The evening meal was the last bastion of family solidarity at Chez Poinker.
For decades the nightly ritual of creating a hot, nutritious meal and placing it on the table in front of each of the five children has assisted Pinky in clinging frantically to the false self-image of a nurturing mother.
It seems even that solitary buttress has finally been smashed into the tiny shards of a broken mirror reflecting the tenuous and unsustainable lie I’ve doggedly attempted to preserve.
Even though twenty-four year old Thaddeus lives with his father and Jonah is currently residing in the big smoke; eighteen year old Padraic, Lulu, and twenty year old Hagar and his girlfriend Meggles, still live with us.
Well... they occasionally sleep here.
Early every evening, Pinky performs the same charade with the same hackneyed script.
“Will you be home for dinner tonight?”
“What is it?”
“Something delicious!”
“Okay… maybe.”
The final wretched scene of the farce however, sees our tragic heroine bitterly shoving leftovers in the fridge aside in order to squeeze in the latest abandoned offering to the Gods.
“Stop cooking for them!” Scotto asserts, while Pinky bleats on and on about wasted food, money and effort.
He doesn’t understand. Once I stop cooking dinner for them they won’t need me anymore.
For anything.
Yesterday, the final nail in the coffin containing the demise of Pinky’s usefulness was hammered in with decisive precision.
Lulu’s father bought her a car.
Now she can drive herself to work, netball games, parties, McDonalds.
I’ll probably never ever see her again.
Early every evening, Pinky performs the same charade with the same hackneyed script.
“Will you be home for dinner tonight?”
“What is it?”
“Something delicious!”
“Okay… maybe.”
The final wretched scene of the farce however, sees our tragic heroine bitterly shoving leftovers in the fridge aside in order to squeeze in the latest abandoned offering to the Gods.
“Stop cooking for them!” Scotto asserts, while Pinky bleats on and on about wasted food, money and effort.
He doesn’t understand. Once I stop cooking dinner for them they won’t need me anymore.
For anything.
Yesterday, the final nail in the coffin containing the demise of Pinky’s usefulness was hammered in with decisive precision.
Lulu’s father bought her a car.
Now she can drive herself to work, netball games, parties, McDonalds.
I’ll probably never ever see her again.
