Tender

While preparing dinner, Christine worries about an upcoming biopsy in the morning for a lump under her arm. Al, her husband, enters the kitchen, noting that she didn’t write the appointment on their calendar. They discuss the next day’s schedule, and Christine reveals she was trying to keep the biopsy a secret from their children. However, Al admits that he already told the kids and that “they’re fine about it.” Thinking of her lumpectomy reminds Christine of reading the story of the princess and the pea to Hannah, their four-year-old daughter, likening the lump in her arm to the bothersome pea. She refuses Al’s help with dinner and puts a dish in the oven.

Christine’s thoughts continue wandering to Hannah and Jamie, her seven-year-old brother. She recalls her past fantasies of having a clean house and well-behaved children, but none of that has come to fruition. Jamie loves to re-enact battles with action figures, leaving them strewn across the floor for everyone to step on, while Hannah throws loud tantrums and demands to wear nail polish “like some miniature Paris Hilton.” Christine limits her children to “one hour of sanctioned TV a night,” yet has been unable to keep them from engaging in their stereotypically boyish and girlish activities, much to her chagrin.

Christine’s memories then turn to life before children, when she and Al were adamant about living a natural way of life and adhering to “a grand theory of sustainability.” However, she laments that their once idealistic environmentalism “buckled in the face of practicality and time” after having children. Although she and Al had considered building their house with mud walls and only using electricity from solar panels, their home is now fitted with “an electric system like everyone else’s,” powering a television and electric heaters—the solar panels are just a “bonus.” Their trees are “painstakingly hand-watered from the dam and the bath” but have not grown into the “shady arbour” she imagined. Back in the present, she feels “a familiar mix of guilt and resentment” when she “dreams her nightly dream of an electric oven” while loading timber into their wood-fired one.

Meanwhile, Al is bathing Hannah and Jamie but takes too long to find Hannah’s shower cap. When her hair gets wet, she begins the “whiny crying that always sets Christine’s teeth on edge.” Christine grows irritated at her husband, whose “ineffectual protestations” cannot prevent the children from fighting and screaming. Christine flashes back to the night she discovered the lump, when Al “had been the first one she’d told, of course.”

Christine continues recollecting her first appointment, when the radiographer had quickly stopped making small talk while looking at the ultrasound films. Christine remembers how “she’d hated the way [the doctor had] stared off over her head as his fingers had coolly explored the lump,” before prescribing a biopsy with “briskness and neutrality.”

Christine’s thoughts are interrupted when she notices “the familiar tiny dark shape of a mouse” scamper across the kitchen. She gets up to find mousetraps, remarking that she’ll need to remind Al to check the traps in the morning—if their kids “find[] a dead mouse,” they’ll surely “demand[] a funeral and burial,” disrupting the family’s whole morning routine.

While baiting and setting a couple of traps, Christine glances at the assorted herbal medicines in the pantry, scoffing at a store-bought bottle of “rescue remedy” that she would never have purchased before having children.

After placing the traps, Christine calls the family to dinner, annoyed again at Al for letting the children stay in the bath well past dinnertime. Her frustration with “the dreamy way he handles life,” disregarding schedules, reminds her of the time that she met his coworkers at a barbecue and asked one of them how Al managed his responsibilities at work. The coworker had been surprised by the question, and assured Christine that Al “does his own thing,” but “it all comes together in the end.”

Christine, though, can only think of how Al’s laid-back attitude drives her crazy when he inevitably forgets or neglects his responsibilities at home. She watches as he dumps a basket of folded laundry onto the floor, looking for Hannah’s pajamas, taking his time and ignoring the children continuing to fight. He eventually finds a pair and turns it right side out with a “distracted but surprisingly adept movement.” Meanwhile, Christine continues to worry about the lump and repeats the word “malignant” to herself, wondering if she should stock the kitchen with tuna and pasta in case she stays at the hospital past dinnertime.

After dinner, Jamie asks for a cardboard box to make a diorama for a school project. Christine finds one for him before he “calmly” mentions that the project is due the next day, prompting her to compare him to Al. Nevertheless, she experiences “the ardent rush of helpless, terrible love” come over her when she sees “his serious seven-year-old face” and helps him collect materials. While Christine prepares lunches, Jamie works diligently on his diorama, “his tongue jerk[ing] across his bottom lip in concentration.”

When Jamie’s bedtime arrives, Al chides him for not starting the project earlier, but Christine notes her husband’s hypocrisy—he’s the one who leaves “half-finished bookshelves” laying around and “can’t seem to shut a drawer once he’s opened it.” Jamie looks sadly at his work, unwilling to show up at school in front of the other students “who always have their things ready on time.” Al, who wants the kids to go to bed so he can go on the computer, orders Jamie to finish up within the next 10 minutes.

After Jamie goes to bed, Christine takes over his project, intent on surprising her son with a completed diorama in the morning. She stays up late into the night anyway, gathering things from around the house, only pausing briefly to set another mousetrap. She recognizes she’s going a little bit overboard, and jokes with Al about how she’s turned into one of those overbearing parents who commandeer their kids’ homework. He is amused at her determination but quietly washes the dishes while she works.

Around midnight, Christine passes through Hannah and Jamie’s rooms, where she lovingly takes in the sight of her healthy, growing children even as she acknowledges the feeling of her own body and health deteriorating.

The next morning, Christine rises early, eager to put a few finishing touches on Jamie’s diorama. She wanders out into the garden, where the sensation of “dew drench[ing] her ankles” and “the deep spicy smell of the lemon-scented gum” calm her. She collects a sprig and some moss to finish off the diorama before heading back inside. The memory of Al effortlessly shaking out the pajamas comforts her as she waits for the train to her appointment. Just before she leaves, Christine finds each mousetrap in the house and “kneels down in front of [it]” to release the spring “with a benign harmless snap.”