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Mrs. Punchbowl

A mother's love is mysteriously sweet

By Tess TimmonsPublished 3 years ago 8 min read
1
Image by B. Lark Unsplash.com

“Mom, what’s for dinner?” Annika asks while painting her nails pink at the kitchen counter.

“Yeah Mom, I’m starving,” Travis groans as he knocks over his Legos tower for the fourth time today.

“We can have the rotisserie chicken in the fridge, with..”

“We ate that for lunch,” Annika explains.

Beth Punchbowl looks over to the recycle bin and see’s the Chips Ahoy box, the rotisserie container, the Apple Jacks cereal box, and the milk jug piled high. “I just went to the store yesterday you guys. You ate all of this today?”

“Mom, it’s Covid and we are locked up,” Annika rolls her eyes as she blows on her fingers to dry the polish.

Beth opens the refrigerator. Lettuce, a few cheese slices, an almost empty orange juice container...eggs! “Breakfast for dinner,” Beth exhales. “I guess I’m going back to the grocery store. Does anyone want to help me?”

Screech, the bar stool leg scrapes the tile. “No, I’d rather watch Netflix,” Annika walks to her room.

Beth Punchbowl looks over at Travis who acts like an airplane and runs from the room. Beth walks by the front office and hears her husband on a conference call, she feels more distant with him working from home than before Covid when he stayed in San Francisco three times a week.

***

“Have you heard the new regulations?” behind her M96 mask the customer in front of Beth continues to inform her. “We need to start tossing out the boxes our groceries come in. Toss them into the garbage. Don’t let them touch anything in your kitchen. Wash the inside plastic wrapping of that frozen dinner before you put it into your freezer. They say we should leave groceries in our garage for several hours and not transfer them inside until it’s safe. Don’t bring your shoes inside either, that’s what the nurses do, they leave their shoes in their garage. They strip down in the garage, immediately put their clothing into the wash and shower before seeing their family. My dental hygienist said that these masks are ruining our enamel. The carbon dioxide we are breathing in is stripping our teeth, so we need to carry mouthwash and use it when we get to our cars after being in here. I’ve got wipes in my purse. The moment I get in my car I’m washing my face too. We don’t know who has it here, could be anyone!” Her eyes wildly scan the checkout lanes as she turns toward the clerk.

Boxed crackers, cookies, granola bars, cereal, frozen burritos, mac n cheese, pizza...Beth realizes she’ll be up all night washing and cleaning these items. She hauls the groceries to her car and drives home.

***

As she pulls up to the house the lights are off, everyone must be in bed. Beth pulls her SUV into the garage. She hauls the ten bags of groceries out of the car, setting them next to the garbage can. She takes each item out of its external packaging and places them into an empty storage bin. After taking off her shoes, she strips her clothes off and tiptoes into the house, setting the bin on the kitchen floor. She races over to the washing machine, placing her clothes inside and starting it.

After quickly showering in the downstairs guest bathroom she comes back to the kitchen in a towel and starts to wash each plastic bag her food is in. “I love my family,” she repeats while placing each item into the cupboard. Beth looks at the clock, 1 a.m. she decides to bake a cake to eat tomorrow at dinner with her husband, Annika, and Travis. She needs to go to work tomorrow, essential workers are allowed. She signed up for the double shift as Maggie needed to stay home with Ralf due to his medical history; they’ll be no time to bake tomorrow.

Beep, beep, the oven wakes Beth who fell asleep slumped over the kitchen island, her drool pooled onto her elbow. “Ouch” Beth’s bare hand grabbed the cake pan. She rushes over to the sink placing her fingers under cold water. Her hand pulses with pain as her fingers form white blisters. She wraps a cold dish towel around her hand, “stupid” she curses herself as she pulls the cake out properly. She bandages her hand and waits for the cake to cool down. As she scoops the homemade chocolate icing out of the bowl and decorates the cake she repeats, “I love my family”. It’s 3 a.m. and she needs to be out the door in two and a half hours. She decides to sleep on the sofa, as not to disturb anyone.

Image by Umesh Soni Unsplash.com

***

“Hi, Mom! What’s for dinner?” Travis bounces like a rabbit past Beth as she enters the house. Levi and Eric jump behind him toward the sliding glass door.

