said. No, we're not using anything here. We're just taking care of the fish.

anything here. We're just taking care of the fish. She had considered how nice it would be if they could treat it like their own. She'd considered how nice it could be if they could move in. So that every time she flushed a toilet, she wouldn't have to jiggle a toilet handle until she heard something in the tank go clunk. So she would have a stove where all the burners worked on all the settings, not just the back left one. So she would have a house where every door frame, every wall, every floor wasn't nicked, cut, scratched, and scuffed. Truthfully, in her heart of hearts, Morley wanted her house to look like a house that her family didn't live in. Jordan and Joe were due back that Saturday, that Saturday evening. On Friday after dinner, Morley said she was going over by herself. Dave said, what's in the backpack?

Morley said, cleaning stuff. I want to make sure we leave it perfect. She unpacked as soon as she got there. A dozen candles. A hair dryer, a terrycloth robe, two towels, and a bottle of bath salts. She hadn't said what she was going to clean. She fed the fish. It was a foolish idea. She knew better. She wasn't actually going to do it. She actually said that out loud. I'm not going to do it, she said. As she said it, she was arranging the candles at the foot of the tub. It's hard to describe a moment of complete perfection.

But that moment, that night, lying in that steaming tub by the flickering light of her candles might be as close as Morley has ever come. She sank into the benevolence of the water and felt herself float away in a world of warm oils, mysterious fragrances, and silk curtains billowing in the wind. She thought it would be good. It was better than anything she had ever imagined. She was standing there wrapped in her white robe, blow-drying her hair, lost in the wonder of it when they came home.

Her hair dryer was so loud that Morley didn't hear the door open. It was Joanne who came upstairs and found her. Joanne who came upstairs and into the bedroom and stood there by the bed, staring at the sight of Morley, her back to the door, wrapped in her white robe, holding the hairdryer up in the flickering candlelight, the glass of wine on the counter beside her, and worst of all, singing, staying alive, and doing all the moves. It took Joanne a moment to comprehend what she was looking at.

When she did, when she absorbed it and deciphered it and understood it, she turned around and ran downstairs. Morley still didn't have a clue she had been spotted, didn't have a clue she wasn't all alone. But as soon as she turned off the hair dryer, she knew. Because as soon as she turned off the hair dryer, she heard their voices clear as day. Jordan's first.

I am so bagged, said Jordan. Let's order out. Good God. They were home. I want to go out, said Joel. It's our last night. I want to take you out. Then there was silence. Morley heard someone's feet on the stairs, and she took an involuntary step backwards and then another. Someone was coming up the stairs. She clutched her robe around her throat. And then the someone coming up the stairs said,

I'm showering first. It was Jordan. Morley was cowering in the corner. and that's how he would have found her, cowering in the corner of his bathroom, clutching her robe closed. But he didn't. Jordan, said Joanne, I'm starving. No shower. Let's go.

And just like that, the footsteps stopped. And Morley heard the sound of him going down the stairs and the sound of them going out. As soon as she was sure they were gone, she began to pack up. She blew out the candles and wiped down the tub and put everything back in her pack. It was only when she finished that she saw the purse on their bed. When she saw the purse on the bed, she knew what had happened. She knew what had happened. Someone had been up there, and it had to have been Joanne. Joanne had seen her.

Joanne had covered for her. That's why they'd gone out to dinner, so Morley could escape. She slunk back across the street. What took so long, said Dave? Must be really clean over there. The flowers came two days later. They came with a handwritten note. Thanks for looking after the place.

The fish is fine. Plump enough to eat. The place looks great. We appreciate it. It looks like we're going again in the spring. Jordan has clients in Rome. Let me know if we could impose again. There's a sauna in the basement. I was thinking you might enjoy it.

I was thinking you might enjoy it. Morley will tell this story one day, but not for a while. Still too close to the bone for that. So far the only person she's told is Dave, but years to come she will tell others. But only after Joanne and Jordan leave the neighborhood. When she does, she'll say it was outrageous that she got into that bath. I don't know what I was thinking, she'll say. But I do know this. I came to like her. She was a good neighbor, kind, but never more so than that night.

