Along Came Zoe

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“The world.” She poured water into the mug. “Skewed priorities, inequity.” With her thumb and finger, she fished the tea bag out of the mug and threw it toward the trash can. Missed.

He bent down, scooped it up and tossed it. That’s how his mom talked: big words, big concepts. “Gotta overcome that genetic predisposition,” she’d say if she came in and caught him watching TV. Genetic predisposition. Translation. Don’t be like your father. “Skewed priorities” meant she’d probably been to see Rhea and got all fired up about Jenny dying while doctors played golf or something.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said now. “I’m just in a very bad mood. Give me a few minutes, okay?”

“Sure.” He wondered what was for dinner.

“Getting people to pay attention,” his mom said. She was sitting at the table now, staring into her mug of tea like it was a crystal ball or something. “That’s the first step to creating change.”

Sure, Mom, he thought. Whatever you say. If anyone could make people pay attention, it was his mom. Sometimes she made him feel tired, like he’d been caught up in a hurricane and pushed around by all the noise and movement. Once Hurricane Zoe got rolling, no one thought for a minute she wouldn’t do what she’d set out to do. She’d get on these kicks…like right now it was getting the trauma services started again. The last one was getting a stop-light put in on this street where some little kid got run over, and before that it was getting a new trial for this black guy who was in jail for murdering a girl. Now the guy was out, back to working as a schoolteacher and telling everyone that he owed it all to Zoe McCann.

She’d even gotten herself arrested once for protesting against something. He couldn’t remember what it was now, but they’d shown her on TV being dragged across the street by a couple of cops. That’s how she was. Grandma said her own mother had led some kind of protest about women not being allowed into this bar where all the men were playing darts. Grandma and Aunt Courtney weren’t like that, though, but Grandma said these things sometimes skipped generations.

All he knew was that he didn’t want that gene, or whatever it was, lurking inside him waiting for a chance to make him act obnoxious. Not that his mom would call it obnoxious though, she’d say it was standing up for herself. Don’t let anyone push you around, ever, she was always telling him. You’re as good as anyone. Just remember that.

Like he could forget when she reminded him practically every day? Not that he wasn’t kind of proud of his mom, even though she sometimes drove him nuts the way she sucked him into all her energy. Like she was so big on him being a doctor, he even told the school counselor that’s what he wanted, too. Except that he didn’t know what he wanted to be, maybe a carpenter or something, like his dad—not that he’d ever tell her that. Plus, he hated chemistry and the other science stuff.

He watched her, still sitting there looking into her mug of tea. Uh, Mom? Dinner? I’m only like starving to death. He had a secret stash of burritos behind his mom’s bags of frozen whatever it was that she was always digging up from the garden, but with her in the kitchen there was no way he could get to it without her making this big, humongous deal about it. She’d grab the burrito box from him and start reading the list of ingredients. Picking out these long words that didn’t even sound like something you should put in your mouth. “Where did you get this disgusting thing from anyway?”

Then she’d fix him with a look that said she knew damn well where they’d come from. Pam, his father’s new wife, who looked more like a cheerleader than a stepmom and couldn’t cook to save her life, was always giving him stuff to take home with him. He knew she did it mostly to bug his mom, but, hey, he liked frozen burritos. When his mom made Mexican food, she always tried to put in stuff like zucchini.

“I am so furious at myself.” She brought her fists down so hard on the table that the mug jumped and the tea splashed all over the place. “God, I’m an idiot.”

He stopped thinking about how he could get a burrito from the freezer and microwave it without her noticing, and sat down at the table. “Why? Granny Janny?” His grandma always put his mom in a bad mood. Aunt Courtney this and Aunt Courtney that, he mimicked his mom’s voice in his head. Once he’d asked his mom if she was jealous of Aunt Courtney and then she’d really blown up.

“No. I told you, I’m mad at myself.”

“What’s for dinner, Mom?”

“Dinner?” She looked up as though she’d suddenly noticed he was sitting there. “Oh, honey…I’m sorry, I got so caught up in…I’m so sorry, sweetie.” Now she had her arm around his shoulder. “God, I didn’t realize the time, you must be starving—”