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Kate
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ALL OF CLAUDIA Larson’s campaigns for public office, from school board to state senator, tended to kick off with a holy war of some sort. Why Kate thought that her mother-in-law’s second senatorial run would be any different was, in hindsight, a matter of extreme denial for the sake of family unity. But this latest foray was likely to earn national attention. A feature on TMZ at the very least.
The morning of the gorilla attack, three generations of Larsons had driven to a St. Paul soup kitchen to help Claudia serve lunch to the homeless in front of a video camera. Not exactly news, but it would make charming footage for the campaign website. Senator Larson swanned about like a sixty-something Mary Poppins, hair dyed a monochrome auburn, gorgeous in her cream dress suit and white apron, wielding a silver ladle as a wand of sorts, while Samantha, Brace, and Kate filled trays with turkey dinner under the near solar glare of tungsten lighting. Meanwhile, Erik and his father Bert rolled up their sleeves and carted stainless trays of food from the kitchen.
The campaign manager whooshed in from the cold, wearing a suit and long navy coat. He stamped the slush from his boots. “Things are hotting up nicely at the capitol, Claudia. Time to deploy the troops.”
“Troops?” Kate’s smile dropped. “Whoa. What? She just got here. Don’t you think she should finish this? We just started.”
“Oh, well they don’t mind, do they?” Claudia said. “They serve themselves all the time I’m sure.”
“Actually, I don’t think they do—” Kate forced a smile as she handed a meal to the next man in line. She picked up another tray as if continuing to work would keep Claudia still.
“Kate, don’t belittle them,” Claudia said, shrugging into her camelhair coat. “These people don’t want your pity. Kids get your coats. History is in the making.”
Claudia’s spry husband Bert, who matched her in age, came around the counter and peered at the video camera as if he could see into it. “We got plenty of footage, don’t you think?”
The videographer bit his lip. “Well . . .”
“Shall we?” Claudia was aglow. She draped her arms over Samantha and Brace as if she were taking them to the State Fair.
“Erik, do something,” Kate said, nearly hissing.
Erik gulped and looked from his wife to his mother. “Mommm,” he intoned sternly and yet not the slightest bit convincingly, “we’re not really comfortable with this. It’s not our—”
“Oh, Erik,” Claudia said. “This is the perfect time for the children to see their First Amendment rights in action. Why would you deny them that?” She cocked her head at him in cordial seriousness and then she shot him “The Look” that says, Sweetheart, we bailed ya out a number of times when your granite business was, well, on the rocks, now it’s time to do a little something for us. Judiciously deployed, it was ten times more powerful than anything Kate could aim at him.
Still, Kate didn’t lower her stare on him either. “Erik?”
The kids joined in, choosing sides.
“Dad?”
“Mom?”
“Kate?” Erik’s jaw set.
The videographer nervously documented the volley until Claudia laid a hand on his shoulder and he lowered the camera. She walked to the entrance where Bert held the door for her. And after she passed, he continued to hold it open.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Erik said. “Please?”
Kate opened her mouth.
“Please, Kate. Please don’t embarrass me.”
“That’s the least of your worries,” she said and stormed past him, kids in tow.
When the Larson bus arrived at the foot of the capitol building and parked by a barrier of squad cars, there was already a podium set up beneath a red, white, and blue Marrisota banner (“Marrisota” being Claudia’s think tank/prayer group for traditional marriage). It was cold out and cloudy and beginning to sleet. Bright video-camera lights and flashbulbs illuminated her and glared unforgivingly into the Larson family’s stunned faces, briefly obliterating their view of the crowd gathered before them. The campaign manager maneuvered them into a line beside Claudia, like bullet points in Claudia’s family values brochure.
“Well, folks,” Claudia said into the microphone, “in fairness, and I know you’re all for fairness, don’t you think both sides should be heard?”
No!
Go back to Stepford!
Let her talk!
“Thank you.” Claudia pulled the mic from its gooseneck and stepped beside the podium. “How blessed are we? To have this glorious building behind us, protecting our voices, protecting our families?” She gracefully gestured her manicured hand at the dome as if it were the grand prize on a game show. She lowered her gaze. “Lord God, we pray . . .”
