Business as Usual

Emily Claire Utley Business as Usual

Mary and her mother sat at a plastic table in the corner of a McDonald’s. The midafternoon sun leeched through the tinted window and made Mary’s fish sandwich look gray. The tartar sauce dripped of its own volition from the plastic bun. Mary had given her fries to her mother who ate them like a hamster eats a carrot. The doctor suggested organic greens, meat high in protein, and snacks easy on the stomach. Instead, her mother wanted to sit in the dingy McDonald’s, her bald head warmed by a purple knitted cap, and lick salt off her fingers.

“You feeling ok?” Mary asked. “Stop asking. I’m fine.” “This is absurd.” Mary crossed her arms and tilted her head toward the dead-moth-infested florescent light. “Dr. Morrison said you should be home in bed.”

“Well, it’s not like it will kill me,” her mother said, munching on another fry.

“No, Mom, that would be the cancer,” Mary barked, then unfolded her arms in attempt not to bite. “As a nurse, I can attest McDonald’s is not the chosen cuisine for breast cancer.”

“You aren’t a practicing nurse. You work for an insurance company. Let the real nurses worry about my salt levels. Go get ice cream or something. Relax.”

Worry was Mary’s own form of cancer, digging into her organs and gaining strength with each new mass: sick mother, absent fiancé, looming deadlines, weird ticking noise in car, out of tampons. “I don’t want ice cream,” she said.

Her mother shrugged and inserted another fry between her bright pink lips. On chemo days she insisted on wearing make-up to the hospital. Mary couldn’t help but think she had a crush on the 30-something Indian doctor who let slip he’d just broken up with his fiancé.

A scrawny teenager with dimpled cheeks appeared at their table. “Napkins?” he said, offering a thick wad of them.

Mary’s mother reached out and allowed the kid to place too many napkins into her palm. “Thank you, young man,” she said. Then, after the kid stepped away, “Where’s Chris?” “At work, I guess.” “You guess?” “Where else would he be?” “You tell me,” she said. A child’s head appeared above her right shoulder. A toddler stood in the seat, chubby cheeks smeared in ketchup and a fry clutched in his tiny fist. When Mary made eye contact with him he ducked back down.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Mary said. He had been taking sick days without telling Mary. When she had called his law firm and asked to speak with him, the secretary responded, “He’s at home, isn’t he?” When she had asked how his day went, he said, “Business as usual.” Then, he stopped coming home altogether. She spent her days, alone, approving insurance claims and her nights, even more alone, trying not to use her imagination. His absences became routine. Each time he returned home with new vigor for their relationship. He spoiled her with intimate nights in with a bottle of wine or dinner out with his hand possessively around her waist and a new piece of tasteful, expensive jewelry. She didn’t know where he went or why; she told herself she

didn’t need to. If losing him for a few days every couple of months meant the rest of their relationship was something her girlfriends envied, then so be it.

“When’s the last time you heard from him?” her mother asked.

Two large families came through the door with several children under the age of five. Their ruckus gave Mary a few moments of evasive silence. Mary’s mother raised what should have been an eyebrow. Mary missed the days when passive aggression ruled their relationship; cancer had given her a more direct approach.

“Tuesday,” Mary responded, attempting nonchalance.

“It’s Friday.” “I know, Mom.” “Have you tried calling him?” “Yes,” Mary said. She had restricted herself to three calls and two voicemails. She kept telling herself he was probably camping somewhere outside of civilization, living off trout and Beanie Weenies. Though, he’d never been the outdoorsy type.

“He didn’t answer,” Mary’s mother stated. Judgment protruded from the edges of her words like thorns on the flesh of a flower. She took a napkin and rubbed it between her fingers then reached up to fidget with her head scarf. “Will you go get some ketchup?” “What?” “I asked you to get me ketchup. It’s been ages since I had ketchup. Too much sugar for Weight Watchers,” her mother said, consuming two fries at once this time.

“Come on, Mom. Say it.” “Say what?” Mary pushed her tray away and got up from the table. She retrieved a square plastic container with ketchup. The last time she’d eaten here there were ketchup packets, squishy bags that sat in your car glove box for weeks. Since she started dating Chris, her life had become a brochure for organic diets, new age exercise, and large vitamins you had to swallow with juice the color of grass. He never verbalized a preference for this type of lifestyle. In the beginning, he ordered for her at restaurants. Then she found junk food from her cabinets in the trash after he slept over. He gave her a membership to the gym and an expensive yoga mat for her birthday. He never had to say anything. When she began to order healthy menu items, he rewarded her with compliments. When she came home sweaty from the gym, he took her to bed. When she lost ten pounds, he took her away for the weekend. She had forgotten how McDonald’s smelled: grease and salt. She returned to the table.

“Thanks,” her mother said and peeled back the plastic so she could dunk a fry into the goop.

Mary sat down, picked up her sandwich, then put it back down. She wouldn’t be able to sit through yoga; the other women could sense the consumption of fast food like they could sense divorce or adultery.

“I think you should leave him,” her mother said, reaching across the table to dip her fry in the oozing tartar sauce.

“There it is.” Mary rolled her eyes. She then saw the same act performed by a seven year old across the room and felt ridiculous.

“Yes, there it is. Someone needed to say it.” “Leave him like you left Dad?” Her mother nodded. “At some point, Mary, you’re going to have to find a little clarity. Your father tried to be a good husband, but frankly the tools weren’t in the tool shed. And Chris is going to be the same way. Mark my words.” “Is that what you found? Clarity? Because it looks to me like you found a crap studio apartment three blocks from a hospital and a cat you so lovingly named Bob.”

“Your father didn’t make me happy. It took a needle in my arm, a vomit bag next to my bed, and a life- threatening disease to make me see it, but I did. Doesn’t matter how you achieve clarity, darling, as long as you achieve it.” “Chris makes me happy.” “Don’t lie to yourself, Mary. It’s a pathetic trait you inherited from your mother.” Mary didn’t argue. She didn’t have a valid defense. “Chris isn’t like Dad. He pays

attention to my needs and the needs of the house. We’re partners.”

“Except when he leaves every three months to be someone else’s partner.” “You don’t know that.” “Honey, everyone knows that. Even you.” Mary took a sip of the huge diet coke she’d filled to the top with ice. She liked the cold against her teeth. The caffeine would make her jittery later. “No, Mom, I don’t.”

“Yes, Mary, you do, or you would’ve asked him a long time ago––not asked, demanded––where he slinks off too and why. Instead, you pretend that everything he does when he returns makes up for his absence. But it doesn’t.”

“Maybe it does, Mom. Maybe this is the secret to marriage that people have been working years to find.”

“You’re lying to yourself again.” “Maybe, but at least I’m not dying of cancer alone in an apartment that smells like tuna.” Her mother smiled and picked up another fry. “Oh, but I’m not alone, dear. I have you. And a charming companion you are too.”

Mary reached over and took her mother’s hand. “You’ll always have me. But I couldn’t possibly be enough, Mom. Don’t you miss Dad? Don’t you miss having someone there for you?”

“Of course I do. But I missed that when I was with your father.”

Mary waited for her mother to finish, navigating the conversation away from Chris and toward treatments and errands. When her mother finished, Mary cleared the plastic table, even dipping a napkin into her mother’s water cup to wipe it down. Her mother stood up, kissed her on the cheek, and made her way to the door. Mary carried their trays to the trash. Before tipping the contents in, Mary reached out and took a single french fry. She popped it into her mouth like a vitamin pill.