Siblings, Lasagna, and Other Complicated Matters
Fiction by Vanessa Rolson
Untitled by Koda Christensen
CW: Themes of blatant misogyny discussed. Themes of homophobia briefly touched on.
CHARACTER LIST AND DESCRIPTION
IMARA – 21
EILEEN – 52, Imara’s mother.
SETTING
A kitchen.
SET
One of those cheap, plastic, foldable picnic tables. Half of the table is cluttered with various typical kitchen knickknacks, free to be fiddled with as Imara talks. (With such classics as: The bowl everyone throws their shit in and forgets about, miscellaneous keys, and a rubber band ball… for some reason). The other half has placemats, cutlery, dishware, etc., for Eileen to set and consider. Hidden under the table is a wine glass, a bottle of wine, and a couple Tupperware containers.
***
Lights up as Imara comes storming in, clearly dishevelled, her hair in disarray. She slams a pan of lasagna down on the table, ditching her jacket on the floor and grabbing one of the knickknacks to fiddle with, visibly frustrated. She slams what she’s holding back on the cluttered half of the table. Eileen was already on stage, setting the second half of the table neatly. Imara speaks to the audience.
IMARA
Holy SHIT, you are not gonna believe the dinner I had. Sit down. I gotta yap about this, and you are gonna listen until I’m screaming, crying, or drowning myself with that bottle of wine we were gonna save for exams. I don’t care if you had other plans for today.
So, okay, not to sound like my grandmother or anything, but what the hell are they feeding kids on social media right now?
Y’see, I wanted to visit home this weekend. It was supposed to be my first visit since leaving for college, so I thought I’d be coming home to my nice, loving family. We’d have a good homecooked meal fresh outta the Costco frozen lasagna box, maybe play some games, and all around just… chill.
Then I decided to steal a bite of my brother’s—you know my brother? Bryce? I decided to steal a bite of his lasagna. Not much, just a forkful, like when we were kids. Sure, such an offence has gotten more than one puncture wound through our hands in the past, but I was sure it would be just like old times.
But this little dumbass glares at me. He doesn’t start shouting or try to eat it off my fork before I can or even engage in a little fork versus fork swordplay. He just… glares. Like I took the family dog back to campus with me and never returned him. Or like that time I ‘accidentally’ deleted his save file for Mario on the Wii when we were kids.
Eileen straightens out the placemats and cutlery, finally acknowledging the audience.
EILEEN
I hate to see my children fight.
Imara has always been so headstrong, you see. She was never afraid to speak her mind, even as a child. So quick to tell me when she wanted the blue tutu instead of the pink shorts, or that she wanted to play the piano instead of attend art classes.
So opinionated, that sweet daughter of mine.
But my son…
Bryce struggles, I think. His sister is such a large personality, and he always had her to run to if he was having trouble at school, or when he needed help with his homework or advice about talking to a girl he liked. Imara was always more inclined to trouble than he was. I was never bailing her out of jail or anything like that, but she has an outspoken way of talking that her teachers always discouraged. Bryce never used to be like that, always looking to please, looking for rewards, for approval.
He used to covet her approval most of all.
…Were we not providing enough guidance once his sister was out of the house? Is that why he felt the need to turn to these… these strange, outdated personalities online? Imara moved onto broader horizons, while it feels like he just got… lost?
Imara yanks a chair out and drops herself in it.
IMARA
So now I’m all thrown off because what the fuck was that? Is he having a shitty day and just isn’t in the mood? Or is it because I left for college, and he thinks he’s too grown up to fuck around with his big sister?
So, I ask him what’s wrong. Or—okay, maybe it came out as something closer to “What’s your problem?” but either way I tried to ask politely.
Then he goes off on just… he starts running his mouth about the STUPIDEST, most OUTLANDISH shit I’ve ever heard in my life! He says bullshit like (making her voice deeper) “I should’ve expected a female to steal my food,” and “That’s all females are good for—taking up resources.”
Imara rises from the chair, pacing, fiddling with the knickknacks on the table.
Yeah. He honest to fuck said ‘resources’. Like this motherfucker has any goddamn resources—he doesn’t even have a job! I’ve had part-time jobs since I was 14! I worked full time in the summers all through high school! What the hell does this guy do when he’s out of school? He goes and hangs around his shitty friends, or he hides in his room!
So I say to him “What the FUCK do you mean by that?” and before our dad can say anything about using such ‘unladylike language’, Bryce goes off on this whole rant about how women are a drain on society and need to ‘learn their place’—I think we can all guess what he meant by that.