That was the kindest thing she ever did for me. I think about it often. Thank you. That was the story we call The House Next Door. I have to fess up about something. I've never, it feels so weird to say this, I've never actually liked that story. It's one of my least favorite stories. Oh my God, can I even say that? It feels wrong to admit that. And it's not really true, actually. I mean, the thing about these stories is there's always something to like about them. There'll be a wonderful observation, like, God, Stuart was so good at

those. Something that makes me laugh with recognition, the one that I'm thinking of in the story that we just heard, is that moment when Morley accidentally invites Joanne into the house, and Stuart describes their front hall. I love that line so much. He says, you have to really want to get in. It makes me laugh every time, and it's a perfect description. He's saying so much with so few words. And it's a perfect description. He's saying so much with so few words. And the description of the shoes and the backpacks and the coats protruding from the wall hooks and the description of Morley and Joanne trying to get past all that stuff, the debris of family life, having to also like the lines that make me laugh out loud.

There's that great moment in that story where Morley comes home having bathed in the, quote, minimalist, serene, sophisticated beauty of Joanne and Jordan's house. And she puts her hand on the front door of her own house and the doorknob comes off in her hand. That makes me laugh every time I hear that story. So I like that part. And there's also insights into the human condition that amaze me, like in every story. But the one from that story is the moment when Morley realizes that in her heart of hearts, she wants her house to look like a house that her own family does not live in. It's a funny line. It's a brilliant line. But it's more than that. The insight comes in the silence, the unspoken truth that hangs there. Stuart doesn't say it

because it's way more powerful to not say it. It's more powerful to let us, the audience, realize it ourselves. That that desire of Morley's is a desire that can never be realized, and therefore, it's a desire that should be released into the ether. Desire itself isn't inherently bad, not at all. Desire is often where dreams are born. But chasing a desire or worse being, I don't know, like consumed by a desire, distracted, I guess, by a desire that you aren't able to actualize, that's not desire. That's definitely not dreams or goals. That is fantasy. And sure, like go for it if you want, but don't confuse that with reality. So like all of Stuart's stories, there is a lot to like there. So it's not fair for me to say I never really liked it. There's parts of it that I loved.

I just described them all. But if I'm being honest, I didn't love that story when Stuart wrote it. It just, it wasn't one of my favorites. It didn't do it for me. We never got it to where I thought it could or should be. But when I listened to it today, I was mesmerized. And that's because I am a different person today than I was when I first heard it. I'm listening with different ears.

I'm bringing a different perspective to it. Stuart wrote that story in 2011. I didn't have kids. And I lived in a house that really, when I think about it, was much closer to Joanne and Jordan's house than David Morley's. So I just didn't have kids. And I lived in a house that really, when I think about it, was much closer to Joanne and Jordan's house than David Morley's. So I just didn't get it. Today, I do. Today, I have a three-year-old and a five-year-old and a front entrance that most of the time looks like a crime scene. Raincoats lying on the floor like chalk outlines. A skateboard dropped halfway to the bathroom.

Evidence of a five-year-old who needs to go pee. A closet door left open because there's no time to close it because we have to get in the car right now. We're going to be late. Go, go, go. Faster, faster. I'm going to count to three. Today, I totally understand, as Stuart and his excellent editor Meg Masters clearly did back in 2011, what it feels like to be Morley, standing there, surveying the mess of her life, knowing she wouldn't change a thing, but also wanting to escape. I understand what it would feel like to look longingly at a tub that is, let's face it, seducing her.

I understand how that could feel like the ultimate escape. To just be somewhere where no one else is. To be somewhere where the soundtrack isn't the word, Mom! Repeated with increasing intensity over and over and over again. I know what it feels like to want something desperately, but also to know that, like, you don't actually want that thing. You don't actually want to live in a house that your family doesn't live in. Do you? Maybe. Maybe.

And I know what it feels like to wonder what that says about you. To wonder, is it normal to feel like this? And to wonder what you should do about those feelings. To wonder if you're allowed to say them out loud. So yeah, I get it now. And I love it. And that got me thinking about how much of ourselves we bring to these stories. Especially with the passage of time, I think. These stories aren't just Stuart's stories anymore. They're ours. All of ours.

They belong to our family now. Our little Vinyl Cafe family. all of ours they belong to our family now our little vinyl cafe family and just like your own family stories they change a bit in the telling and the retelling and in the re-listening i am a different listener than i was 10 years ago my life has changed my perspective has changed. My perspective has changed. I've changed. And so that story has changed for me too. And that's one of the many reasons I love storytelling, particularly oral storytelling. It's as much about the listener, the audience, as it is about the storyteller. It's participatory. participatory. So thank you for listening today, for participating, and for being here, and for bringing your own perspective, your own story to these ones. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with another story about Morley, so stay with me. Welcome back. Time for our second story now. This is a story we recorded in Hudson, Quebec.

