Freedom deludes us. We fall into the
trap of all the things we always wanted to do. And then so quickly we get
jaded,
lonely without the
familiar constraints. And maybe it makes us do stupid things.
I'll never know if it was lonliness or a
desperate grab for some overrated
power that made her do it. Even a year ago, he was
carefully nice to me, though he couldn't remember my name.
Her daughter. Supposedly the wife is
better now, although no one's seen her. She went to
rehab and maybe she got
cleaned up.
I recall her even better than the
weak man. He gave Chris (the wife) a name, her name, and my mother quietly played
scapegoat,
fired for his transgression. Did she have another job then? I don't think so. It seems she was still a
student and we lived in the tiny duplex in that
rural ghetto.
910b. And I was scared, because the door at 910b didn't lock and I could kick it in if
I forgot my keys and she warned us not to answer it. Finally she made us go to our dad's, afraid of Chris and her
anger, coming by the house, screaming,
calling up in the middle of the night,
drunk and righteous.
And he called, too,
sticky sweet with us, forcing her to tears with his
promises. And he'd had all of the women - the
waitresses, the
bakers. He flirted with the teenagers who came over the summer, with the children staying
quiet and out of the way, with me. With his
daughter. Smarmy,
physical flirtation that made me want to
strip naked in the greasy restroom and scrub my skin raw until it was cleansed of
the smell of decaying oysters and the microscopic traces of his epidermis.
She must have felt differently. There were
no men, after my dad, before or since. Just
to be told she was wanted? Even by this slimy fifty year old boy?
And
who the hell was she,
how dare she force him and the
lunatic alcoholic wife into our lives?
These days, she wants to know why I never call, or answer her emails. Wants to know why I won't share my life or listen to her
advice.
Because you stopped being my mother. Even before you were the other woman. You put yourself first, you dissolved my trust. And you can't just have it back, because it's too late. I had to protect myself when it wasn't fair, support the family when I was a little girl, and still come home to your pathetic attempts at discipline. You taught me, you taught me with your mistakes.
And among other things, I'll never be the other woman.