Consumerism and capitalism intersect when my mom cooks mac and cheese out of the box. Stress lines around her mouth announce her anger louder than an infomercial. She mixes the goopy mess like she’s blending her manager’s nose in for me to eat, like the wife who fed her murder weapon to the cops in my favorite short story from English class.
When she swears – Mom never swears – after catching her silvering hair dropping into the pot, I know to stay withdrawn. Scoop sploop. Scoop sploop. It sounds like she’s scooping out her manager’s intestines. But that wouldn’t do. If she served that, it’d be the best home-cooked meal she’d ever made.
Mom slides a bowl to me. I’ve already laid out the napkins and spoons, but her lips curl around her words anyway. I look down, chin to chest. She grabs her spoon. The tension wrinkles slide over the anger. The words aren’t spoken. But I wish I could eat in my room. Or, even, stay up there without a crumb.
‘You like it?’ she asks.
‘Yeah,’ I say. I haven’t eaten a morsel yet.
Mom nods. The question and answer are all performative. But every muscle in my body is braced for the onslaught. It’s never one question. That wouldn’t be a performance. That wouldn’t be quality time with her daughter.
‘Remember when your dad made it and forgot the cheese? You still ate it – did neither of you notice?’
I remember. I noticed. ‘Yeah. He doesn’t cook as well as you do.’
I glance up long enough to see a beam spread over her face, the sort that would’ve been accompanied with a blinding white flash at the Walmart photo booth. My shoulders relax, but the rest of me can’t. She’s not yet over thinking about work.
‘You need to learn to cook, too. When are you going to help me out in the kitchen?’
‘Maybe next week. Depends on the homework.’
‘That IB program sure gives you a lot. You’re always in your room.’ Her look turns accusatory. ‘Sometimes I forget you’re home.’
‘Spanish is hard. I told you, Rosenblum hates me,’ I mumble.
‘I was bad at French, when I was your age. My teacher couldn’t figure how I talked English without a Southern accent, but my French was distinctly Southern.’ She beams again. This is one of her favorite lines.
I smile back. ‘Yeah, must be something like that.’ Rosenberg is homophobic. And transphobic. Mom is, too, but she pretends I never came out.
We eat in silence. Spoons squish melted plastic cheese around disintegrating noodles. It couldn’t sound worse if I ate with my fingers. If she wasn’t there, maybe I’d try. Then I’d really pretend I was fingers-deep into someone’s intestines. Maybe my own, maybe then I could stick my fingers deeper and deeper until I found my uterus. I’d rip it out. I’d cook and eat it.
‘Did you finish your homework?’ she asks.
‘Some of it,’ I say. I finished everything an hour ago.
‘What’d you finish?’
‘Math and Physics. Took a long time, we’re learning new subjects in both.’
‘Which subjects?’
‘Unit circle in Math, velocity in Physics.’ My teeth grit around the words. ‘I don’t want to talk about school.’
The tension lines deepen in her face. ‘Then what do you want to talk about?’
Mom finishes her mac and cheese; I’m now her entertainment. Zero-calorie dessert. I shove another spoonful into my mouth. The cafeteria food tastes better, not by much, but better. Dinner with Mom has a way of killing my appetite, yet I’m staring at the full bowl of mac and cheese like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. I’m playing my part like I’ve got a gun to my head.
‘I don’t know. I’m tired,’ I say.
‘I’m tired, too.’ She smiles, but the meanness creeps in. ‘You have time to spend with me tonight? Tivo has a new episode of Criminal Minds.’ She loves her cop and robber shows; Criminal Minds is the only one I’ll watch with her. The way her blue eyes twinkle, you’d think she offered me a thousand dollars.
Chewing on the mac and cheese, then the inside of my cheeks, I carefully weigh my options. My left hand tightens on the white bowl. I force the fingers to relax before she notices. Before she comments. ‘Yeah. Maybe.’ I glance up.
The teeth in her frown could cut diamonds.
Stammering, I add, ‘One episode.’
‘That’s my daughter. Knew you couldn’t resist your favorite show.’ The pride in her voice rolls my stomach.
I’m staring at the mac and cheese again. ‘You go ahead. I’ll clean up when I’m done.’
Mom leaves. When I hear her walking down the stairs, I scrap the mac and cheese into the trash. Then the evidence needs to disappear, so I take it out. Fifteen minutes later, the dishes drip dry and the chairs hug the table. Our dinner could’ve been a figment of my imagination. Except, if I go to my room without watching the show with her, the anger’ll come out.
So I go downstairs. She’s waiting for me, rewatching some daytime television sitcom. Now the smile on her face reaches her eyes, and I relax onto the couch two seats away from her.
We watch the episode in silence, ignoring each other. We never talk about what we watch. I’ll just go back up to my room. She’ll continue watching her episodes. She thinks this is happiness.
I wonder – while I’m staring at flashing images – whether I’ll become her.
In a decade, I’ll wonder – while staring at my therapist’s flashing lights – why she’s still in my head.
Katlina Sommerberg is living zir best queer life in San Francisco. Previously a security engineer, ze left the industry after ze realized real hacking is terribly boring. Zir work has previously appeared in AntipodeanSF, 101 Words, Detritus Online, Cauldron Anthology, and 365tomorrows. Keep an eye out for zir upcoming fiction podcast, Will Work for Dopamine. Find Katlina at @houndoom16 and sommerbergssf.carrd.co.