I love the lyrical beginning of this story, the way Stuart sort of winds his way into it. I hope you do too. This is The Pot. It's in our nature, or I believe it is, to attach in one way or another uncommon sentiment to the commonest of things, to invent connection and relationship where none ultimately exists. Some would say that this is a manifestation of our higher selves, our ability to find meaning through the foggy lens of faith. of our higher selves, our ability to find meaning through the foggy lens of faith. In its simplest form, there's the child in the night,

alone in her room seeking comfort from a stuffed toy. In its more sophisticated manifestation, there is a church full of the faithful, bowed in prayer. We all need something to hold on to when darkness comes. Somewhere between these two, between the stuffed bear and God, I mean, is the room where many of us dwell. Where the writer carefully filling her favorite pen before putting it to paper. We're the ball player fingering his luck charm on his way to the plate. The grandmother baking cookies with her grandmother's secret recipe.

That is to say, whether or not we are among the prayerful, we all have our little talismans, the guides and spirits who we believe help us along our way. Our promises and our prayers, our shelves of books, our closets of clothes, our Bibles, and our back seats of children. These things that bring us comfort and love, happiness and meaning, continuity. Call it faith or fear. Call it attachment or superstition. Call it whatever

you want. Let's just call it life. This is a story of a kitchen pot. One of those heavy, bright orange ones. Enamel baked onto iron. What are they called? You use them on the stove top or in the oven. They're made in France. A Dutch oven. It's a beautiful pot. Not too big, not too small. Flame orange. Color chosen to commemorate the fire of the forge. Even pot makers are sentimental in their way.

Helen, Morley's mother, Helen, had owned it, this pot, well, for who knows how long. Forever, as far as Morley was concerned. Pot was in her mother's kitchen all Morley's life. Wasn't hard to miss. Helen didn't keep it in the cupboards below the counter with the everyday pots. It was too sophisticated for the company of the banged up aluminum and no nonsense stainless steel. She kept it on the stove top in sight. Morley always assumed that one day the pot would be hers, that one day her mother would pass it down to her. And then

one day she was at her mother's for Sunday dinner and it was gone. Where's the pot, said Morley. Helen looked at her absently. The Dutch oven, said Morley. Oh, said Helen, that pot was too heavy for me. I threw it out. She threw it out as if it were nothing at all. She threw it out as if it were nothing at all. Now, if this had happened recently, Morley might have been more understanding of the impulse, if not the action. Helen is, after all, getting on. And those pots are heavy. But this was years ago.

Now, while they are heavy, they aren't that heavy for heaven's sake. This is back when Helen was still reasonably young, spry enough to handle a Dutch oven in any case. But this didn't happen recently. This all went down before Morley and Dave were married. How her mother could possibly think it was all right to throw out the Dutch oven that had sat on their stovetop all her life without so much as a backward nod or any consultation was beyond Morley. It's completely beyond me, she told everyone who would listen.

Morley felt as if her mother had thrown away a piece of her childhood, her identity, her very being. But what to do? It was gone. And time, like Dutch ovens, marches on. Morley and Dave got married. And one of Morley's clearest memories of that day is the morning after. The ceremony and the reception were done. Everyone had gone home and she and Dave were sitting in their hotel room opening the last of their presents and it was becoming clear there was not a Dutch oven among them. She was convinced there was going to be. She had dropped plenty of hints but no one had picked them up. Could have bought one, of course.

But they didn't have a lot of money in those days, and those French-made Dutch pots are expensive. She just couldn't justify doing that. It's not like she needed one. It was sentimental. She wanted one. So the flame-orange Dutch oven faded away into the distant room of regret. From time to time she would be making stew in one of her steel pots or flipping through a cookbook or, you know, having one of those kitchen moments when she had no idea what she should cook for supper and no inclination to cook anything at all.

And it would occur to her that if she had a Dutch oven, her life would be so much better. So to be honest, maybe it was the distant room of resentment. Those early days of marriage were not the easiest of days. Getting down to the business of socks and underwear, as Dave's mother used to say. Getting down to the nitty gritty. But by hook or by crook, Dave and Morley got through them. And eventually they decided to buy a place of their own.

Like all first-time home buyers, they terrified themselves in the process. Fretting about what they were doing, what they had done. Sure, they had done the wrong thing. A lot of good that did them. Deed was signed, sealed, and delivered. Moving day was almost upon them. And when moving day came, they walked into their new house about an hour before the moving truck arrived.

