battles ended with each of them doing what they thought was right. This time was like that.
Mom and I drove the car home, across desert highways; through orange groves, strawberry fields, and suburban neighborhoods; right into our driveway, while Dad, Allen, Julian, and Keatie took a plane back. Mom kept the top down most of the way and told me stories about her first car, the first new car she and Dad had ever owned. I told her about my dream car, sang along to songs on the classic-rock radio station, felt like I was free, somehow.
That's how it was with us. She would listen to me talk about anything; she told me stories about what she was like when she was my age. I wasn't afraid of my mom, the way some kids are of theirs. I always felt like she understood me. Like she liked me. Like she liked being my mom. Lately, though, whenever I want to talk to her, I feel like I'm interrupting something. Like it isn't fun for her anymore. Like I'm a burden.
O NE S ATURDAY NIGHT AFTER D AD'S BEEN GONE A FEW WEEKS , Mom asks me if I want to go to the movies with her, just the two of us, since Allen is at work and Keatie is at Dad's.
“Sure,” I say.
The movie is the only one showing at a theater that people are always trying to shut down because it's old and ugly. It shows movies that are kind of old, but not really old; they're not black-and-white or anything. The one we see is kind of depressing. It's about all these people who just kind of fall into a coma for no apparent reason, just kind of check out of life one day. Then this doctor finds a medicine that seems to wake them up and the people start to live and talk and act normal, but eventually the medicine stops working and the people go back to their coma. Mom and I both cry at the end when allthe people are lined up, listless, in their hospital beds again.
We drive home in her car, listening to a Righteous Brothers CD. She begins to tell me about Dad. About them.
“When we started dating, my friends thought I was crazy. We didn't have anything in common, really. Your father was interested in politics and philosophy; I couldn't have cared less about those things… but he was so smart, and he just
adored
me. And it seemed as if, ultimately, we wanted the same things—family, a home, a life together….”
“No offense, Mom, but, duh … everyone wants those things. So you married Dad because he liked you and because he wanted to live in a house and have kids?”
“That's not what everyone wants, actually, Mia. Julian's dad didn't want those things, and it seems that your dad didn't, either. A few years after Keatie was born, he became distant. He started working longer hours; he seemed less interested in me, in you kids, in being a husband and a father. It was as if he just slipped away. Even when he was present physically, he seemed absent, like his mind, maybe his heart, was somewhere else.”
What she's telling me makes me uncomfortable. How could someone be in one place and be someplace else at the same time? How come I had never noticed what my mom was talking about? “What do you mean?”
“He just became… vacant, empty. I don't quite know how to explain it. He just checked out on us. But then after a while, he'd be back just like he was before—happy … alive…. Those times made me think we would be okay.
Every time he went back to his old self, I told myself he was back for good, that the… emotional absence had just been a phase. I'm sorry, Mia, I shouldn't be telling you all this,” she apologizes. But she goes on anyway. “The times when he was involved and excited and loving were so wonderful, but then he'd check out again. Kind of like the people in the movie. It became a sort of bittersweet cycle…. We tried therapy, but your father…It's hard being married to a ghost.”
I have no idea what she means, how my father, who has always lived in the same house as us, living, breathing, working, was ever like any of the people in the
Mom and I drove the car home, across desert highways; through orange groves, strawberry fields, and suburban neighborhoods; right into our driveway, while Dad, Allen, Julian, and Keatie took a plane back. Mom kept the top down most of the way and told me stories about her first car, the first new car she and Dad had ever owned. I told her about my dream car, sang along to songs on the classic-rock radio station, felt like I was free, somehow.
That's how it was with us. She would listen to me talk about anything; she told me stories about what she was like when she was my age. I wasn't afraid of my mom, the way some kids are of theirs. I always felt like she understood me. Like she liked me. Like she liked being my mom. Lately, though, whenever I want to talk to her, I feel like I'm interrupting something. Like it isn't fun for her anymore. Like I'm a burden.
O NE S ATURDAY NIGHT AFTER D AD'S BEEN GONE A FEW WEEKS , Mom asks me if I want to go to the movies with her, just the two of us, since Allen is at work and Keatie is at Dad's.
“Sure,” I say.
The movie is the only one showing at a theater that people are always trying to shut down because it's old and ugly. It shows movies that are kind of old, but not really old; they're not black-and-white or anything. The one we see is kind of depressing. It's about all these people who just kind of fall into a coma for no apparent reason, just kind of check out of life one day. Then this doctor finds a medicine that seems to wake them up and the people start to live and talk and act normal, but eventually the medicine stops working and the people go back to their coma. Mom and I both cry at the end when allthe people are lined up, listless, in their hospital beds again.
We drive home in her car, listening to a Righteous Brothers CD. She begins to tell me about Dad. About them.
“When we started dating, my friends thought I was crazy. We didn't have anything in common, really. Your father was interested in politics and philosophy; I couldn't have cared less about those things… but he was so smart, and he just
adored
me. And it seemed as if, ultimately, we wanted the same things—family, a home, a life together….”
“No offense, Mom, but, duh … everyone wants those things. So you married Dad because he liked you and because he wanted to live in a house and have kids?”
“That's not what everyone wants, actually, Mia. Julian's dad didn't want those things, and it seems that your dad didn't, either. A few years after Keatie was born, he became distant. He started working longer hours; he seemed less interested in me, in you kids, in being a husband and a father. It was as if he just slipped away. Even when he was present physically, he seemed absent, like his mind, maybe his heart, was somewhere else.”
What she's telling me makes me uncomfortable. How could someone be in one place and be someplace else at the same time? How come I had never noticed what my mom was talking about? “What do you mean?”
“He just became… vacant, empty. I don't quite know how to explain it. He just checked out on us. But then after a while, he'd be back just like he was before—happy … alive…. Those times made me think we would be okay.
Every time he went back to his old self, I told myself he was back for good, that the… emotional absence had just been a phase. I'm sorry, Mia, I shouldn't be telling you all this,” she apologizes. But she goes on anyway. “The times when he was involved and excited and loving were so wonderful, but then he'd check out again. Kind of like the people in the movie. It became a sort of bittersweet cycle…. We tried therapy, but your father…It's hard being married to a ghost.”
I have no idea what she means, how my father, who has always lived in the same house as us, living, breathing, working, was ever like any of the people in the
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