It was all Lori could do not to slam the hotel door.
Mom and Chuck had walked into the room ahead of her. Chuck was sitting on the bed already, untying his shoes. Mom was hanging up the jacket from her suit.
Lori stood with her back against the door, stunned.
Mom started washing off her makeup at the sink.
“That’s it?” Lori finally burst out. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
Mom turned her head, her mascara smeared across her face as though she’d been crying.
“What do you want me to say?” she asked.
“I don’t know!” Lori exclaimed. “Something! Anything! How about, ‘Well, now at least you know what I told Congress. Too bad you had to find out in front of five hundred strangers.’ How about, ‘Gee, I really meant to tell you about that insurance policy before now.’ How about—”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said.
Chuck kept his head down, accepting his mother’s words. Lori wasn’t satisfied.
“‘I’m sorry’?” she repeated. “That’s all you have to say?”
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Mom said. “It was totally unnecessary for them to show that.”
Her tone was calm, refined. It infuriated Lori.
“‘Unnecessary,’” she echoed again. “‘Unnecessary.’ Sifting flour is unnecessary. Double-stitching hems is unnecessary. Algebra is unnecessary. That film clip was—is—”
“Essential,” Chuck finished quietly for her.
Lori stared at her brother in surprise. She wouldn’t have guessed he even knew the word “essential.” But it was exactly right, exactly the word she’d been searching for.
Mom didn’t reply. She went back to scrubbing makeup from her face.
“Why did you bring us on this trip?” Lori whispered.
Her ears were ringing again. Her heart beat in panicky thuds. It was like being back on the plane again, convinced she was seconds away from crashing.
Mom wouldn’t look directly at Lori and Chuck. She stared at their reflections in the mirror.
“I wanted you to see—,” she began. “I wanted you to know—”
Lori couldn’t wait for another deliberate answer. It would just be a half answer, anyway. A mask.
“Oh, I know why you brought us,” Lori accused. “You wanted to get us to hate Pickford County. Just like you do.”
She could have gone on, said, You wanted us to hate ourselves, too. But those words didn’t tumble out so easily.
“What do you mean? I don’t hate Pickford County!” Mom protested. “It’s my home!”
“Oh, yeah? Then why aren’t you ever there? Why have you spent this whole trip telling Chuck and me how much better the rest of the world is?” This was safe terrain—safer, anyway, than talking about the videotape. Lori started mimicking her mother, “‘Chicago has such great shopping—not like Pickford County. Can’t get good shopping like this back home.’ ‘Let’s eat out at this fancy restaurant, because you can’t get anything but McDonald’s back home.’ ‘Pickford High School doesn’t have an art program, does it? Not like a real school.’ ‘If Lori weren’t such a Pickford County hick, she’d know better than to wear that stupid 4-H dress outside of her own house.’” Mom hadn’t actually ever said that, but Lori felt as though she had.
“Stop it!” Mom commanded.
But Lori was on a roll.
“You don’t have to lie to us. You hate Pickford County so much, why didn’t you just move us all out of there with you after”—Lori forced herself to say the words—“after Daddy died?”
Mom was blinking rapidly. She swiped one of the stiff, white hotel washcloths against her eyelids. For a minute, Lori wondered if she was wiping away mascara or tears. Then Lori decided she didn’t care.
Mom finally turned around to face Lori.
“I don’t hate Pickford County,” Mom said slowly. “I’d never leave it. When your daddy died, everyone we knew brought us casseroles, for weeks. A bunch of our neighbors got together and finished harvesting all our corn, without even being asked. The auctioneer who sold our farm wouldn’t let me pay him. Thirty people offered to baby-sit Mike and Joey during the funeral. For a long time, I got hugs every time I walked into church. And then—when I stopped needing them—the hugs stopped. People knew. It isn’t like that, other places. That’s why I could never leave Pickford County.”
“But you did!” Lori insisted. Tears were gathering in her eyes, but she tried to ignore them. “You do. You leave it all the time. You leave us. And you want us to leave, too.”