The Death of a Mother-in-Law and Other Stories

By Helen Hudson

The short stories in Helen Hudson's "Death of a Mother-in-Law" present characters struggling to connect—from a son reckoning with the legacy of his deceased mother, to a woman in a retirement community trying to win over the woman who cleans her room, to a young boy trying to understand the distant, blind minister who is his father. The stories explore strained efforts to bridge racial divides and fraught attempts to find closure in the face of death. Each, whether comedic or dramatic, is enlivened by Hudson's gift for detail and remarkable turn of phrase.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wessex Collective
• Release date: Oct 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301872749

Book preview

Praise for Helen Hudson's previous books:

...a brilliant, witty writer.... her insights, her similes and metaphors gleam like knife blades in the sun. -Newsweek

A superior writer...Miss Hudson has Charlie Chaplin's magic way of provoking derision, sympathy, exasperation and curiosity all with the same gesture. -The New Yorker

Miss Hudson is a gifted writer... her pliant style and warmth for her characters are uncommon virtues. -The New York Times Book Review

Her touch is light, whenever we come close to weeping, she saves us with her laughter. -Look

A fine and sensitive writer. -Publishers Weekly

"Criminal Trespass explores with accuracy, loneliness, racism, ignorance, the will to learn and the ability to love with extraordinary tenderness... enough emotional torque to move any reader." -Los Angeles Times Book Review

Tell the Time to None is a novel admirably wrought and richly satisfying. The luminescent prose moves like a soft but searching light..." -Chicago Tribune

DEATH OF A MOTHER-in-LAW AND OTHER STORIES

by

Helen Hudson

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

The Wessex Collective on Smashwords

Death of a Mother-inLaw and Other Stories

copyright 2012 by Helen Hudson

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Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Table of Contents

Death of a Mother-in-Law

The Final Vote

Save the Park

Blindness

Cliffie

What the Koran Says

The Toreador Hat

Thank You, Jesus

The Corridor

Taxi Ride

a note about the writer

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DEATH OF A MOTHER-IN-LAW

They put her in the back though there was room enough in front for all three. That way you can have little naps. Might as well be comfy, Mother C, Thelma, her daughter-in-law, said. We’ll let you know as soon as we hit a Dairy Queen.

The old lady grunted. She was very thin. She might have sat in the middle without coming between them. She was all in brown.

Why not a pretty powder blue? Thelma had said. "Brown? For a wedding?"

"Or a funeral. Why not? I always wear brown. I am what I am." She was Mrs. Leah Casperwitz. Her hat filled the rear-view mirror. Her son could not see behind him, except to the left. She had named him Leon, after Trotsky; Leon Casperwitz. He called himself Lee Cass.

I need a toilet, she said, two hours out. I told you over an hour ago, Leon. Another two minutes and I’ll pee on the seat.

In front, the younger couple sat stiffened into a spurious youth: Lee with his black hair hanging down beneath his golf cap and Thelma with jewels in her ears and around her neck, a ring on each hand, and bracelets on her arms. A rhinestone horse rode her breast. She kept young by keeping up; sticking her neck well out to catch the latest styles in her carefully wrought coiffeurs. She had adopted the page boy and the Italian boy and bangs and buns. She had been swept up and flattened down and waved and teased. She had been curled and straightened and bleached and streaked. Even frosted. A regular assortment, Mrs. Casperwitz thought. Like at Shuman’s bakery. But the sixties, it seemed, had defeated Thelma. She no longer knew what the style was: long or short, straight or frizzed—until she discovered that wigs were now in vogue. Even Jackie Kennedy wore them. Thelma invested in several. For different occasions, she told Lee. It would save time and money at the hairdresser.

The Casses were both short and round and solid, rolling determinedly down center lane. They considered themselves still young while Mrs. Leah Casperwitz, on the back seat, had allowed herself to sink into old age, pulling her cheeks and mouth down with her, as if obeying some secret force of gravity from within.

That morning, Lee, rushing to his daughter Diana’s wedding, had tried to leave his mother at home. It’s not like a real wedding, he had said. It’s probably not a wedding at all. Just a lot of hairy hippies horsing around on Boston Common.

So good, his mother said. Fresh air and trees instead of all that opium.

What opium?

And sunshine. Instead of always so dark inside.

What’s always so dark inside?

"You think maybe they’re afraid we’ll see He isn’t there?"

"Well, He sure as hell won’t be on the Common either, Lee said. He and Thelma were going to a fraternity party afterward; otherwise he would gladly have skipped this wedding himself. Diana might even have it in Central Park next time, he said. And save yourself the trip."

They might even have it in a church, he told his now weeping wife, who had had her entire role edited out. Indeed, the whole performance, which she should have planned and directed and controlled, had been completely banned. Her only daughter, a girl with looks and brains and invitations to the Come as You Are dances at the Marlboro Country Club, was marrying a carpenter with splinters in his hair. At least she’s getting married, Lee said.

