Chapter 2 – Groceries and Ultimatums
Following another breakfast of oatmeal and mild, orange tea, Mrs. Queen hummed while swaying in her beloved rocking chair set in the middle of her living room. The room was silent, save for that hum’s cracking melody. Mrs. Queen could no longer bear to turn on the television to provide a little noise to cover the sound of her humming. She could no longer stomach another news story of an explosion, nor another report from the front lines of one more war. She no longer had the strength to watch the world’s terror unfold during the course of a twenty-four hour news cycle. Mrs. Queen didn’t have the motivation to change from her sleeping gown and slippers into the blue jeans and boots she wore when tending to her garden. The world seemed too much for her, especially after that phone call from her neighbor Lacy Hollenkamp that had pulled her out of bed at the crack of dawn.
Thus Mrs. Queen hummed in the silence of her living room.
She heard the car pulling into her drive, and she was peering through her home’s curtains before her son Maven had time to step out of his vehicle. Mrs. Queen smiled, hoping that her grandson David would jump from the backseat. She thought she could use the company, for it would be nice if Maven could listen to her, and so help soothe the anxiety that energized her hum.
“Goodness, mother, are you eating anything at all?”
Mrs. Queen’s mind stammered to think of a response. She saw no grandson following his father into her home. She was confused, and so the noise of her hum multiplied.
“Where’s David?”
“I didn’t want him to come with me today.”
Mrs. Queen trembled. “Why not?”
“You’re not well,” and Maven stomped into the adjacent kitchen, opening and closing the cupboards, scanning the contents of his mother’s pantry. “It’s too quiet in here. I’m going to turn on the television.”
Mrs. Queen grabbed at Maven’s arm before he could reach the remote control. “I’d rather you didn’t. What did you mean when you said I wasn’t well?”
The question sounded weak to even Mrs. Queen, who couldn’t match Maven’s stare as he looked into his aging mother’s face. Maven was again looking upon her with judging eyes. He was again appraising her. Mrs. Queen’s hum grew louder, though she knew how much Maven hated when his mother shook through a fit of humming. Mrs. Queen hated herself for not having more control of her worry.
Maven sat upon the couch. “Jerry Rhodes called me yesterday afternoon. He said you were humming really loudly in the grocery store again, said that you hid two pounds of lunchmeat in with the tortilla chips. He told me that the way you hide what you order from the deli counter is really starting to become a problem.”
“Maven, the woman behind the counter wasn’t wearing gloves.”
“You shouldn’t have ordered anything if that troubled you.”
Mrs. Queen felt herself humming. Her thoughts were scrambling inside her skull. She only wanted Maven to listen to her fears, to promise her that everything was going to work out properly.
“Listen to me, Maven. Something terrible has happened.”
Maven squinted. “Are you taking your medicine each morning?”
“Just listen to me. There’s been a horrible tragedy.”
Maven shook his head. “Has someone called you again?”
“Lacy Hollenkamp called me first thing this morning.”
Maven rolled his eyes and stomped down the hall into the bathroom. There, he gathered the unopened bottles of his mother’s prescribed pills.
“Listen, Maven. Just listen to me.” Mrs. Queen grabbed at her son’s wrists, humming through the spaces between her words. “Lacy’s son-in-law has a second cousin, who has three boys and two girls, Maven. That family has a farm out in the country, a place where they like to ride four-wheelers through the woods. Maven, there was an accident. One of the boys broke his arm, and the girl had to get stitches to close the gash in her head. They were so lucky, Maven. People get killed on four-wheelers all the time. It was terrible.”
“Slow down. Listen to yourself.” Maven sighed. “Have you ever met Lacy’s daughter? Have you ever met any of your neighbor’s extended family? Do you know that boy and girl in any way?”
Mrs. Queen almost cried. “That doesn’t matter. It’s still terrible, and it could’ve been so much worse.”
“I know. I know,” and Maven’s shoulders slumped. “But, mother, bad things happen in the world. You cannot mourn for every tragedy. None of us have enough tears.”
“It’s so hard on Lacy. I feel sorry for her.”
Maven snorted. “Please. I wonder why Lacy calls you so early in the morning with such news in the first place. I can’t believe she doesn’t notice how it all affects you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You can’t just deny it anymore like you might’ve done when Dad was still alive, not like when I was just a boy. Don’t act like you don’t know. It’s the humming. It’s all the trembling. It’s all the weakness.”
