ST3.8 | "#emotionallaborday"

PROMPT: We recognize National Women’s Equality Day on August 26, commemorating the adoption of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which granted women the right to vote. This month, we want women-led stories and female-identifying protagonists. The sisters are doin’ it for themselves, but when you’re on the receiving end of a Stone’s Throw, that’s not always the safest place to be.

#emotionallaborday

by Autumn Harrison

Growing up in The Family, we did not do holidays, or birthdays, but that’s not the point of this story.

The point of this story is family—lower case f. When I had my own family, it took me a while to figure out what was expected at the holidays. Once, my sweet little girl had to remind me that the Easter Bunny brought baskets filled with chocolate eggs and marshmallow chicks. That one still confuses me. What does the Easter Bunny have to do with the torture-killing of a 2,000-year-old peace and love guru? Birthdays were easier: bake a cake, make a meal, and invite everyone.

I’d learned kitchen magic in The Family and could stretch a meal intended for ten into a meal that could feed however many people came to listen to Daddy Charlie preach and riff on his own brand of peace and love. No one was ever turned away, even if they should have been.

My brother’s birthday is August 31st, and I’ve turned it into a yearly open house cookout. Some years, that has meant I was cooking for an ex-husband or two, and a handful of stray kids, and our favorite crossing guard grandma, and my brother’s EMT crew, looking for post-shift beers at 8 a.m.. This year was slated to be small: Tabitha, home from college, Junior, my brother, Gavin, my partner, and Karen, his wife.

Yeah, the wife was a problem, five years separated, five years in mediation. First it was the custom detailing business they ran together, then it was the house, and now just the car he had inherited from his father. Gavin, ever the optimist, left the title out on the counter.

I had been working that kitchen magic, ribs in the smoker, cake tiers cooling on a rack, and a hibiscus sun tea brewing on the windowsill, when the familiar growl of the convertible 1962 Mercedes SL pulled into the driveway, gave a shudder, and died.

I pulled a baggy of unripe elderberries from the refrigerator and put them on the countertop. Did I know they were poisonous? I did. Experience had taught me that a little bit of the raw juice would keep an unwelcome guest in the bathroom all day, but a lot would send them to the hospital.

Karen breezed in the backdoor, empty-handed, just like every year, not so much as a smudge stick or a bottle of kombucha. Only this year she brought along Aslan, her new thirty-something yoga instructor boyfriend. A hugger.

“Hope you’re cool with me joining?” Aslan asked me, mid-embrace. He was tall, lean, and dressed in an emerald green athleisure outfit: mesh anorak, capri yoga pants, and no underwear—a fact that was impossible not to notice.

“Gloria doesn’t mind. She lives for this.” Karen answered for me, with a crinkle of her nose.

“Right, why would I?” I replied through my best Get-Along-Gloria smile.

“Hi Karen.” Tabitha said. She was wearing cut off jean shorts, a cropped t-shirt that exposed her midriff, and her favorite stompy boots. She was going through a goth moment.

Out of the corner of my eye, I clocked the look Aslan gave to my girl’s curvy, compact figure.

Karen had seen it too and tutted, while looking Tabitha up and down, “You’ve lost those freshman fifteen, thank god.”

“Must be all the beer and ramen.” Tabitha said and turned to me, “Can I help?”

“Oh yes, Gloria, would you like some help?” Karen chimed in as she and Aslan posed at the back door.

I wondered what she would do if I said yes.             

“No, thank you. Go play.” I waved my hand out at Gavin and Junior who were throwing a frisbee in the backyard.

“Don’t forget to baste both sides of the tofu. Last time it was a little dry.” Karen flipped her silk scarf over her shoulder and followed Aslan and Tabitha out the door.

Gavin blamed Karen’s spitefulness on their marriage being childless. The phrase he used was ‘she has an inhospitable womb.’ I think he is a good man, but I might be spiteful too, if I’d heard my uterus described that way.     

