This mother admitted she was nervous about losing her son, and then told the story of the Sunday her new daughter in law lied about a pie.
The first Sunday dinner Joanna came to, she brought a pie and told me she had baked it herself. It was a very good pie. It was also from the Hartley Street bakery, and I knew because my neighbor, Mrs. Okafor, saw her hide the box in our recycling bin.
I will be honest with you all. I was nervous about this day for a while. Ben is my only son, and I had it in my head that I was about to lose my seat at his table. I did not say so. I made a roast and hoped.
Here is what I know about Joanna now: she will go to ridiculous lengths so that nobody ever feels they are hosting her. She would rather be caught in a small lie than let a person think she arrived with nothing in her hands.
I found the box three weeks later, flattened under the newspapers. I never said a word. The next Sunday, I served her a slice from the same bakery, on my good plate, and I said, "I made it myself."
She looked at the pie. She looked at me. Nobody spoke for what felt like a full minute. And then she laughed so hard she had to put down her fork, and Ben, who had no idea what was going on, laughed because we were laughing.
Since then, she has driven ninety minutes to help me move a couch, learned my mother's plum cake recipe over the phone, and sat through my slideshow of Ben's school plays without once checking her watch. I counted. I am the sort of person who counts.
Joanna, I spent months worrying about what I was giving up. I did not notice that I was being handed a daughter who would lie for me, and who would let me lie for her. You have made me a better host, which is a thing I did not think was possible. You have made every table I own a little bigger. And Ben, you were easy before, easy to feed and easy to please. She makes you say what you want, and I have never been prouder to watch somebody get a straight answer.
So here is what I wish for you, both of you. I wish you a table that always has one chair too many. I wish you pies from the wrong bakery and the grace to eat them. I wish you a Sunday where nobody has to be the guest, and a kitchen where you both argue about the roast and agree about everything else.
Please raise your glass to Ben and Joanna.
End of speech. The Vault holds 3 more mother of the groom speeches, named below.
