Who: Mark and Columbia What: Columbia brings Mark soup. When: Tuesday afternoon Where: Mark's brownstone Warnings: None!
When he heard the knock at the door Mark couldn't help being surprised. It was one o'clock in the afternoon and even he was shocked that he was home at that time of day. How anyone else would have found out was beyond him. Those who needed to know had keys and he'd been quite firm on Monday when he'd gone back to work that he was fine and didn't need anyone babying him. Mia was told that he'd fallen to the Swine Flu the week before (the poor girl was wearing a mask around the office now) and those who lived with him knew to simply not bring up the week before unless he mentioned it first, and since his talk with Glibt that hadn't happened.
Mark wasn't foolish though, and he was taking it easy. Those who were faithful and daily watchers of his show would notice that the Democrats would be spared most of the teasing and pointing out of faults that he normally tried to dish out to both sides. The writers had been instructed to dish out with little mercy to the GOP and Fox News. Laughter was healing, after all. He'd slipped out of the room after they'd started pitching ideas that afternoon, trusting Mia to keep everyone on point, and headed home for a rare true hour-long lunch break. Mia had insisted on it since he'd "had the Swine Flu and all" and for once Mark had been hard pressed to refuse.
At the second series of knocks on the front door Mark wondered if his assistant had followed him home to make sure he really was taking that ordered lunch. He grabbed his pastrami sandwich off its plate and headed out of the kitchen to answer the door.
"Mom?"
"Well it's about time, Marcus. It's cold out here, or weren't you aware?"
Mark flinched, both at the use of his full name and at the sheer fact that his mother was standing on his door step holding, what appeared to be, a crockpot. He had no idea that she owned a crockpot, much less that she knew what a crockpot was. He was even more surprised that there was steam coming from it, meaning that someone had cooked something inside of it. He knew many things and of the many things he knew, one was that his mother did not cook.
"Not planning on inviting me into my own home, is it?" Columbia was tapping her foot. "It meant it. It's cold."
"Um, yeah. Come in, Mom." He stepped back from the doorway and gestured from her to come inside. A glance down to his watch confirmed that it really was one in the afternoon and his mother really was standing in his foyer. Something was wrong with this picture. "Is something wrong?"
Columbia 's lips pursed almost immediately, a new record. "A mother can't bring her son a pot of homemade soup for when he's not feeling well? Lord in Heave, honestly, Mark, sometimes I don't know what this country is coming to."
"You brought me soup?"
As Mark blinked in surprise Columbia's lips grew thinner and thinner. She looked insulted. "Yes, I brought you soup. You were ill."
"How did you know?"
"How did I know my own child –the son I carried in my womb for nine months—was out of sorts?" She rolled her eyes, waving a hand in the air before slipping her coat from around her shoulders and tossing it towards Mark. "How on earth would I possibly know that? Don't ask foolish questions, Mark. A mother knows these things. I've made you soup."
"Now you're claiming you made it?" He didn't mean to sound as skeptical as he did, but he couldn't help it. This was his mother. She employed three cooks and had five catering services on her speed dial.
"Yes, I made it. You've seen me make apple pie," she said, next thrusting the crock pot out for him to hold. Mark put his sandwich down on top of the pot and took it, wincing when it burned the side of his hands a bit. Columbia was wearing leather gloves which she began peeling off as she led the way towards the kitchen.
There was little Mark could do but follow. "I've seen you create apple pies out of thin air. That's not cooking."
"Semantics." Columbia waved her hand in the air again. "Plug in the pot to keep it warm and have a seat, dear."
"You're staying? I've only got an hour."
"You're the boss over there, aren't you? You can go back whenever we're finished here. We're eating lunch."
"I had lunch." He pointed to the sandwich with one bite taken out of it, still sitting on top of the crockpot. "You just changed my lunch plans."
Columbia sat herself down on one of the kitchen chairs, making herself comfortable for a good long stay. She crossed one leg over the other and folded her ands on the table. Normally Mark would have basked in the silence that enveloped the room, for it was something he never had at the office—not even in that secret space underneath his desk with the plastic palm trees and postcards from Hawaii. Silence from his mother's end, however, never boded well in his experience. It meant she was thinking. Plotting. Mark plugged in the pot and looked over his shoulder.
She was staring at him. "How are you feeling, darling?"
"I'm fine, Mom, really," he said with a sigh. He didn't want to talk about 'it'. The wafting smell of broth from the crockpot made him smile just slightly. "Thanks for the soup. That's… nice of you, actually. I promise I'm okay."
"Have you talked to your brother?"
Eyes closed, Mark placed his hands on the countertop. His back was still towards his mother so that she couldn't see how he quickly mouthed a countdown from ten, letting out a breath with each number he hit. He wanted the tension to slip from his body when he hit zero, but it didn't happen. "I haven't talked to James, no. I'm not going to talk to James."
"Well," Columbia said shortly. "You'll notice health care made it past the House?"
"I saw. Did you—"
She cut him off with little more than a knowing glance. "As if you need to ask. I did."
"You didn't have to."
"Yes, I did, Mark, my darling," she answered with a surprising maternal softness. It disappeared the very next moment, leaving Mark thinking that perhaps he'd imagined it. "You're on your own for the Senate."
Mark nodded. "I wouldn't dare to assume otherwise." The smile that appeared just in the corner of his lips was genuine. "Thank you, Mom."
"You're welcome, dear. Now I'd like a bowl of soup, if you don't mind?"
Despite himself Mark felt his smile grow a bit and he reached down into his pocket for the Blackberry that was almost always attached to his ear. "Just a second. I'm going to call Mia and tell her I might take more than an hour. Is that alright?"
Columbia nodded and Mark made the call, picking up his deli made sandwich and throwing it in the trash at the same time. He gave her a hard time more often than not and much of the time it wasn't deserved. He was perfectly aware of what she was trying to do here and knew that it was a once in a century sort of thing simply because their family really was that dysfunctional. A normal mother might have just said 'I love you and your brother was in the wrong', but his mother had made him soup, he was going to eat it while she nagged at him about his appearance, and then she was going to pat him on the cheek and leave.
Sometimes actions spoke louder than words, especially in their family. It was almost better than any 'I love you' could have been and knowing this, Mark smiled at her when he placed both their bowls on the table. "So, how've you been, Mom…"