The woman truly was a mesmerizing sight to behold, but Kate forced herself to squint out into the crowd, where she quickly found her oldest friend, Mark Fox, and his Civil Diss contingent. They were all carrying the signs Samantha and Jamie had helped make for them the week before, the ones Kate had driven over to Mark’s house and had to leave on the lawn when no one came to the door. The ones that said things like MARRIAGE4ALL and LOVE WINS.
Mark stood solid, sign drooping in the sleet, staring at the Larsons in shock. Kate shook her head and mouthed I’m Sorry. Samantha had tried to shrink into the smallest form a fifteen-year-old girl could take and inched halfway behind her brother. Brace simply yawned.
The inexplicable hooting and chest thumping of a horde of fake apes came next, facilitating a hasty exit, but the damage had been done.
How on earth was she going to serve this woman a holiday dinner without tearing out patches of her own hair?
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“THAT’S A MIGHTY wicked clipper moving in.” Bert Larson stamps the snow from his galoshes onto his son’s welcome mat.
Claudia shivers in agreement. “Abominable.”
Their wintry draft smells of damp metal and cologne. Kate can’t help being glad to see them safe inside her home, although their disappearance in a blizzard would have also been convenient. The elder Larsons straighten her spine whenever they enter her house. Today they’re still in their Sunday best, he in a dark wool suit and she in a doe brown, drape-neck cashmere sweater and chocolate-colored skirt.
Kate yelps, “Well, get in here and get yourselves warm,” so boisterously that Erik balks at her.
He takes their coats and escorts them up to the living room where Kate had long done away with furniture to make room for what he called her OCQ (obsessive compulsive quilting).
“Sorry about the mess,” he says, “once we finish the kitchen reno, we’ll have lots more space.”
Brace saunters upstairs from the rec room in his favorite green tracksuit. The kids threw off their church clothes the moment they got home. He gives his grandmother a big hug and grandfather a rough handshake. Samantha hugs them both. Claudia raises an eyebrow at Samantha’s strategically torn black jeans and black, cropped sweater, which appears to be constructed from decorative Halloween cobwebs.
Why couldn’t she have waited until later tonight to dye her hair jet black?
“The new table is on backorder.” Kate digs her thumbnail into the scrollwork on the old oak dining room table. “This is such a pain to keep clean. When the kids were younger, I’d find all sorts of sticky stuff in it.”
Claudia delivers a lukewarm smile and rubs Kate’s arm. “All you have to do is apply a little elbow grease, kiddo.”
“So busy these days.”
“Well, you’ve got to make time. Put Samantha on it.” Claudia’s gaze travels to the chandelier, over the china cabinet and halts at the bookshelf, where Kate forgot to dust the family photos. “If you need a Swiffer, I have scads of them.”
“Thanks.” Kate downs half her glass of chardonnay.
The serving begins, without discussion, amid the clack of silverware, Handel’s Messiah on public radio and the distant whine-whistle of Chuck Norris protesting his exile to the garage. Erik leans back to the sideboard and taps the volume a little higher.
“Surely. Surely. He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”
Kate raises the platter of venison tenderloins. “Bert, would you like seconds? Claudia?”
Bert smiles. “Sure would.”
“No, thank you.” Claudia straightens her sweater down over her narrow hips. “I’m putting on too much this season. The camera bloats me.”
“It’s all the cookies and pies that get to me,” Kate says. Claudia raises her eyebrows, and Kate sips her wine, which seems to be the only Larson antidote these days. “I work at this, you know. Mildly plump doesn’t come easy.”
“Yeah, she works out pretty hard,” Erik says. “Her butt used to be really flat. Ow, what?”
Brace shudders across the table. Samantha slaps a hand to her mouth.
“Samantha,” Claudia says, “Why aren’t you eating?”
Samantha swallows and looks down at her plate, which is covered in yams, stuffing, cranberries, green beans. “Um. I am.”
“You didn’t become a vegetarian, did you?”
“She did,” Kate says. “And we’re very proud of her.”
“Why would you be proud of your child starving? She looks anemic.”
Brace is full-on grinning now. At least Samantha’s blush is adding color to her pale-against-the-black complexion.
“Did you know Sam has a solo in the concert at Grace Lutheran?” Kate takes another sip of wine.