He made it pretty obvious, flailing his arms toward the kitchen and all.
And I have no idea where this is coming from. Our dad can be a little old-fashioned, but he’d never talk to me or my mom like that!
So obviously, I look to my parents expecting them to SAY something, but they’re just sitting there! My dad is shovelling lasagna in his gaping maw and my mom…
…She looks sad. Regretful, maybe. She looks at me, then, and I think I can see tears in her eyes and… and I can’t…
Imara throws one of the knickknacks, shouting.
UGH! That shit pisses me off! Because what the hell have these dicks been doing to my sweet mother to make her—!
EILEEN
—Wish I’d said something. I wish I had the courage my daughter does, to stand up and say… anything. I’m not sure where she learned such boldness from—I’m disappointed to say it wasn’t me.
It bothers me. All of it. The way Bryce looks at my daughter—with so much disdain. And my husband’s comments about her language… I know she brushes it off, doesn’t think much of it, but isn’t that where it starts? (Eileen scrunches an extra placemat, growing anxious) It starts with the nitpicking, with commenting on her language, then it becomes commenting on her clothes, then her weight, then her partners, then everything she does is wrong, and there’s no room for redemption for that—no room for love!
Eileen slams her hands on the table, noting the scrunched placemat. Shakily, she takes great care to straighten it out.
That’s how it was with my parents. My own mother was always picking at me—if I was anything less than ladylike, anything less than perfect, then I might as well pack a bag and leave.
When I had Imara, I swore to myself I would be a better mother than that—I would support my daughter in all she did, no matter what.
But Bryce… God, he makes me think of my father. I limited their contact with my children for a reason, but I look at my son and I see my father in every move he makes. Every snide comment.
It’s… it’s like staring at an ugly mirror I thought I’d smashed.
IMARA
Bryce starts spouting some shit about Elon Musk and Andrew Tate and all these rodents that he’s been watching, and I realize:
My little brother got fucking ‘red-pilled’ by the goddamn ‘manosphere’!
Oh, uh, for the chronically offline: the ‘manosphere’ is basically a collection of bullheaded idiots who want to shove us back into the age of housewives and cis-het-white male voting. They like to think they’re cool and ‘breaking out from the matrix’ by following this rhetoric. I’d call it a cult, but unfortunately there isn’t just one leader spouting this shit—it’s a whole bunch of guys who look like they’d launch a scammy startup in Silicon Valley. Yuck.
So… yeah.
Bryce.
My baby brother… A high school senior… The little BASTARD I had half a hand in raising and irritating and—and loving!
Turns out, he stopped answering my calls because he’s been brainwashed into thinking his big sister is a waste of space! That I should abandon my engineering degree and start popping out babies for some non-existent husband!
God, don’t even get me started on—Oh fuck it! I’m already started! D’ya think he just conveniently forgot I’m not into dudes?!
Did he forget that he was the first motherfucker I came out to? That I trusted HIM with that information long before I trusted Mom and Dad?! All of a sudden, that’s not important!? That—that trust, that faith, it means nothing to him anymore! He just wants to ignore it! He wants me to fuckin’—he expects me to sweep it all under the Ikea dinner table and comply to his stupid ‘ideal values’…
I mean, fuck, why not be even more cliché with it? Why not tell me to my GODDAMN face that it’s just a phase and I’ll ‘get better’ soon, huh?!
So, I start yelling at him. I hardly even remember what I said. Something about him being a moron, and an asshole, and completely ungrateful—especially toward our mother. Because how can this dumbass say all that with his full chest, knowing our mother is sitting right there? Knowing everything she does to keep him happy?
…Fucking dick.
Eileen carefully pulls out a chair and sits.
EILEEN
…I didn’t have time to make a lasagna from scratch. I would’ve liked to. Imara doesn’t get to come home often, and lasagna was one of her favourites when she was a child, so I wanted to make her a special dinner. But I had to take two overtime shifts this week, so I resorted to the frozen option. She lit up when she saw it though, thanked me and hugged me when I dished out her plate. My husband does too, though with less enthusiasm.
Bryce doesn’t thank me at all.
…Siblings fight. Any parent worth their salt knows this. They fight over childish things, and things that end in hospital visits, and things that end in trips to Dairy Queen as silent apologies. But they love each other—I know they do.
They do.