Beth walks into the living room where Annika, Jessica, Evelyn, Michelle and, Mary are chatting on the sofa. “Hi, Mom. What’s for dinner? Dad said we could have friends over. He had a few work people stop by for a meeting, so we were allowed to have people too. We’ll be upstairs,” Annika stands up and each girl follows her cue grabbing their drinks and snacks heading to her room.

“Hi, Mrs. Punchbowl. Thanks for letting us come over,” Michelle and Evelyn say as they pass Beth. Beth however is speechless. She walks into the kitchen dropping her jacket onto a chair and her purse onto the kitchen table. The garbage bin is piled high, full of yesterday’s groceries. There are twelve glasses halfway filled on the kitchen island. Dishes are piled into the sink and on the counter. As she pans toward the oven she sees the cake two-thirds of the way eaten. The note she left next to it on the ground with orange juice spilled on it.

She rapidly walks to her husband’s office door and knocks. The door opens.

“Hey, sweetheart. Stan and Freddy are staying for dinner tonight. What are we having?”

Stan and Freddy look at Beth and smile wide with cigars in their mouths, “Hey Beth nice to see ya. That chocolate cake was incredible.”

“Thank you, Freddy. Ummm can I speak with you for a second?” Beth looks at her husband. “We are supposed to be social distancing….”

“Oh Beth this is all ridiculous, you know that. I’ve got to hit my numbers this month. Freddy and Stan needed me to finalize the report for the McHinge account. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have this big old house right? The kids were crawling the walls so I told them to invite some friends over, all the parents were grateful. We’ll be ready to eat in an hour baby,” he steps back into the office and closes the door.

***

Beth pulls back up to the house, the lights are off. She needed to drop off Eric, Levi, Jessica, Michelle, and Evelyn. She stopped by the store again. She repeats the same process of unloading the groceries, washing her clothes, and washing the food.

After dropping off the children, Beth walked into the Al’s Liquor Store next to the grocery store, she bought several shooters of whiskey and poured them into her Starbucks coffee. As she walked the aisles of the store she kept landing back in the baking aisle. Now home in her kitchen, Beth giggles as she bakes cake, after cake, after cake.

Image by Mozhvilo Unsplashed.com

***

“Hi Mom, are we having cake for dinner too?” Travis jumps off the back of the sofa and rolls toward her feet, “I ate the birthday cake, the Christmas cake, the jelly cake, and the rainbow cake!”

“That’s great Travis. If you are what you eat...you’re sweet, sweet, sweet,” she smiles and kisses his cheeks.

“Beth glad you’re home. Baby, there are twelve cakes in the kitchen...are you off your rocker? That lemon cake was delicious..but seriously baby what’s for dinner? There’s no real food in the house. You need to go to the store,” he places a grin on his face waiting for her reply.

Beth looks him in the eye and smiles, “Sure baby I’ll go right now. Why don’t you take the kids to pick up dinner and eat at the park.”

“Yes!!!!” Travis screams and runs to find Annika, "Rocket Launch Cafe! Rocket Launch Cafe!”

“They’ll love that,” Beth kisses her husband on the cheek and walks out the front door.

Ding, Beth walks into Al’s Liquor Store and piles shooters on the counter. “Lady, you might prefer to buy a bottle” the man behind the counter pushes up his glasses to look her in the eye.

“That’s ok, I like the little bottles,” Beth sweetly replies.

Back at home, the neighborhood is quiet. Beth pulls out the mixing bowl. She dumps each cake into the sink and tosses the dishes into the trash can. As she cracks the eggs in the bowl she repeats, “I love my family.”

She sets down another empty mini bottle on the countertop. Beep, beep the oven announces a job well done. She sets the cake on the counter. She blends the melted dark chocolate in the bowl. She walks upstairs to the bathroom and opens the medicine cabinet. She brings down three bottles of prescription drugs and crushes them on the cutting board with a meat tenderizer. She then dumps the dust and minuscule bits into the chocolate icing and begins to stir. “I love my family,” she repeats.

Image by American Heritage Unsplash.com

After icing the cake, Beth Punchbowl starts to dance in the kitchen as she empties the remaining seven tiny bottles into her mouth. As she spins in circles, laughing sinisterly, her high heel slips on a chocolate chip, she hits her head on the hanging cast iron skillet, knocking her out cold. Her body tumbles forward as her face lands into the center of the laced chocolate cake, suffocating her.

Short Story
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