“I did know.” Claudia smiles at her granddaughter, all bright and shining and forgiving of Samantha’s over-abundance of vegetables. “She’s got the best voice on either side of the river.”
“Can’t wait, Samantha,” Bert says, beaming at her. “Did you also know Mr. Sandvik is retiring, and one of the graduates from Sojourn Reclaimers is taking over?”
Kate sprays wine into her palm. “You can’t mean Lucy.”
Erik nudges the wine glass away from Kate.
“Mmm, I believe that’s her name,” Bert says. “Another success story, right dear?”
Claudia nods, glints at Kate. “Did you catch yourself on TV? It was on again last night.”
Kate blinks. “Hmm?”
“The rally, remember? They zoomed in on you pretty close.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kate says with a sigh. “I looked terrible. What was I thinking with that plaid dress? Looked like I was wearing a Christmas tree skirt.”
Claudia’s eyelashes flutter. “You need to be less self-deprecating, dear.”
Just beating you to the punch, Kate mouths under her breath.
“What?”
The table shakes and Erik says ow again.
“Mom,” he turns to Claudia and rubs his eyes, “we got an interview request from the Pioneer Press last week. Gotta tell you, we’re a little uncomfortable talking about the marriage amendment. You know, Kate’s best friend is gay.”
“He’s your friend too,” Kate says with a glare.
Erik rolls his eyes. “Of course, Kate. Come on.”
The kids look on with trepidation.
“Well, you’ve got to choose your own path,” Bert says. “I just wish it was a little closer to your mother’s. You know we have nothing against Mark and that pal of his.”
Claudia dabs her mouth with a napkin and clasps the table. “Listen, folks, the homosexualists can live their lives any way they see fit, this is a free country. But there is no way on earth they can turn back thousands of years of nature and tradition. And I’m here to make sure of it. I don’t care how many monkey suits they throw at me.”
Samantha perks up. “I saw this really interesting video on bonobo apes the other day. Um, I guess homosexuality is pretty common in the animal kingdom. Holds the social structure intact. The females do the deed multiple times per day.”
“Monkeys are so gay,” Brace says.
Erik sniggers.
“Sam,” Kate says, “close your mouth when you talk.”
Samantha’s forehead wrinkles. “Huh? How can I talk—?”
“I meant eat.” Eat, Kate mouths at her.
“Well, I’m just saying. A spectrum of sexuality is natural.”
“But we are not Borneo monkeys, are we?” Claudia asks.
“They’re not monkeys. They’re apes. There’s a difference. And uh, it’s bonobo.”
“Ape, monkey, Borneo, bon bon—whatever. We are human beings, the only animal that Our Lord instilled with a sense of decency. And if you please, after all I went through with those monkey-people, I’d rather not discuss it.”
“Well, I just think if you start talking about what’s natural,” Samantha continues as Claudia’s unblinking stare settles on her, “we should embrace the gays,” she finishes quietly. “They add something.”
“Can’t wait to see you in that t-shirt,” her brother says, “Embrace the Gays! They add something!”
Samantha looks desperately to her mother, likely preparing to bolt from the table as she has started doing at the drop of a hat.
Kate considers the truce arranged by Erik earlier that week so that the family could exchange gifts. There have been vast silences on the phone lines following any lengthy discussion of Iraq or gay marriage or race or immigration or stem cells or birth control or “intelligent design.” She and Claudia should be arguing over lefse recipes, not politics. But here is a table spread with the best she and Erik have to offer, their dog shivering in the garage, their house clean as it will ever get. If not now, when?
“Mark and Ray want to adopt,” she says and everyone turns to her. “Out of wedlock, obviously. But they’ll make great dads, married or not.”
Claudia straightens further. “Well, two fathers is not—”
“And I’ve agreed to meet with a social worker on their behalf. To testify to their fitness as parents.”
Bert sits back.
Claudia blinks. “Do you understand the ramifications for the child? For society?”
“I do.”
Claudia looks to her son.
Erik cannot meet his mother’s ice blue eyes. “I’m with Kate on this, Mom. They’ll make a great family.”
“Mmm. Well, this is the family I’m worried about.” Claudia’s gaze visits each of them. “You will be in my prayers tonight.”