A SMALL COCONUT CAKE WISHES BON VOYAG
Judith, an eye-rolling Francophile, is Claudette's mother.
Dan, who owns an accounting firm, is Claudette's stepfather.
Katie, Claudette's stepsister, is a teen. She's Dan's daughter from an affair he really enjoyed.
Neither Judith nor Dan nor Katie wrote to Claudette last summer while she was excavating in the Negev. That frightened Claudette. She paced and paced her tent, fretting about why no one had written. Something must be wrong at home. Very. But what? Claudette told her tent-mate her top three fears. They were:
Mum was sick, even dying although she'd always been healthy.
Dan was missing.
An awful thing has happened to frequently awful Katie.
Tomorrow, Claudette will leave for Israel again. Tonight, at a farewell dinner, she gives envelopes to Judith, Dan, and Katie. Envelopes addressed to the dig camp.
There's silence at the table. Only a small coconut cake wishes her Bon Voyag. An E is missing.
Judith didn't write last summer because her spelling is poor. Mauvais. Très mauvais. She felt then, feels now E for embarrassed. Despite knowing less French, her daughter is better educated.
Judith thinks Claudette should go to Paris. Deserts like the Negev make her daughter needy.
So do desserts. Claudette sniffles through the cake. When she refuses ice cream, Judith squeezes her hand and says, "I'll send you your silly envelope. I promise."
Judith will send sentiments from unsent Christmas cards. She has many because she no longer mails greetings to her husband's side of the family. They don't return the gesture. Judith doesn't know why. They think Judith is bourgeois. They're tired of her bogus wishes. Last summer, they found Dan a sharp divorce lawyer.
Judith will carefully copy several holiday cards and send Claudette the following:
Sending lots of peace.
Thinking of you with love, hope, happiness, and bliss.
Enjoy this magical time of year!
Dan slips Claudette's envelope into the pocket of his pinstriped suit. "Good cake, Judith," he says. "Bon Voyag is mostly correct. " He thinks it's a mother's responsibility to correspond with a daughter.
Still, he'll dictate something to the receptionist in his office. On a sheet of company letterhead, she'll write,
Hot there, I expect.
Dusty, I'm sure. Same here. The house is the usual mess.. Your mother is no Mrs. Clean. Ha, ha.
The exchange rate has dropped. Don't buy more Shekels than you need.
Dan thinks Claudette is as sweet as the receptionist. Whenever the door is open, he'll peek into his stepdaughter's bedroom and sigh because he misses her. Judith slept there last summer and will again, and will usually keep the door closed.
Katie will knock on the door when there's no chocolate milk in the fridge or she wants the black strapless dress in Claudette's closet.
"Write?" Katie stares at the envelope. "Dummy, they don't teach cursive anymore."
This summer, Katie will get a piercing. She'll rip up a failed math test and, with an electric pink highlighter, print on a scrap:
Bring me a (sic) ancient silver thing to wear in my belly-button.
Pls! Pls! Pls!
U find something like that??
Before Claudette returns from Israel, Katie will call her mother and say, "I want to live with you in Montreal." Katie will toss the phone to Dan to figure out the how: if her mother is coming to Toronto or if he's driving her to Quebec. The teen will think they'll bitch at each other. But they won't. They'll talk warmly. They'll talk for nearly four hours. Judith will eavesdrop.
Receiving letters from Judith, Dan, and Katie will so delight Claudette in the Negev. She'll think everything is okay at home and spin in hot happy circles and not pace like she did before. That'll please her tent-mate.
What will not is Claudette reading the mail aloud. The tent-mate will smile, but think whoa. Only three lines from each one in the family and, poor Claudette, what a family. The tent-mate will not even consider these to be letters.
Karen Walker's work is in or forthcoming in voidspace, Ellipsis Zine, JAKE, Brink, Bullshit Lit, Flash Boulevard, Bloom, The Viridian Door, Pigeon Review, Blink-Ink, The Hoogley Review, and elsewhere. She/her. @MeKawalker883
