A wife and mother becomes obsessed with books and writing.
THE OBSESSION
Lights beamed through the kitchen window, goading tingles up my spine. The cutting engine and slamming door had me dropping three more chicken bouillon cubes in the boiling water, smashing them with my fork.
“Dad’s home,” my son yelled, hurdling over the footstool in the den, sliding to the backdoor.
“Hey, that’s not fair. He always gets to the door first,” my daughter fussed.
Concentration remained on the diluted broth that I attempted to season. There just hadn’t been enough money for canned chicken broth, and I had only two chicken bouillon cubes left. Puny chicken pieces I’d gotten on sale at Food Jungle, drowned in the bubbly water, and I almost felt sorry for the paltry poultry.
“That smells great, Babe,” my husband said kissing me from behind.
I managed a meek grin. “Have a good day?”
“Great.”
He made it so difficult to hide the painful truth. Why’d he have to be so -– good?
“Hon, something’s wrong with your account. I received an overdraft notice, and I just deposited the household check Monday.”
The fork died in my hands. I pretended it was the steam from watered-down chicken soup that brought beads of sweat to my brow.
“I wonder what could’ve happened,” I asked.
“We’ll figure it out, Babe.” Like I say, he’s too good. “How long until dinner?”
I stared into the pitiful froth. Vegetables. I needed vegetables, and, noodles, lots of noodles.
“It’ll be a while, Hon,” I answered.
‘I’ll just grab me a quick snack.”
“No!”
Ray glared at me, his wife of ten years, as if I’d lost my mind. I wiped my hands on a dirty dishtowel.
“What’s with you, Becky?”
I slapped the cover on the boiler, reduced the heat. “You shouldn’t snack before supper.”
“Becky.”
“What?”
“I’m not one of the kids.”
“Well, you need to –- to be an example.”
He smiled. “Good point.”
He spun around, headed toward the door. My heart calmed. I spied him from the corner of my eye, but before I could move, he had loped to the cabinet, flung it open.
“Oh, my God.”
“Ray, I can explain.”
“My God.”
“Ray, don’t bring God into this.”
“Becky, are you mad?”
“Ray.”
“Where’s the food?”
“Hon.”
“What are all these books doing in here?”
I gazed at paperbacks and hardbacks crammed into every single shelf.
His eyes narrowed. Act normal. I jerked opened the freezer, fumbled around for frozen vegetables, found them in back, stuck to the bottom, frosted over.
“Becky, look at me.”
“I’m fixing dinner,” I replied, grunting, pulling, trying to pull the bag free. I had to. They were the only vegetables in the house.
His hand clenched my elbow. I wondered if he’d abuse me, a punch in the face, a blackened eye. Great idea! No. Just used. Anna Quindlen, “Black and Blue”.
“Becky!”
“What?”
“The books. Why are they in our kitchen cabinets?”
I paused my struggle with the mixed vegetables, forced by a man I might add, Gloria Steinam. My gaze shifted to the wide open doors that exposed my treasures.
“I rearranged my bookshelves today, put the ones that didn’t fit in here.”
“You ran out of room?”
His question attempted to pry guilt out of me. I rolled my eyes, stiffened with pride, the same womanly pride that compelled the oppressed feminine gender onward to the point we are today.
Chin lifted, I replied, “Yes.”
“I give you our study, buy a computer, build you wall-to-wall shelves for your how-to books, best sellers, children’s books, romances, and you’ve run out of space?”
Okay, so he’s real good. I whirled away from him, snatched the saltshaker, and removed the boiler cover. Lots of salt would help.
Behind me, cabinet doors slammed in anger.
“This many wouldn’t fit into the bookshelves? You’ve gone stark raving mad. Where’d you get all these books? Where’s the food, Becky, the potato chips, pretzels?”
I set the saltshaker next to the pepper, wiped the counter, picked a crumb off the stove, trudged to the sink, dropped it into the disposal, switched it on, and turned it off. I clenched the knobs of the cabinet over the sink, hesitated, drew in a deep breath, and slowly opened it.
I would’ve rather he yelled, screamed, hit, stalk out of the room, than have just stood there, staring wide-eyed.
He barely whispered, “That’s it?”
It was. A two-pound bag of sugar, flour, and cornmeal, single serving cans of Beanie Weenies, Spaghetti-O’s, Vienna Sausages, tuna, Cheerios, and Fruit Roll-ups.
“Yes.”
“You just went to the grocery store yesterday?” I felt like a small child, being scolded for not completing an assignment. “This is it?”
“Yes. We have growing children. They have friends that eat.”
“So the kids and their friends ate all the chips, pretzels, cookies?”
I wanted my scowl to force him to his paper, the television, anywhere but the kitchen. I imagined emitting powerful rays, paralyzing him, or better yet, controlling him, another good idea, science fiction at that. I’d just jot it down.
“Becky, answer me!”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
“And you didn’t buy anymore yesterday?”
“Well, honey, you said we needed to cut back.” That’s good. Give it the virtuous woman bit.
“Where’s the grocery receipt?”
“What?”
“The grocery receipt. That long piece of paper with lots of numbers on it.”
Leave it to Ray to think of the grocery receipt. Thank the Lord I had thrown it away. Ray jostled passed me and, to his back, I communicated silent messages. You will leave the kitchen now. You won’t remember anything. I repeat, you will…
“What are you doing?” I asked, yanking his arm, pulling him out of the trash compactor.
“Ah, here it is.” He wiped off coffee grounds and oatmeal. His finger traced every purchase. “This is exactly what I expected. Books, books, and more books, and of course, a few unnecessary grocery items.”
