Comforter

By David Fitzsimmons

I overhear a conversation between two attorneys in the cafeteria. Two women, one is perhaps thirty-four, the other ten years older. I will call the younger one Mindy. I will call the older one Deb. Mindy is reading an email from her Blackberry. They are both having the white bean soup and side salads. The email Mindy reads to Deb is from her mother-in-law. From what I gather, it involves a comforter: the source of a magnificent argument, the kind of argument that divides families.

She reads: “'I meant the comforter to be a gift given in kindness and serendipity.'”

“She used ‘serendipity’ wrong. What an idiot,” Mindy says.

She continues to read about the comforter. Deb stops eating and is simply listening. This is something important.

Another woman joins them. I will call her Jennifer. It turns out that Jennifer is the actual one with the mother-in-law problem. Mindy has simply been relating the tragic story, which she learned from her Blackberry.

"I know,” Jennifer says. “Can you fucking believe that? I hate her,” she says. “I can’t tell you how much I hate her.”

The two other women empathize. Why won’t her husband stand up to his mother in law? Why won’t he say anything? Why should the burden fall on Jennifer’s shoulders? The mother-in-law, let’s call her Blanche (I know, I know, but surely she is a Blanche: a heavy red-faced Virginian), she is overstepping her bounds with the comforter.

“This is my family,” Jennifer says.

The two other women tell her what she would do. Mindy says she wouldn’t stand for this comforter business one second. Not one second. She would take the comforter in front of her son and burn it, just to make the point to the whole family that she is in charge.

I look at Jennifer. She likely does tax litigation or international trade law, likely has important responsibilities, certainly makes a good living, probably went to a good law school, and in spite of all that, she has been brought low by a mother-in-law and some incident involving a comforter – the specifics of which I am not able to discern.

What am I to make of all this? How are we to live in a world where mothers-in-law are imposing their unwanted comforters on our children, are involving themselves in the private rooms of our lives where they do not belong? Why won’t our husbands stand up to their mothers? Would I, if I were a husband, stand up to my mother, if she were to do something as inappropriate as, say, give my little boy (I will call my imagined little boy Tom) a comforter – something which has sentimental value to my mother, an article that might have been passed onto her, maybe since before the War: the comforter as an heirloom, then, an article my mother would have wanted Tom to have, but which, for whatever reason, my wife (I will call her Eleanor) doesn’t appreciate, is threatened by, and felt my mom was intruding.

Today, The New York Times reports that Taliban insurgents attacked a police checkpoint north of the city, killing 11 police officers. There is a Dengue fever outbreak in Rio de Janeiro; it has killed at least 80 people. Islamic militants murdered four teachers in a Somali town. The Pope is coming to Washington. His visit is sure to cause major traffic problems, but President Bush is pulling out all the stops and plans to greet him personally at Andrews Air Force Base.

Erwin Olaf, Caroline, 2007, Courtesy of Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris