Trouble the Living: A Novel by Francesca McDonnell Capossela

Author:Francesca McDonnell Capossela [Capossela, Francesca McDonnell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2023-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

Back home, my heart raced with anticipation. I would go straight to my room, open the box, have it over with. In less than ten minutes, I would know.

But I’d forgotten we had dinner plans, as had Mom. When we walked in, we found Kaleb at the dinner table talking to a young woman with very curly blonde hair and pinkish skin. She was drinking a glass of white wine, and Kaleb was drinking a can of seltzer. When Mom saw the two of them chattering happily away, she looked murderous.

“You’re late,” Kaleb whispered as he got up to kiss Mom hello. I wondered if I could slip away, pretend I had some summer reading assignment and creep upstairs, but Kaleb had set four places at the table and was beginning to serve the food.

“Bernie,” he said. “I’ve been bragging to Clarissa about your forays into philosophy.”

Which meant I couldn’t leave.

Kaleb had made a vegetarian chili, which Clarissa oohed and aahed over even though it only took twenty-five minutes to make and was just a couple of cans of beans and tomatoes mashed around with a wooden spoon. Mom poured herself an exceptionally large glass of white wine and sat down next to Kaleb. I was stuck on the other side of the table with Clarissa.

“Clarissa is studying radical altruism,” Kaleb told me. “You know, like Peter Singer.”

I made a hum of interest, trying to avoid being rude while also making it clear that I took my mother’s side in all things. Except when it was me against Mom, of course. But if she didn’t like Clarissa, neither did I.

“What do you do?” Clarissa asked Mom, either oblivious or indifferent to her annoyance.

“I run the Pomona Valley Homeless Shelter,” Mom said.

“I think you’re forgetting a word.” Clarissa laughed. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “Isn’t it the Pomona Valley Christian Homeless Shelter?”

“Yes, it’s a bit of a mouthful.” Mom’s smile was a death sentence.

“Cheese?” I offered, holding up a bag of Trader Joe’s cheddar shreds.

“I’m vegan.” Clarissa turned back to Mom. “I guess I just feel like religion doesn’t really have a place in nonprofit work?” She said the statement like a question.

Mom took the bag of cheese out of my hand and began to load up her bowl with it, making eye contact with Clarissa while the shards fell on top of her chili. She easily used up half the bag. I knew what she was thinking, could feel the fiery reaction on the tip of her tongue. And what have you done lately for your community? And what is it you believe in? She was skeptical of anyone who criticized belief when they had none of their own. It was easier, she said, to stand for nothing than to stand for something, for your own traditions, for your own ideals. She had found the shelter through our church, I knew, and she had taken to them both, not as things to understand or analyze but as things to serve, places to carry out her worship without asking questions.

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