Parenting on the edge of apocalypse

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”Hi Dale, Sorry I didn’t call sooner angel but we decided to stay in the city an extra couple of days”.

These words spoken by Dale Turners mother hold such deep clues about the troubled teen. The fact that she did not call sooner, that she calls him “angel” and that she and her companion have chosen to stay in the city longer without informing Dale all are relevant to Dale’s character. What a bold choice to imply that the mother is so flawed in such an ordinary way. You can almost hear the Jericho town gossips volleying versions of “That boy thinks the world of her while she is out gallivanting all over Hell and Creation with the flavor of the week.”

Why would I say that? Well, I think it is fascinating how in the six or so lines of the phone message left by Dale’s mom we get such a clear vision of who she was. She went away and apparently was due back but decided to stay in Atlanta with a man she seems to barely know. I say this because the man is so clueless to Dale’s mothers (Let’s call her Evelyn) situation. Evelyn has to tell (We’ll call him Bob) Bob to hush when he loudly proclaims she should come back to bed. Evelyn tells Bob she is on the phone with her kid. To me this says that Dale has never met Bob. She did not say: “I am on the phone with Dale”. The wording in this short tragic phone message blows me away.

Of all of the possible pet names a mother could have for a child the one Evelyn chooses for Dale is Angel. Angels are symbols of highest good and in this case I believe she calls Dale angel in order to emphasize that between the two of them she feels Dale is the good one. It is amazing how our actions eat us up inside and it is amazing too how we often will indirectly communicate that.

I know someone who grew up with a single parent who put their needs before the child. That person’s life was changed when a stepfather entered the scene and brought with him stability. There is no telling the particulars of Evelyn’s situation. Dale never mentions a father so for some reason it seems he is out of the picture. Was Evelyn Turner a selfish woman? Was she hoping to find a father figure for Dale, happiness for herself and someone to help pay the bills? Was she an escapist seeking to slip through the shackles of reality, if only for a couple of days? Whoever she was Dale loved her very much and as a viewer I love Evelyn Turner too. Because in her brief appearance in the Jericho story she helped build a foundation of believability appropriate to a show whose title is the name of a town. She is an anchor of reality in what is to become a really fantastic story. She is part of what keeps Jericho honest.
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Evelyn's choice to stay in Atlanta an extra couple of days proved fatal in the end but I choose not to let this detail sprout wings and fly off to the mythic realm of symbolism. Rather, I will let it stand as a reminder that life is fragile, unpredictable, complicated and sometimes very,very sad.
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