Playing Ketchup with Granny

Irish ham, cold cuts, and cheeses are rolled up into tight logs, fanned out on the plate like spokes on a wheel. In the center of each dish is a perfectly symmetrical tomato and a yellow potato salad, homemade of course. Mugs of tea and high glasses of orange soda are never allowed to go below half full, thanks to the wordless nods of the head by herself.

“Tell me about your life in America,” she would say, her bony hand taking yours as her intense eyes are magnified through thick smudged bifocals. You prattle on about your good grades in school, the minor victories you have had a sports, and the great essays you’ve written in English classes.
‘He is good-looking and modest,” she would say through pursed lips. It’s not until later that you realize her sharp tongue and intellect have dissected you and put those boastful ways in their proper place.
‘Do you have everything you need, pet?” she would ask, proudly surveying the spread that has been put out before you.
‘I didn’t see any ketchup, Granny. Do you have any lying around?”

An eyebrow is raised, a head is tilted, and the uncle’s wife is dispatched to make the five mile ride into Tuam.
‘Well, God blast yeh,” she says, half-laughing. ‘Sure, the Lord Jesus Christ could cook the Last Supper with His own two hands and this Yank’d ask for the ketchup.”
The ketchup would be at every meal from that point forward, even if it was toast being served, just to prove that you’ll never catch her flat-footed again.
The suitcase is packed, tears are shed, and a few hundred Irish pounds are crumpled and placed in your palm. You smooth them out in the backseat on the way to the airport and soon realize that there is the equivalent of your father’s weekly wage in your hand.

The most valuable gift, however, is revealed when you open your suitcase and find a 1 ‘litre’ bottle of Kandee Great Value Family Pack Tomato Ketchup as a memento of your dinner. There is a note taped to the bottle. ‘Now if you are without ketchup it’s your own fault.”
From that point forward until the woman’s death, you will bring her a bottle of Heinz 57 as a souvenir from America. She will shrug, shake her head, lift her eyes to the heavens, and laugh with a rattled cough before stabbing her turf fire with a spike.