THREE AMERICAN MOTHERS, ON THE BRINK

Dekeda Brown, 41, was in her local grocery store in Olney, Md., thinking back to a year ago, when she was onstage in New York accepting an award for “Working Mother of the Year.” Her husband watched proudly from the crowd, texting photos to her daughters, 11 and 15.

Almost exactly one year later, Dekeda was standing in the wine aisle, cellphone and keys in hand, contemplating whether she should begin smashing bottles. “I was like, what’s the worst thing that could happen if I just did this right now?” she said.

Liz Halfhill, 30, let out a guttural scream from her bedroom in Spokane, Wash. It was 6:30 a.m., and her 11-year-old son — watching cartoons in the living room — screamed back.

The shouts had become something of a morning ritual for them in the pandemic — a catharsis amid the stress of the last 11 months. “Waking up is hard, everything feels hard right now, so we let it out,” she said.

Mercedes Quintana, 29, wondered why on earth she ever thought cooking three separate breakfasts for her family was a good idea. “We never had homemade meals growing up, so I think I define myself as a good mom by providing them,” she said.