And there, sitting on the stovetop, the one and only thing the previous owners had left behind was a flame orange Dutch oven. Now, I know, I know what you're thinking. It sounds unbelievable, like some kind of fairy tale. But even I couldn't make that up. It's exactly like the one my mother used to have, Morley said, as she and Dave peered into their almost empty kitchen.

It was a complete mystery. Had the old owners left it there by accident? Had they used it for their last meal and left it on the stove, meaning to grab it on the way out? Or maybe they'd left it there on purpose. It looked so perfect. Only thing in the empty kitchen. Maybe they left it there because of its perfection. That night Morley phoned the real estate agent and told her about the pot on the stove. That night Morley phoned the real estate agent and told her about the pot on the stove. And the agent said she'd check.

After a week or two when she hadn't phoned back, Morley called again. Did you check about the pot, she asked. The agent said, I did. And I didn't hear back. Well, at some point you have to decide you have done your due diligence. The agent said, I think you can assume the pot is yours. It was like the universe had caused it to fall into her hands. Like a grand moment of karmic reward.

That's what Morley told Dave one night. Though she felt guilty saying it, because let's be honest, she had thought bad things about her mother whenever she thought about that pot. She didn't deserve a karmic reward. Instead of using it in a karmic act of contrition, she put it away. Where's that pot, said Dave one night? It's in the cupboard, said Marley. If they came back and asked for it, she wanted to be able to say, I put your pot away for you. And then one evening, she was about to cook the most pedestrian of things, mashed potatoes.

And she hadn't done the dishes from the night before, and she looked at the dirty pots in the sink, and instead of plunging her hands into the cold, wet sink and pulling out a dirty one, she reached into the cupboard beside the stove and pulled out the flame orange Dutch oven instead. I used the pot, she said, when they sat down to dinner. What pot, said Dave. The Dutch oven, said Morley. I don't know what you're talking about, said Dave. When dinner was over, she cleaned it carefully and put it away

as if it was just going to be that once. And then she decided it was a sign. It meant the house was the only house in the world for them. The house was meant for them. I love this house, she said. We will never move. And one night she said, if we do move, we'll leave the pot behind on top of the stove, just the way we found it. She didn't mean that for a moment. It was a nice idea, but it wasn't ever going to happen. She wasn't leaving that pot anywhere, ever, except out on the stovetop, just like her mother. Over the years, she used it to cook some of her favorite meals.

Nothing fancy. Things that made her family happy. Whenever she did spaghetti, for instance, she used the Dutch oven for the tomato sauce. And there was a gumbo. Supper they all loved. Peppers and onions. Shrimp and okra. From the stove top to the oven, from

the oven to the table. Slowly the pot became part of their family, just like her mother's had. And then disaster struck. She burned it. She was braising ribs. The sticky, sweet meat literally melted off the bone, or would have, if she hadn't forgotten about them. She had shifted them from the stovetop into the oven and then gone to pick Sam up from field hockey, and she had muddled the time and arrived an hour early, and sitting there watching him play, she forgot all about the ribs. When she finally got home, the house smelled like a tannery. Dutch oven was done. Charred beyond redemption. No amount of elbow grease was going to get it clean. No, she tried.

She tried soaking it and rubbing it and boiling it with vinegar and all sorts of hopeless concoctions. And then she scoured it with a powder she knew she wasn't supposed to use, but what else could she do? And no one was watching anyway. The remnants of the ribs had fused to the enamel the way the enamel had fused to the iron. The inside of that pot, which had once been the happy color of cream, was now streaked black. The affair of the burning ribs, as Dave began calling it, sent Morley into a funk.

The perfect pot, which had produced so many perfect meals, was perfect no more. She had ruined it. And by extension and the application of the convoluted geometry of self-loathing, she had ruined the house, too. We should move, she said today. I hate this house. These things happen, of course. Disasters, I mean, and you shouldn't dwell on them. Morley knew that. It was just a pot, after all. It was just that she was so disappointed in herself.