I picked up the baggie of elderberries and slipped them into the pocket of my new #emotionallaborday apron, a present from Tabitha.

I took a break to restock the cooler on the back deck and could feel Aslan eye-balling the cans of beer.

“Thirsty?” I asked. He licked his lips but shook his head.

Karen said, “No thank you. Alcohol, like sugar, and sex numb the spiritual core.”

“My spiritual core is dying for some numbing.” Gavin chimed in with a smile and a wink for me.

“Dying is right.” Karen said, pointedly staring at Gavin’s dad bod belly.

He shrugged.

I was pleased that no one was rising to the bait this year. Turns out I was worried about the wrong thing.

An hour later, I was crouched near the bottom shelves of the kitchen hutch, looking for corn on the cob skewers.

“Mama?” Tabitha’s pretty baby doll face was blotchy with high red spots, and streaked with black eyeliner. She was barely holding it together.

I stood up and put my hands on her upper arms.

“He put his tongue in my mouth.” The words came out in a violent whispered rush.

“Wait. What?”

“Aslan. He followed me into the powder room. Then he pressed me up against the bathroom sink, said I had a beautiful aura, and put his tongue in my mouth.” Her face was filled with confusion and disgust.

My vision shrank to a pin hole, and my grip tightened on her arms. I sucked in a breath and felt it get stuck in my chest.  

Greasy trick. I had let him into my home, and he had assaulted my child. Hot prickling rage crawled up my spine and across my scalp. I was going to hurt him.

Tabitha let out a whimper. My hands were clenched into her upper arms. I released my grip and pulled her into a hug.

Her words came out between sucked in gasps, “I pushed him away and tried to leave but he was blocking the door. He scared me but I remembered what Uncle Junior always says and I kneed him in the nuts.”

I sat her at the kitchen island and ran a tea towel under the cold-water tap. I held the cool cloth to her brow, watched as she got her breathing under control, and wondered where I had last seen my switchblade.

Then I remembered that Get-Along-Gloria doesn’t use a switchblade, and said, “We have to tell Gavin.”

Tabitha shook her face away from me, and said, “She’ll make a scene.”

“Tabitha, you can do it.” I fought the urge to grab her by the arms.

Tabitha shook her head again, harder, and said, “No. It’s not worth it. I can get along for Junior’s Birthday, for Gavin, for the family.”

Before I could think of what to say to her, she picked up the placemats and the corn skewers and moved out to the screened-in porch where the table was set up.

My stomach churned with soured rage, and without realizing it, I was rummaging through the drawer that held birthday candles and fast-food condiments, and under the takeout menus, my switchblade. I slipped it into the pocket of my apron.

Everyone has the one dish that makes them feel like a part of a family. There were fried zucchini flowers for Gavin, a citrus salad for Tabitha, and a three-layer chocolate cake for Junior. I took my time juicing the elderberries and adding it to the hibiscus sun tea for Aslan and Karen.

“Are you holding up?” Gavin asked as he came into the kitchen to refill bowls of chips.

“I am. You?” I avoided eye contact and kept my hands busy. I wished that I knew for sure how he would react to hearing that Aslan, Karen’s guest, had assaulted my child.

“Just one day, right?”

I nodded and followed him out to the patio, where I served Aslan and Karen glasses of tea, reassuring them that they were alcohol free.

I caught Junior’s eye and gestured him toward the kitchen.

“Listen, that greasy trick cornered Tabitha. Stuck his tongue in her mouth.”

Junior is normally full of energy and charm, but he can turn on a dime, if need be. He set a newly opened beer down, untasted.

“Keep him here.” Junior turned to the back door.

“Hold up, where are you going?”

He looked back at me. “I got my cross-bow in the truck.”

“Tabitha asked me not to. She wants to keep the peace, for Gavin.”

“Did you macro dose mushrooms this morning? Gavin does not want that.”