So why is my son being so foolish? They have their rough patches, but Imara has never done anything to deserve being spoken to in such a vile way.
It’s all I can do not to cry on the spot. They scream at each other, spit flying from their mouths, lasagna forgotten. Bryce gets out of his chair, standing, using his recent growth spurt to leer over Imara. My babygirl has never backed away before, and she doesn’t start now. She gets out of her chair, leans right into Bryce’s space and shouts—
IMARA
“—You misogynistic asshole! You don’t really believe that shit, do ya?!” Now I remember, that’s what I said. Part of it, at least.
She snatches a ball from the bowl.
But what pisses me off just as much is how my parents just sit there and let us yell. They don’t intervene at all. They don’t get up and tell Bryce to shut up and get with the times—that women have rights, and he needs to cope with it!
…I don’t get it. I don’t get how my dad is so willing to let him promote that kind of thinking. I don’t get how he can look me in the eyes and say (she makes her voice deeper) “Oh honey, it’s just politics, don’t get so worked up.”
How can he say that? How can he stand on Bryce’s side when he just screamed at me for ten minutes about how I don’t deserve the air I’m breathing unless it’s for a man.
And my poor mother… Fuck, she’s crying now. She’s hardly touched her food. She’s squeezing the life out of a napkin, tearing it to bits, staring right through me.
Imara looks down at the ball she’s squeezing too hard, and carefully sets it on the table.
Bullshit. It’s all bullshit.
So I grab the rest of the lasagna, and I start heading out just as Bryce starts up another tirade filled with fake statistics and stupid anecdotes that probably aren’t even real.
Eileen raises her hand as if reaching out to someone.
EILEEN
I catch Imara by the door, before she storms away entirely. She looks at me, her eyes wide and watery now that she’s not in front of our boys. Her mouth opens… closes… opens again… but she clenches her jaw and shuts her eyes entirely, her knuckles white around the pan.
I place my hands on her cheeks, and I apologize.
All I say is, “I’m sorry,” but I hope she gets what I mean. That I’m sorry for so much more than tonight.
Finally, her tears fall as she bites her lip, keeping her cries quiet.
Guilt writhes in my stomach—sloshing, churning, curdling into chunks of despair. I feel awful for not defending her. For not raising Bryce right. For putting her in the middle of it all on what was supposed to be a nice, relaxing weekend for her.
…She asks if I want to stay at her apartment for a while.
Eileen fiddles with the cutlery, straightens out the placemats.
I say no.
Her eyes well up with tears, and she collapses against my chest, pressing her face into my neck. The lasagna pan is jabbing both our stomachs, but I don’t think either of us care and I can’t help but see her as my sweet little girl again—so outspoken, always feeling so much, so intensely. Her anger burns bright, and it always leaves my guts hollowed out to see the flame fizzle out because of her tears.
But now, as she pulls away and wipes her tears away herself, I see that the anger hasn’t fizzled like it used to. She looks over my shoulder, toward the dining room, and all I see is an inferno.
She hands me an extra key to her apartment off the carabiner clipped to her jeans and tells me to keep it. Just in case.
I slip the key in my pocket, resolving not tell the boys about it. Bryce is shouting about wishing Imara would stay gone, and I refuse to cry when my husband does nothing to reprimand him.
Right before she slams the door shut, I remind her to box up the lasagna and keep pieces in the freezer, so they’ll keep for longer.
I hope, desperately, that she hears me.
Imara collapses in the chair on her side of the table. At the same time, Eileen drops into a chair too.
IMARA
So I left, and I took this entire pan of leftover lasagna with me.
…I don’t know what to do. How am I supposed to be in the same room as a kid who thinks I don’t deserve basic human rights? How can I go back to my parents knowing they’re letting him think that way? I can’t fucking believe my dad is just… enabling it all.
And Mom…
Imara contemplates, then sighs. She retrieves some containers from under the table, then a wine glass, then a bottle of unopened red wine. She lays it all out on the table.
Better make sure this lasts. Momma worked hard on it, after all. Can’t let it go to waste.
You want a piece before I freeze it?
Lights out.
Vanessa Rolson (she/her) is a writer currently finishing her third year of the Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing program at Humber College. Over the years, Vanessa has a plethora of short stories and, more recently, short dramas that are predominantly inspired by her fascination with family dynamics and the various, complex relationships between women. If she isn’t too busy making her characters bicker, Vanessa can be found knitting at her desk while weeping over her favourite shows.