Jane! Honestly, what does it take to get you to write? I didn’t even hear from you last Christmas! I had to find out about your promotion from the newspaper. The newspaper!
Don’t you “national security” me, young woman!
And don’t take that tone with your sister. You’re both grown women, there’s absolutely no need for these theatrics.
Now that’s just not fair! I wanted to tell you, but — I know how much you loved your father, it would have destroyed you both. But he — well, he was always away on duty, and a woman has needs, you know!
Oh, like you’ve never been drugged and tied to a chair before.
Jane! I know you never approved of my business, but that is simply uncalled for! He was a very decent fellow, taught little Anna here how to drive a getaway car and bullseye a moving target from sixty paces with nothing but a — oh, I’m sorry, darling, Clarice, I know I shouldn’t still be thinking of you by your old name but you’ll always be my little girl to me, you know!
Of course I know who she is, sweetheart! She may live under a South American volcano but she actually writes her dear old mother, unlike some people I could mention! She told me all about how you rescued that poor journalist from a nest of razortooth shrieklings — two years ago! Honestly.
Oh, and not to mention “Operation Golden Peacock!” Do you know where I learned my daughter was a national hero? In the middle of the Sonoran desert in a coke deal gone wrong, that’s where! I’m on the ground behind a trailer clutching a submachine gun, bullets flying all around, and Pedro — your dear uncle Pedro, he wishes you’d visit him more, you know — he tells me, “oh, it’s just like that dust-up little Jane had back in Arkansas, you know,” and I say to him, I said, “what dust-up? I never heard about this!” and then he had to tell me all about how you singlehandedly wiped out a Spetsnaz safehouse with nothing but an empty Kalashnikov and a bottle of vodka while I was helping Pamela load the rocket launcher! You remember Pamela, don’t you, dear? She used to take you horse-riding when you were little? She would so dearly love to see you all grown up, you know!
I know you have a busy life, but is it really so hard just to give your mother a call every now and then? At least when your sister secretly toppled the government of Chile and replaced the president with a puppet to further her elaborate schemes, she had the good grace to tell her mother about it! I just want to know what’s going on in my daughters’ lives, you know?
Now. You two. I want you to stop arguing about who framed who and hug and make up, understand? An— Clarice, untie your sister right this instant. We’re still a family, and—
Girlfriend!? You have a girlfriend? And when was I going to find out? You never even thought to bring her by and say hello to your old mother? I love you, Jane, I do, but you can be so inconsiderate, you know? You! With the mustache and prison tattoos — go fetch my daughter’s girlfriend right this very moment, I’ve had enough of this nonsense. We’re all going to sit down and have dinner as a family and get to know each other, even if it kills us! Now Jessie — or is it Penny, I’m sorry, my dear, I can never remember — come along, you’re going to help me make us a nice apple pie for desert. No ifs, ands, or buts, young lady!
Goodness gracious, young people these days!
Patricia Pearson is a guest writer for Approved News 6. A dedicated mother, widow of ten years, and drug kingpin, Mrs. Pearson has decades of experience raising a family and managing a powerful cartel in the southern United States. Mrs. Pearson lives in a run-down but charming townhouse in Houston, Texas with an ever-shifting cast of quirky boarders with mysterious pasts and dark secrets, where she arranges “accidents” for her many enemies, bakes pies for her Rotary Club meetings, and trafficks in heroin, cocaine, and marijuana.