I held up my hand, “Tabitha needs to know her choices are respected.”

“Nope. She needs to know there is only one way to handle greasy tricks. Who is she going to be out in the world, a rabbit or a fox?”

He knew that would get my attention. We had learned a lot the year they arrested all the adults in The Family. Hitchhiking cross country at seventeen with my six-year-old brother in tow, I had a switchblade and a smile, and everyone got a choice.

“Not the crossbow and don’t drink the hibiscus tea.”

Junior rolled his eyes at me. “You can’t fix this problem by giving him diarrhea.”

I shrugged and sent Junior back outside with strict instructions not to pick a fight. Out on the sun porch, I sat Tabitha down next to me. “Baby, do you think he has ever assaulted another girl?”

Tabitha’s eyes flicked up at me, then down to her hands. But she nodded.

“Do you think he should get away with it?”

She shook her head.   

“I am asking you to tell Gavin.” I paused, we both needed to know. “If you’re worried that keeping the peace is more important to him, let’s find out.”

She locked eyes with me and I was relieved to recognize the heat of her anger.

“Ok, Mama.”

I called Gavin away from the grill and left him alone with Tabitha.

I put the finishing touches on Junior’s cake.

Tabitha came back into the kitchen, her face set in determination. Gavin rounded the countertop and kissed me.

“If she tries to defend him, she can keep that car, I don’t care.”

If she tries to defend him, she will have more than the car to worry about, I thought as I sent Gavin and Tabitha back outside.

I called Karen into the kitchen. She cut me off before I had even gotten to Aslan’s ‘beautiful aura’ line.

She pointed a finger at me. “Really Gloria, this is your fault. You should have told Tabitha that dressing like a slut would get her in trouble.”

“Karen, you have a choice. You can be a decent human being and earn a place at my table or you can defend that greasy trick.”

She chose wrong.

I reached out and grabbed the ends of her silk scarf, pulling her to me as I slipped the switch blade from my apron pocket and held it between us. I flipped the lever up and felt the satisfying snick of the spring-loaded blade opening.

Karen let out a whistling gasp as I dragged her closer to me and put the tip of the blade to the soft, thin skin under her left eye. She squeezed her eyes closed. There were beads of sweat trapped in the fine bleached hairs above her upper lip.

“You are going to sign the Mercedes title over to my man and then you are going to listen to Tabitha.”

I moved my blade to her ribs and gave her a poke, just a little one. I watched her face sag and age, as she signed the back of the title. She looked like a balloon found two weeks after the party. The feeling of control was delicious.

Junior watched me maneuver Karen into the doorway, my knife hidden from view. He nodded to Gavin, who stood up and addressed Aslan, “Tabitha has something to say to you.”     

Tabitha’s face broke out in new red blotches, but she said, “You are a pig. I would never kiss you willingly, ever. What you did was wrong.”

“What? Come on, I was just being friendly.” Aslan’s eyelids were at a languid half-mast.

Gavin crossed the patio in two easy strides and smacked Aslan across the face.

“You are not welcome here.” He reached down and picked Aslan up by the collar. The younger man began windmilling his arms until Junior reached over and grabbed a hank of his hair. Together, they frog-marched him out the garden gate.

I poked Karen again, “Start walking, maybe you can hitch a ride.”

The rest of the hibiscus tea went down the drain. When the ribs were ready, I took off my #emotionallaborday apron and stowed it next to the takeout menus and my switchblade. I called my family to the table.

Raised in New Orleans and Portland, OR, AUTUMN HARRISON (on Instagram @autumnharrisonwrites) is a writer living on the edge of Washington, DC with her two darling daughters, and her boyfriend, the race car driver. A former baker, bartender, and band booker she is a fan of crispy cookies, perfect Manhattans, and live music. She longs for the next stage of her life when she can fill her days with motorcycling, knitting, and writing about imperfect people living imperfect lives.