The Mothers-In-Law

My drive home was frantic. I had set some existential wheels in motion and then gotten behind of the wheel of my car. The 2,000 pound bomb. Driving in a haze of emotionally fueled distraction is second only to driving asleep, at least from a hazard-to-one's-self-and-others perspective.


I accelerated and screeched to a halt and swerved and swore and apologized half-heartedly all the way through town to my block. The sight of Marnie leading a game of neighborhood-wide kickball gave me a small sliver of hope that life might go on in some familiar, if not warped, way.


My son saw my car and trailed me to the curb - pulling an envelope out of his hoodie as I stepped out. It bore my first name only, in the prim, parochial school, ruler-beaten into compliance penmanship I'd recognize anywhere. J.'s mom's.


After shaking away the fleeting panic that I'd just been handed a letter bomb, I opened it to find not a nasty note, but her copy of my house key.


Had she done it again? (Better check on the parakeet.)


I asked my son what she'd said when she'd delivered it.


"Nothing, Mom. It was between the doors." I was still going to check on the parakeet.

I was shocked at how much this skirmish bothered me. I am not accustomed to being the pariah. What's worse, it is not at all my tradition to lose favor with anyone. And I had no inclination toward fretting about a mother-in-law.

Lars had been no prize spouse but one problem we didn't have was his mother. She lived across the country and was so blatantly disinterested in her children that the scant few obligatory phone calls at holidays and birthdays could remain breezy and superficial. This one got a hair cut, that one learned to ride a bike, you should see my rose bush this spring, oh look at the time, better run, the laundry won't fold itself!


This would be different. Not only did we have something to fight about, we had actually fought about it. And instead of being a Caller ID-ed phone call gone to voice mail for a while, J.'s mom was local and ever present. Lurking in every local establishment. Envoys in every bar and restaurant. There were holidays to avoid, and birthdays, and graduations. It would never end. Hell, I could run into her anywhere. The dry cleaners. The car wash. The chiropodist.

I needed back up. I needed someone who'd dealt with a tough old Irish mother-in-law. Maybe even a wicked, embittered, envious sister-in-law. I needed (gasp!) my mother. I needed a plan for how I'd handle the next time Witchiepoo took the Vroom Broom out for a spin in my neighborhood.

It was risky business letting Mom in on the big brew-ha-ha. Mom was as fierce a defender of her cubs as any. Maybe more so. But Mom hasn't exactly built a reputation for taking prisoners and then obediently observing the Geneva Convention. Mom's killer instinct was on auto-pilot. She'd make Joan of Arc stammer. Subtlety was not her strong suit. It may not be in her wheelhouse at all.

If I sought her advice, and dared to tell her the story, and telegraphed that I was even a smidgen unsure...she might just take matters into her own capable, bitch-slapping hands. I'd already said words I couldn't take back. Mom would willingly napalm anything that remained standing.

Tempting.