She got over it. They didn't move. She put the pot away and that was that. Another little defeat in a string of many. For victorious or defeated, life marches on and you have no choice but to march on with it, hoping that when all is said and done, the victories will outnumber the defeats, which is the way Morley has always approached things. And then, one Sunday morning, Morley woke and went downstairs to make coffee, and there, on the stovetop, the only thing out in the otherwise clean and empty kitchen was a shiny orange pot. It stopped her dead in her tracks just like she had stopped in her tracks all

those years ago. She stopped and she stared for the longest time and then she walked over to it and picked it up and she took it upstairs and she held it out in front of her husband and she said, j'accuse. He looked at her blankly and he said, I haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about. He knew exactly what she was talking about. It was you, she said. And he laughed and he said, you know me better than that. I couldn't keep a secret that long. If I had bought you something so perfect, I would have told you so I could have taken the credit. But it must have been him. It wasn't me, said Dave. I am neither that thoughtful nor that smart.

You have a point, she said. But she wasn't sure. In any case, it was sweet and thoughtful of him to get her the new one. She made ribs that week. She liked the irony of it. And anyway, you're supposed to get back on the horse that threw you. The ribs were fine. But every time she used that new pod, every time she looked at it, instead of pleasing her the way the old one had, the new one reminded her of how careless she had been. One afternoon, she pulled the old one out again and set to work on it. Did the same thing another afternoon and then another

without the pressure of having to get it done. She eventually got it done. Didn't come completely clean, but it came clean enough. It wasn't cream again, but it wasn't charred either. It was somewhere in between, somewhere between teddy bear and church. Far from perfect, but as good as it would ever get. She wasn't intending to use it, but when she put it away, she felt better about it and consequently about herself. And then one Saturday afternoon, on a whim, she pulled out the old one and used it instead of the new one.

And it worked fine, of course. It worked better than fine. She realized the stains on the pot, like the scratches on her records, the dent in the kitchen floor where she dropped the skate, and the lines on her face, they all added up to the same thing, her life. They said, in their own way the only thing that any of us can say, the only thing that is worth saying, I passed this way. I was here.

The truth of time is that time passes and as it does, everything gets banged up a bit. But the bangs and the bumps and the burns are where we live our lives. History doesn't come without wars, and wars don't come without wounds. She took the new pot and put it back in its box. She took the new pot and put it back in its box. And on a recent weekend when Stephanie was home, Morley decided she would do for her daughter what her own mother hadn't done for her.

She told Stephanie the story that I just told you. And she gave her the new pot and she said, take this and use it. Stephanie turned the flame orange pot in her hands and she said, I will never burn mine. And Morley laughed and said, I hope you do. That was the story we call The Pot. My mom was a wonderful cook. She took classes at Cordon Bleu and loved to experiment and try new things. She never owned a Le Creuset, but she always wanted one.

And as so often the case, I inherited some of her dreams, including that one. My mom died when she was 52 and I was 26. She had a small life insurance policy through work that was split between me and my brother. I took that money. I did something that I knew she'd be proud of. and I bought myself a full Le Creuset set. More pieces than my mom would have known what to do with. Bright red. That was almost 20 years ago now. I still have every single one of those pieces. I make a lot of beans and soups and stews and sourdough bread, and the red Dutch oven is my go-to pot. Stuart was the one with the flame orange Le Creuset. He had long admired my red one. He bought

his down in Maine on one of our trips there. And when he bought it, he bought it in flame orange. And when he bought one in flame orange, I did too. I guess I kind of became a bit competitive about Dutch ovens. So now I have two Dutch ovens, a red one that reminds me of my mom and an orange one that reminds me of Stuart. I use both of them every week to bake bread. I always make two loaves at once. And when I see them nestled together in the oven, baking bread to feed our family, I think of both Stuart and my mom and all they gave to me. All right, we've got to take a short break now,

but we'll be back in a minute with a sneak peek from next week's episode, so stick around. That's it for today. Thanks for joining us. It feels so nice to spend some time with Morley. I feel like we don't get enough of her, you know? If you feel the same way, you might want to check out our new CD. We have a new Vinyl Cafe album out, and it's all about Morley. We call it To Morley With Love.

You can find out more on our website or find us on Facebook or Instagram. We'll be back here next week with two more Dave and Morley stories, including this one, a story about the time Dave volunteers to escort Sam and his friends on a school field trip to the art gallery. Halfway there, Dave's train passed a train coming from where he was heading. Exactly. Exactly. Dave pressed his face to the car window and saw what he didn't want to see.

Sam and his buddies pressed against their window, and they were jumping up and down and waving at him. Why me, Lord, said Dave. Dave didn't know what to do. That's next week on Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Tune in next week to hear the whole story. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Greg DeCloot is our recording engineer.

Theme music is by Danny Michelle. The show is produced by Louise Curtis and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now. Music . along for now.