Free This Body by Laurel Doud Page A

Katharine.
“I'm sorry.”
    Katharine was seeing with her own split-screen memory. In one corner was Ben coming home with his hair dyed a shocking chartreuse.
She had made such a fuss about it.
Oh great
, she had thought,
now I'll be known as the mother of the boy with green hair
. She had dragged him like a baby to her hairstylist and stayed until the color was stripped and the hair was dyed back to
near its natural shade. She had played every trump card she had over him. She didn't think he ever forgave her for that. He
turned quiet and sneaky then.
I think he vowed he would get back at me. Well, getting bad grades and taking drugs was certainly a good way
. What was so awful about the hair? It would have grown out. It would have faded out.
Hair is such a transitory thing
. Maybe there would have been another battleground, and the outcome would have been the same. But maybe not.
    Philip had tried to tell her that she had overreacted, but by the time he had come home from work, Ben was back in his room,
hair back to normal, their relationship badly bruised. She had turned on Philip then. He had been in the catbird seat for
so long. The kids had been preferring him. He had even gone to a rock concert with Ben.
Mothers don't go to things like that
. When Philip came back practically deaf, with soft-drink stains all over his shirt and reeking of cigarette and marijuana
smoke, she wondered why she resented not being allowed to go, but she did. When Marion's school had called and asked her to
chaperone a dance, Marion had almost cried with frustration. Katharine had wanted only to meet her friends, see them dance,
see how they interacted. It was decided that Philip would go in her place, and Marion quickly recovered.
What did my children imagine I was capable of doing
?
    “I'm sorry too,” Katharine said contritely.
    Anne paused and then said rather tersely, “Well, if you ever have children yourself, you'll do or say some things you'll be
sorry for later too.”
    Katharine winced. “I didn't mean it that way. I …” She wanted to explain but knew it would be impossible. She reached out
and lay a hand on Anne's arm.
    Anne looked into Katharine's face, and Katharine made herself still — the split screen continuing to run in the corner of
her mind — Thisby dead on one side, and on the other, Ben failing school and hiding marijuana in his fish-food containers.
    What a pair we make
.

    Robert Bennet stood up at the head of the table, the dinner dishes having been removed by his wife with help from Puck and
hindrance from Quince. Katharine hadn't been hungry and had forced herself to eat, Anne and Robert watching her take every
bite. But dinner had been a more pleasant experience than she had expected. Puck had seemed to call a truce. Katharine figured
it had something to do with the fact that he had come into the kitchen and had seen his sister's hand on his mother's arm,
and the look of tethered hope in his mother's face.
    Now the coffee had been poured. Katharine took hers black and strong. No one made the tiniest fuss.
Thank God, at least one thing TB and I have in common
. Robert Bennet seemed to be preparing to make a toast, but there was nothing besides the coffee to toast with. In face, there
had been no wine with dinner. Katharine had wanted some wine badly.
It would have helped. I could have used it.
    Katharine hadn't had to talk a lot through dinner, much to her relief. Robert did most of the talking, and she had been fascinated
the whole time. He was a wonderful conversationalist, so articulate, so charming, so funny. She gathered from his talk that
he was no longer an actor but one of the elite television producers in Hollywood. He was working on a miniseries project involving
a remake of Hitchcock's
Notorious
. Katharine had seen the original not too long ago —
at least, not long before I died
— and they had a lively discussion about the famous crane shot from the staircase to the close-up of the key in