A Distracted Dinner

 

A few hours later Becca sat with her mom and Lee around a garden table on the back patio of the house. A string of lights hung over the wooden trellis above them and the back floodlights, bright but not overly so, lit the patio, table, and backyard beyond them in yellow. The August air was warm enough to not require a hoodie or sweater.

Her mom, Rebecca, always serious and to the point, wore her auburn hair pulled into a tight bun along with a nice blazer and heels. Most of her life Rebecca had been an executive for a food distribution company based out of Provo, but had recently retired and had been co-pastoring with Becca’s dad at the local Presbyterian church down the street. Rebecca had always taught her daughter to look the part of a smart, powerful woman so that men would respect her. Becca had done quite the opposite.

Becca took a sip from her glass of wine, the same bottle that Becca had bought her mom for Christmas last year. Becca didn’t mind. She knew her mom didn’t drink that much, which was a good thing. But Becca wished she could help her mom relax and enjoy herself in some way instead of always thinking about others.

Analise was fussy and squirming in Becca’s arms and after a few minutes of trying to comfort her she gave up.

“Lee. I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Is she hungry?”

“No, I just fed her. I think she’s just tired.”

“You want me to hold her?” asked her mom.

“No, it’s fine.”

“Lee!”

Lee was still shoving food into his mouth.

“Okay. Okay! I’m coming. I’ll put her to bed.”

Her mom raised her eyebrows at the two of them ever so slightly.

Lee got up from his chair and came to relieve Becca of Analise and Becca settled back into her chair.

“How’s work, Mom?” she asked, once she had taken a couple bites of food.

“Oh, well, actually, not so good.” Rebecca took a sip of wine, sleepily. “It’s been fine, the congregation has grown some, I still teach and all, it’s just, well this morning, they had to ‘clarify’ my position a bit.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lee.

“Oh, it’s nothing, really. It’s just they had to clarify that I’m not exactly an elder and that they might need to bring someone else on, another pastor, of the male variety.”

Becca had been watching her mom throughout the evening. While her mom usually seemed fairly aloof and say, less than “warm,” especially since Phelix had died, this time it was different. The aloofness tonight was not because her mom was distracted by the practical concerns of work, as she usually was, but more like her mind was wandering on some other terrain. Her eyes blank and listless.

“But don’t you practically run the church and handle most of the logistics and teaching, especially now that Dad is gone?” asked Becca with a slight tremor in her voice.

“Yes, but you know how it is, with our denomination and all, I don’t mind, really.”

“So, because you’re a woman, that’s why?”

“Well, yes. You know the PCA doesn’t ordain women.”

“That’s bullshit!”

“Becca!” she said, sternly. Her mom suddenly back to the no-nonsense voice, tone, and feel she usually took on.

“You were always more of an ‘elder’ or ‘pastor’ than anyone else, even Dad. You should join a different fucking church.”

“You don’t need to use language like that you know.”

“Well, do you feel appreciated at least?” Becca asked.

“Yes, yes of course, very much so. I was actually more disappointed when they shot down my proposal for a food pantry.”

“Food pantry?”

“Yes, to convert a section of the fellowship hall into a food bank for those who might need it.”

“What’d they say?” asked Becca.

“Oh, just that it’s not realistic right now. The budget and all. There were some other items on the top of the priority list. It’s just a bummer because I had such energy with the idea. I stayed up until three in the morning sketching out plans for it.”

“Three in the morning?” asked Becca suspiciously.

“Yes! It was fantastic. I made plans for that, read, wrote an outline for a book, you wouldn’t believe the energy.”

“But Mom, you never stay up that late.”

“I know, sweetie, it was strange, yes, but good.”

Becca was unnerved. Watching her mom answer her questions in an ambiguous tone, apparently unconcerned about major events in her life that she would have been concerned about in the past. . . . What was going on with her? The whole thing was incredibly strange.

After dinner, Becca and Lee did the dishes. Lee washed, Becca rinsed and dried and put some items in the dishwasher. Rebecca placed the remaining leftovers in Tupperware and Ziploc baggies.

The three of them ate ice cream for dessert and chatted on the couch. More updates on family. Who was sick, divorced, in the hospital, and the like.

Becca watched her mom and couldn’t help but shake the feeling that something was off, wrong. Her mom would start on a story with an extreme sense of importance, only to trail off in a wandering diatribe, one that both she and Lee would have to clarify, to which she responded by simply waving her hand and saying, “Oh, don’t worry about it.”

It was strange behavior for her mom, who usually spoke so directly, so firmly, always articulated precisely and with a sense of purpose. She now sounded like she was on too many painkillers or starting to lose her memory. Was that it? Painkillers? Opioids? No, it couldn’t be, although . . . prescription drug abuse was incredibly common in the state of Utah. Was her mom having another bipolar episode? She’d been doing so well now that she was on medication. Perhaps her mom was just tired. It had been a hard year on both of them.

 

Around ten, they all decided to go to bed. After they finished brushing their teeth, Lee and Becca crept into Becca’s old bedroom, where Analise was asleep in the Pack ‘n’ Play, a tiny teddy bear nightlight shining luminously in the dark corner.

“Did my mom seem strange to you tonight?” Becca whispered to Lee, as they both got into bed.

“Strange? Maybe a little, I don’t know, she just seemed tired,” Lee said, scrolling through his phone in the dark.

“Yeah, that’s probably all.”

Becca stared at the ceiling.

“Why?” asked Lee.

“Well, this might sound weird, but she almost reminded me of myself, last year. When I had to go to the hospital.”

“Really?”

“Yes, it’s like her brain isn’t working properly. As if she’s on the downswing from mania or something. Remember her talking about how the night before she stayed up until three in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not like her.”

“Give her some grace, I mean, she’s had to deal with a lot this past year as well.”

“No, I know. I’m not judging her. I’m just, well, worried about her.”

“Yeah, I know, I think she’s fine though.”

“You’re probably right.”

Becca took a deep breath and exhaled it to the ceiling like she did in yoga. Lee was on his phone, watching some BBC documentary about the history of volcanos.

“Did you know there are currently twenty Supervolcanos across the world?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, where?” Becca tried to feign interest.

“There’s a couple in Russia, a couple in Indonesia, one in Italy, one in Japan, one in China. Canada, New Zealand, Chile.”

“Is Yellowstone the only one in the U.S.?”

“Well, there’s Yellowstone, obviously, but also one in New Mexico, Colorado, and one in California, near Mammoth Lakes. It says here that in nineteen eighty, the Long Valley Caldera near Mammoth started to swarm and so they set out to make an escape route called the ‘Mammoth Escape Route,’ but business owners complained, obviously, because of tourism, so it’s now called the ‘Mammoth Lake Scenic Loop,’ though its real purpose is an emergency escape route should anything like that happen again. Ha!”

“Crazy.”

“And did you know that when the Krakatoa volcano exploded in Indonesia it was the loudest sound ever made on earth?”

“No,” said Becca, too tired to really engage. “When was that?”

“Eighteen eighty-three. This says people could hear the sound from three thousand miles away.”

“Crazy.” Becca yawned.

“It was the deadliest volcano ever recorded. And more people died from the resulting tsunamis than anything else.”

“Wow.”

“Did you know–” Lee began again.

“I’m sorry, babe, I’m really tired,” Becca said as she rolled over.

“Oh yeah, of course.”

Becca closed her eyes and began to drift into her tiny nook of sleep. Lee’s phone lit his face a pale, digital blue.