“I just need you to listen to me.”
“You need more than that. You need to take your pills. The medicine helps to keep you stable. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Your brain is just wired in a different way. The medicine helps keep you stable.”
The notes to Mrs. Queen’s hum stretched longer and longer. Their pitch grew higher and higher.
“Do you think you know what I need better than myself? I don’t feel like myself when I take that medicine.”
“So you’re saying that you want to go on humming? That you want to keep shaking?”
“Maybe if so many bad things didn’t happen, Maven. Maybe if everything would only slow down long enough for me to catch my breath.”
“The world will not stop spinning for you.” Maven grabbed his mother’s elbow and forced Mrs. Queen to regard her reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Look at yourself. Your eyes tell me that you’re not getting enough sleep. I can see you’re not eating like you should.”
“I don’t know what they’re putting in my food, Maven.”
“That’s how you talk when you’re not taking your medicine. You have to eat something other than oatmeal. You have to drink something other than orange tea.”
“I don’t want to get too heavy,” Mrs. Queen hummed. “Nancy Alexander, who lives a few blocks down the street, suffers such pain in her knees because of her weight. It keeps her from walking the way Nancy would like to. I don’t want to have pain in my knees, Maven.”
“Stop it. Stop feeling sorry for everybody.” Maven placed a pill into the palm of his mother’s hand and squeezed her resisting fingers around it. “It’s a secret to no one that Nancy Alexander’s had a weight problem for her entire life. She eats too much of the sugary snacks, and she drinks too much cola. You hardly eat anything, and still you worry about being obese. It’s not sane, but that’s how you think when you don’t take your medicine the way the doctor wants you to.”
“Is that why you didn’t want David to come? Do you think I’m crazy? Do you think I’m a terrible person?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Mrs. Queen slumped onto the bathroom’s tile floor, terribly shaking and humming. “I’m so sorry, Maven. I’m so sorry you think your mother is a monster. I’ve done such terrible things.”
Maven closed his eyes and counted silently. “Don’t make me take you to the hospital again. You can’t see David when you’re like this. I don’t know what to do.”
Mrs. Queen gasped to catch a breath. “Don’t take me to the hospital. I promise I’ll take my medicine. You’ll see, Maven. You’ll see you can trust me with David again.”
“And you have to promise to try to eat.”
“I promise. I’ll go to the store right away.”
“You don’t have to. I went shopping for you. I picked out things for you. Fresh fruits and vegetables. Hamburger and chicken for protein. Cookies because everyone deserves an occasional snack”
Mrs.
Queen didn’t respond. She continued to hum.
“You have to promise you’ll eat those groceries, mom.”
“I promise.”
“I’m going to come back first thing in the morning to make sure you’ve taken your medicine, and that you’ve eaten something more than oatmeal.”
“You’ll see I can get better,” Mrs. Queen forced her hum to slow and soften. “I’ll stay away from the phone. I promise I won’t worry about things I have no control over.”
Maven smiled. “It’s not your fault that bad things happen.”
“I know, Maven.”
Trying to control her humming, Mrs. Queen held her breath while Maven carried paper bags brimming with groceries into the kitchen. But she could not hold her breath forever, and she hummed each time Maven walked out of the front door to grab additional sacks of eggs and milk. She trembled to think how close her son may have been to returning her to the hospital, to force her to leave her home so that she received the attention Maven believed her humming required.
She returned to her rocker the moment Maven’s car retreated from the drive. She swayed with more intensity, and she hummed as loudly as she ever had. She would take her medicine, and maybe that would be enough to convince Maven that she was not weak, that her mind was not so frayed that she couldn’t be trusted with her grandson David. Perhaps she had allowed her spirits to get too down recently. Perhaps she did take too much responsibility for the woes that haunted her neighbors. It was not strange that she would feel such anxiety. Anxiety was natural. The medicine would help put things into a healthier perspective.
Mrs. Queen’s humming nearly faded into silence by the time night arrived. She took her pill, and she felt an appetite return. She thought of fixing herself a grilled cheese sandwich, oozing with cheddar, just the way David liked it. She believed she deserved such an indulgence after her recent, difficult days.
But then the phone shrilled to announce the arrival of more tragedy and sorrow.
* * * * *