“Food Jungle offers twenty-five percent off their books.”
His head shook in disgust as he gazed into the cabinets. “This looks like the Library of Congress. Let’s see, we’ve got ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart’. You read that months ago.”
“I need it for referral, the way she handled….”
“Patterson, ‘When the Wind Blows’.”
“He’s exceptional at short chapters.”
“And this one, “Jewel”, hey, Mom’s been wanting to read this.” Ray set it aside.
“No!”
“Becky, I’m not going to give it to her, just let her borrow it.”
“She might misplace it, and, well, Brett Lott is one of my favorites.”
“Of course darling, I understand. You can trust her with our children, but you can’t trust her to borrow a precious book.”
I tossed his words around in my mind, realizing the depth of my obsession.
“She returned ‘Cold Mountain’ with a water ring on it,” I said before opening the freezer again. With the determination of Bret Lott’s Jewel, I yanked that vegetable bag loose, tore it open, and poured the contents into the boiling water. Jewel’s determination was a part of me now.
I turned to him. “Supper’s almost ready. Could you tell the kids to wash up?”
He stomped out. My shoulders fell from relief.
I strolled to the dining room table where lay two manuscripts, one a picture book, the other a historical fiction novel, both waiting on one last scan before mailing off. I had nurtured them, sacrificed precious months, years, and researched for weeks. I had stayed up sleepless nights with them. They had been just like -– children.
Children?
Oh, my. I clutched the counter, a hand pressed to my forehead as reality pounced on me, just as it had to Fran in “Black and Blue”, and Jonas in “The Giver”. What had I done? I stuffed unkempt tresses behind my ears. A decision had to be made.
I slid the manuscripts down to the one end, set bowls, spoons, and glasses at the other.
My two precious children trudged in behind their father, and claimed their personal seats, unaware that obsession plagued their mother. I held the pot, dipped soup into their bowls, making sure Ray received most of the chicken.
I plopped into my chair, accepting meager bits of vegetables, noodles, and no chicken.
“What’s there to drink,” my son asked.
Six beady eyes needled me like I was a voodoo doll.
“Milk and, uh, water.”
“That’s all?” my daughter shouted. “No coke, not even Kool Aid?”
Then I remembered the generic cola I had bought for seventy-eight cents, and funneled into a Coca Cola two-liter bottle by flashlight in the pantry.
“Just kidding. There’s Coke.” I shambled to the pantry, pulled out the bottle between Jeffrey Archer and Nora Roberts. “Who wants some?”
“I do,” the kids screamed, but Ray’s mouth remained tight, his glower branding me like a fiery iron. Good description. I’m on a roll. I reached for my pen and pad, but stopped, tossed a dim-witted grin to Ray, grabbed the bottle, and poured the drinks.
“Where’s the chicken?” my son asked, stirring his broth.
“Yeah. I don’t have but one lousy piece,” my daughter fussed.
Ray said, “Well, I’ve got plenty, so no belly aching.” He defended me, his wife, who he had promised to take for better or worse. Then he added, “Be happy you’ve got that. Who knows what tomorrow might bring? Anybody want to read a good book with your dinner?”
“We got any crackers?”
My gaze fell on my son, his question sounding so innocent, yet I knew the truth. He was out to get me, still angry that I was late picking him up after practice. I had explained how time had slipped away as I finished the historical fiction. He said he understood, told me to forget about it, all the while scheming, planning just the right time to claim his revenge. Yes, revenge is always an attention grabber. I could polish up the plot, add a little more background, change the characters --.
“Mama, the crackers.”
“Uh,” I mumbled
Ray slammed his spoon. “No, son, but we’ve got Ray Bradbury, John Grisham, Danielle Steele, but then, at your age, you’d probably want Gary Paulson, Lois Lowry, or, what’s her name, Harry Potter -- ”
“J. K. Rowling,” I replied, not amused.
“Whatever.”
The children glared at their father, like he was the one who had gone mad. Suddenly, Ray bolted up, dashed to the cabinet, and started chucking my books into the den.
“Ray, stop it! What are you doing?”
“I’m taking these, all these, to the Book Exchange.”
“No, please. I’ll do anything.”
He stopped, stared at the hardbacks and paperbacks, strewn about the kitchen and den floor.
His trembling fingers ran through his thick black mane.
“Becky, you’re going to send us to the poor house, and we’re going to starve in the process. It’s either us,” he said, glancing at the children, my children, the ones I had lugged around in my stomach for nine months, doubled over in pain for, when all he did was hold my hand and say ‘Breathe, breathe’, “or your obsession.”
I sat, taken aback by his threat. I traipsed to the cabinet where my husband stood red-faced, breathless, reminding me of someone at that moment. Who was it? Oh, yes, Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”. If only I could only write like Stephen King.
Listen to me!
Ray was right. I had ignored my family, spent hours upon hours creating, editing, revising, researching, studying markets, and locating just the right publisher. My gaze switched to my two precious babies. I remembered giving birth to them, nurturing them, trying to mold them into all they could be. How I loved them.
My God, what had I been thinking? To think, I had almost given them up.
I loped to the table, whipped the two manuscripts into my arms, and squeezed them to my bosom.
“Of course, I’ll get the books, computer and visitation. Won’t I?”
Farctured Frazzled Folk Fables and Fairy Farces, Part II satirizes popular children's stories into adult-oriented renditions. FFFF &FF, Part II is also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble e-book formats.
A humorous look at the world and life through my eyes.
Follow the author and his wife, as they travel the world …. several times over.
Laugh at their funny stories, self-inflicted crazy events, strange observations, wacky zoo facts and snippets