Some marriage.

Even Harold, their only son, who still brought his current girl home faithfully once a month for Thelma’s cherry soup, could not console her.

What in God’s name do I wear to a hippie wedding? Thelma shouted at Lee earlier that morning.

Your Sunday Sari, of course, Lee snapped. Only get it on damned quick, please. We should have started half an hour ago.

"And for cocktails and dinner afterwards, Mr. Smarty-pants? With your friends."

Look. That reminds me. Do me a favor, will you? Don’t say anything about this goddamn wedding. Please.

"Ah ha! You’re ashamed too."

I just don’t want to be teased about it all night, that’s all. You know how those guys are. Give them an inch and they’ll chew it for miles.

All right. But I don’t see how you’re going to keep Mother C quiet.

Mother C? What about her?

She’ll be there too, won’t she? Or are you planning to leave her on a bench on the Common all night? Of course she’ll be there with her umbrella and that awful brown dress and her hat like a paper bag. She began to cry.

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And now in the car she was picking up where she had left off. He patted her hand. Never mind. You can be Mother of the Groom at Harold’s wedding. Or even at Diana’s next. Hers are sure to come around every year like Halloween.

For God’s sake, don’t be funny.

On the back seat, the old lady leaned forward. "Why not? Why shouldn’t he be funny? What’s so sad? Your son is going off to kill, maybe—or be killed? In that terrible racist, imperialist, capitalist war? No. Your daughter is going to be married. In the park, on the grass, with the trees and the sun and the pretzel man. Getting married to a mensch, a worker. You should rejoice. Give thanks. Keep your earrings on."

She had been a Communist all her life and greeted the 60s vogue of dirty jeans and long hair as some kind of student/worker alliance. Diana’s intended had dropped out of Boston University to work with his hands and mingle with the masses on Boston Common. I like Dinnie, Mrs. Casperwitz said. She refused to call her Diana. Always have. Ever since she boycotted her high school graduation. The old lady had helped her picket, carrying signs denouncing the Rye Country Day School as a racist, fascist, male chauvinist institution.

On the back seat, she smiled, remembering, and closed her eyes to shut out the sight of her son and his wife braced on the edge of middle age and refusing to tumble in; resisting that as they resisted all change, except the change up; from Plymouth to Pontiac, from Rego Park to Rye. Good for Dinnie, she thought, who had insisted on tossing them about on Boston Common. Hurry up, Leon, she said. We’re hours late already. He was meandering all over the back roads and Mrs. Casperwitz longed to see Thelma shaking hands with organizers and shop stewards. But the toilet first, please, Leon. Or I won’t be responsible. Suddenly, minutes later, she had toppled over on the back seat.

They pulled up at a gas station.

Fillerup? the young attendant said, sticking his head through the window. He had long, blonde hair to his shoulders and a naked chest with something tattooed across the middle. Thelma screwed her head around trying to read it.

Wow! the boy said staring at the back seat. That one’s filled up already, ain’t she?

Thelma turned and saw the old woman sprawled out, her skirt up and her hat down and her legs all over the place. And the umbrella halfway up her skirt. Good God, Thelma said. Passed out. You waited too long, Lee. Or do you suppose she had something in her orange juice this morning? All this excitement....

Don’t be silly, Lee said. You know damn well she never drinks. Not even orange juice. Nothing but Moxie. And not for breakfast. He got out and opened the back door. My God, he said slowly. Jesus Christ. I think she’s dead.

Dead? Thelma said. All over the back seat?

Well, you wouldn’t have her up front, damn it.

She’s got a right, the boy said. Sure looks old enough. Poor old thing. But you oughta have let her do it decent. In a hospital. Not drag her around in a Pontiac. I wouldn’t drive a dead dog around in a Pontiac.

The Cadillac’s laid up, Thelma said.

Lee was staring at the back seat. Good God, what do we do now? We’re on our way to a wedding, he told the boy.

Funeral, you mean, the boy said.

"Wedding. And we’re late already."

"Well, it’s your funeral—or wedding, the boy said. Regular or premium?"

What?

Which what?

Gas.

"Gas? Are you crazy? Do you think I can stand here and discuss gas? Can’t you see my mother’s dead?"

"Well, I’m not asking her, am I?"

As long as she’s not going, Thelma said, eyeing the Ladies, I am. Someone ought to. After all this."

I just might not be here when you get back, Lee said, barely moving his lips.

Well for God’s sakes. She got back into the car and slammed the door. Wasn’t me passed out on the back seat.

Died, Leon said patiently. "She died. And now she’s dead." He got back into the car and refrained from slamming the door.

Thelma tightened an earring. One: I don’t believe it. And two: it’s no reason I shouldn’t go to the ‘Ladies.’

We’ve got to do something about it.

What?

I don’t know. Christ, how should I know? All I know is I can’t drive all the way to Boston with her like that. Even on the back seat.

The boy stopped wiping the