When Marsden got home from school yesterday, he slipped into his room without saying a word. I knocked on his door, but he didn’t answer, so I opened it, just slightly.
“What are you doing?” He sounded accusatory.
“I knocked but you didn’t answer,” I explained.
“I said, ‘Don’t come in.’”
“I didn’t hear you.” I opened the door all the way and stepped into his room with one foot. This was my approach to asserting parental authority while respecting his personal space. He was sprawled on his bed with headphones on and he seemed to be writing something.
“You didn’t say hi to me when you got home from school,” I said.
“Hi,” he blurted out dutifully. “Are we done?”
“No, we’re not done. I want us to have dinner together tonight, sitting down at the table.”
“Why?’
“Because that’s what families do,” I said.
“Yeah, but that’s not what we do.”
“It’s what we used to do.”
“When I was like ten.”
“That’s not true, we had dinner together until Dad left.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, we did.”
“And I’d like us to have dinner together at the table tonight.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” I was trying not to raise my voice. Marsden has accused me of yelling at him when I’m talking slightly louder than my normal decibel. He has told me to stop screaming at him when I’ve talked through clenched teeth. He inflates well-modulated anger into hysterical rage. I have never let him see hysterical rage because I know what that looks like, and I refuse to show him, but sometimes I think I should, just so he understands what it really means to yell and scream at someone. And so I knew exactly what my voice was doing when I said, “Why not?” I repeated. Curt and sharp, but not yelling.
“Stop yelling at me,” he said.
“You can’t accuse me of yelling at you whenever you don’t like what I have to say.”
“Can you leave my room?”
“No.”
“Will you leave my room?”
“Good grammatical fix. But no, I won’t. I want us to talk.”
“Then I’ll leave.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” I said, then put my foot down, while simultaneously giving in. “Dinner is at 6:30. I want you seated at the kitchen table then. Now I’ll go.”
I closed the door to his bedroom and went to the kitchen to prep for dinner. I decided to make homemade chicken nuggets because he used to love chicken nuggets—he’d call them chicken snugglets—and I wanted to recreate something from his childhood that might inspire him to think about who he was and who he’s turned into.
At 6:30 p.m. sharp, Marsden entered the kitchen, plopped down onto a chair, and started intently staring at something. I tried to discern what he was looking at, but there didn’t seem to be an end point to his gaze. His look didn’t appear to be that of a poet staring off into the abyss, a philosopher contemplating entropy, or a scientist wondering about the thermodynamics of the universe. I followed the path of his eyes, which, as far as I could tell, seemed to be settled on the corner of the couch. His gaze was that of a teenager temporarily trapped by his mother’s prying eyes. I put dinner on the table and Marsden looked down at his plate.
MARSDEN: What’s this?
ME: Isn’t that fun! You used to love it when I made your food look like a face.
MARSDEN: Nice asparagus hair.
ME: Do you like it?
MARSDEN: Yeah.
ME: I know it’s silly, but I was thinking about when you were little.
MARSDEN: Yeah.
ME: How are things? How’s school going?
MARSDEN: Okay.
He opened his left hand and looked at something written on his palm.
MARSDEN: Jacob Zuma.
ME: Excuse me?
MARSDEN: Jacob Zuma is the president of South Africa.
ME: You wrote crib notes on your hand for dinner?
MARSDEN: I thought you might ask. You used to always ask.
ME: But that’s cheating.
MARSDEN: Why?
ME: You can’t have the answers written on your hand. You’ll get expelled.
MARSDEN: From dinner?
ME: No, from school. Marsden, you don’t cheat on your tests, do you?
MARSDEN: No, Mom.
ME: Are you sure?
MARSDEN: Yes.
ME: Because you shouldn’t cheat.
MARSDEN: I know.
ME: Good. How do you like the chicken nuggets?
MARSDEN: They’re good.
ME: You haven’t eaten many. Are you sure you like them?
MARSDEN: I don’t feel well.
ME: I wasn’t criticizing.
MARSDEN: Okay.
ME: I’m sorry.
MARSDEN: I’m not hungry. Can I be done?
ME: But we haven’t talked.
MARSDEN: What do you want to talk about?
ME: You.
MARSDEN: Okay.
ME: Is everything okay with you?
MARSDEN: I told you I don’t feel well.
ME: I don’t mean like that. I mean in general. I don’t feel like things are okay.
MARSDEN: Maybe that’s your problem, because I’m fine.
ME: Define fine.
MARSDEN: No Mom, I’m not going to define fine.
ME: Have you thought more about what you want to do next year?
MARSDEN: Yes.
ME: What are you thinking?
MARSDEN: Can I be excused?
ME: Right now?
MARSDEN: Is that okay?
ME: I guess.
MARSDEN: Thanks.
ME: You’re welcome.
And that was my attempt at reinstating our family dinner. Just to confirm what I already knew: family dinners are not meant for any family that I’m a part of.