Dead End Gene Pool by Wendy Burden

Author:Wendy Burden
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781101186183
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-07-06T10:00:00+00:00

For the first time since bearing them, our mother actually had to take care of her children. Will was mostly away, either at school or camp, or at our grandparents’, but Edward made up for Will’s absence by being an omnipresent toddler. Without Cassie Diggins we were suddenly, horribly, at the mercy of our mother’s cooking: Early New England Regional Cuisine as Interpreted by an Alcoholic with an Eating Disorder.

Everything went into the Teflon frying pan: Spam, hot dogs, “grilled” Velveeta cheese sandwiches, steak, spaghetti, hearts of palm, fish sticks, and any and all leftovers, which, with an addition of onion, were then relabeled “hash.” Meanwhile, my mother rarely deviated from her own regime of cottage cheese, diet soda, Ayds candies, and raw hamburger meat dipped in Lip-ton onion soup mix—except when she was loaded. Then she sucked up drippings from the roast or frying pan with a straw.

The cook soon became fed up to here with cooking. In the nick of time someone invented Shake ’N Bake, Birds Eye boil-in-the-bag frozen vegetables, and a coffee cake mix in a plastic bag that you added an egg to before squirting it out into its own little baking pan. Those technological advances, along with Chun King sukiyaki in a box, helped my mother evolve.

The Lord and Master left for work at dawn, so it was relatively peaceful in the mornings. Edward would watch cartoons in the living room, while I’d sit at the kitchen counter before school and watch my mother fry eggs in bacon grease. On certain Fridays, I went to visit my grandparents for the weekend. I hated flying, especially alone. I was torn between my fear and wanting a breather from my stepfather’s autocratic domain, not to mention babysitting my little brother, a drudgery that was hardly worth its twenty-five-cents-an-hour compensation.

“I hate flying more than anything,” I grumbled, and refolded my paper napkin so the corners were more perfectly aligned.

“Poppycock,” said my mother, sliding a couple of eggs that looked like brown lace onto my plate. The toaster popped, and she scraped the tiniest amount of margarine imaginable over an English muffin before handing it to me. I glared at her. She herself was so terrified of flying someone had to crowbar her out of the airport bar in order to get her on the plane.

“And just think,” she added, “you get to be waited on hand and foot by those Irish biddies and pork up on butter, and drink Coke until your teeth rot.” She had a knack for making the things you looked forward to sound terrible.

“Yeah, well at least I’ll be away from Adolf,” I said through a mouthful of toast. My mother whipped around from the sink, a bottle of dish soap in one hand, a sponge in the other. She narrowed her eyes at me, like smoke was heading her way. Whether my sobriquet for him insulted her, or whether it hurt her feelings, I couldn’t tell, but clearly she was pissed. Not that I cared.

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