It is a white house. The roof is painted a vivid red. The garden is not beautiful, but it is well maintained. The grass cut, the bushes trimmed and the flowers in perfectly circular beds - the white roses encircling the lantanas. There is a white picket fence that runs around the entire front garden and along the driveway, where the two family cars are parked. One stationed exactly behind the other.
The front door is wide and painted exactly the same shade of red as the roof. Mother is insistent that everything about the house has to be co-ordinated.
Even mealtimes.
The forks to the left, always placed before the spoons. The plates come next and are overturned fifteen minutes before dinner, so that the dust doesn’t settle on them. Water glasses to the right and two long stemmed wine glasses for mother and father. A vase filled with flowers in the centre of the table. The flowers are always picked from the flowerbeds in the backyard, so as not to upset the beds in the front garden. The flowers match the tablemats, which match the tablecloth. Red and white are mother’s favourite colours – the sole indulgence she allows herself.
On Sunday, the family always eats together. Dinner is served at eight o’clock, unless there is company, in which case it is served at eight thirty and for the past twelve years, the routine has never varied. Schoolwork for Monday should be completed; father must finish working or postpone it for until after dinner
At precisely eight o’clock father enters the dining room through the living room door. He carefully removes his glasses and sets them down on the sideboard. Father always sits at the head of the table. Mother is in the kitchen, making sure everything is heated to perfection in the glass dishes meant particularly for Sunday dinner. The children are already seated, their faces washed and their fingernails scrubbed clean of the dirt from the garden where they were playing. Sunday is the only day when they are not expected to help with the meal – their Sabbath respite of sorts.
Mother enters and sets down the roast chicken in front of father. The head of the family must always carve the chicken. The pasta and vegetables follow. Mother enters the dining room through the swinging door from the kitchen for the third time, empty-handed now. She smoothes her cotton skirt behind her and sits down. With practised precision, grace is said almost as soon as she is seated.
Along with the chicken, a new tension is also passed around.
The children feel it.
There is none of the usual banter and jovial conversation that accompanies the meal. The sound of the forks and spoons hitting the blue and white china plates is interrupted only by requests to pass the pasta or chicken. The vegetables, as usual, are left virtually untouched.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sara notices a tear slipping past mother’s control and down her cheek. In all her fourteen years, Sara cannot remember a single instance when mother was particularly sad or happy. She was always…controlled. Sara is taken aback by the tear. She cannot help but stare at mother’s mechanical movements while she cries. Now James has also noticed the tear. Neither of the children is particularly upset by her unhappiness. Merely stunned by the break in the usual routine.
“Stop it.”
Father’s voice cuts into the tense silence. He is looking straight at mother, his face set in an unforgiving stare. As if unable to believe that she is breaking the Sunday custom of a peaceful family dinner.
There has never been a fight in front of the children. There has never even been dissent in front of the children. Both Sara and James wait nervously for mother to respond. For what seems like an eternity, there is no expression on her face. Only a blank face and the single tear, stopping midway down her cheek.
She picks up the wine glass, half filled with red wine, her scarlet lipstick smeared across the rim, and swirls it around. Still swirling the wine, she looks up at father.
There is a red stain on the wallpaper. The wineglass misses its mark, but only literally. Sara is torn between wanting to be excused and wanting to satisfy her curiosity as to what is causing her parents to act so differently. The decision is made when James moves his chair backwards, as if to remove himself from the line of fire and off to the kitchen.
“Sit down James.” It is mother who speaks this time, her face still as vacant as before.
“Perhaps, David, we should end the pretences. This is not a perfect home; this is not a perfect family. You and I are far from perfect parents. I’ve had enough of pretending!
I’ve just had…enough.”
By this time mother is standing up, looking down at father. She looks tired. They have only been arguing for a few minutes, but it looks like hours on her face.
“Either you accept that we’ve got problems, and stop sweeping everything under the carpet, or I end the charade.”
Sara knows for sure now. She wants no part of this. It is safer in the kitchen where she can imagine that everything is all right.
In one quick move, she is out of her chair and through the kitchen door. She stops at the counter and holds on to it with both hands. For a moment, she feels guilty about leaving James there. But James is older, more capable of fending for himself. Sara needs the distance, the barrier between herself and the unreal situation in the next room.
She can hear the voices coming through the door. Father’s voice, harsh and heavy. Mother’s voice, equally strong now, but still, a plaintive note lingers. The voices go back and forth, for what seems like ages. Sara hears the words between them, none of which she likes.
She can hear mother, accusing father of being too busy with work, of not caring about her or their marriage anymore, or being too preoccupied to pay attention to his children. Father retorts with equally harsh accusations – that mother is like a closed book to him now, always silent and uncommunicative. That she is so involved in her children and her home; she has precious little time to devote to him.
All the while, Sara stands holding on to the counter. Listening intently as she wishes that she can’t hear anything at all.
Sara hears footsteps coming towards the kitchen. Mother comes through the door, and it occurs to Sara that even though mother has been so upset, she has not cried more than that single tear through the entire argument. She sees the expression on mother’s face that she never forgets, the one signifying that it’s the last time she will look at her. She wants to say countless things… futile words in comparison to the finality of this mute goodbye.
There is silence everywhere. In the dining room, Father is silently angry; James is silently shocked, while mother silently leaves.
“DINNERTIME!”
The plastic cutlery is stacked.
The red paint from the wall is wiped clean.
The roof is put back on the dollhouse.
The four dolls are put back in their box.
Sara goes to the washroom and scrubs her hands clean.
She goes downstairs and joins in the cheerful argument between James and Father regarding Mother’s cooking.
Mother comes through the door, smiling at Sara while she carries in the glass dishes.
Sara postpones the aftermath till another hour of playtime.
