towel.
—
My parents’ nine-year marriage would convert, in “Catholic years,” to all of about three minutes. Plus, my father being one of seven children, and my mother being one of six, the fact that I am an only child is nearly statistically impossible for Catholics. I cannot exist. I do, of course, but I am the first and only only child in the history of both sides of my family.
Because I was just two years old when my parents split, I’ve never known them together. The consolation for that is,
I’ve never known them together
. Those old, dark days of two rough jobs, too little money, too much drink, and too little in common were only ever spoken about reluctantly, in dribs and drabs, after a lot of prodding, when I was well into adulthood. And the few photos that exist of my parents during their marriage capture only their rosiest moments.
Those pictures weren’t dug up from the bottom of long-buried shoeboxes until I was a teenager. Seeing them for the first time gave me a smile, quickly cut short by a queasy “oh, shit” feeling I can only liken to seeing photos of happy people waving to the crowd as they pull away from port onboard a great ship you then realize is the
Titanic
.
Eventually I was charmed by the photos, finding, however ironically, that seeing my parents in the early days of their marriage was a pretty satisfying source of closure—the official portrait of my dad, baby-faced with a side part, in his police blues; the three-part series of my mom in a tight pair of bellbottoms kneeling in a field plucking daisies; the shot of them holding hands and flashing smiles as they led the recessional out of St. Francis Xavier; him mid-dive in a pair of belted short-short swim trunks; all ninety pounds of her climbing a pool ladder; and the two of them together on a balcony overlooking the beach, him bare-chested beneath a fully unbuttoned short-sleeve guayabera shirt, her in a halter-top bikini, his right arm disappearing behind her back, a half-smoked cigarette and a half-full glass in his left hand raised in a toast to the camera.
My mother met Mark for the very first time in a conference room at a Detroit hotel. She was a ball of nerves in a red skirt suit, arranging tent cards and glasses of water on the table for the clients and wondering when he would arrive.
Having cleaned his apartment for over a year, she knew he was a tall man from the size of the suits in his closet, but still, she was in shock when he walked in—he had steel-blue eyes, reeked of intelligence, and stood six feet, ten inches tall.
She had just taken the job as his administrative assistant. The position was very part-time—two or three days a month—and required traveling to big cities around the country. Mark was a business consultant with a growing clientele, and he needed some on-the-road assistance, particularly to set up his conference rooms and film his presentations. Mom had done very little traveling in her life and was thrilled at the chance to see new places.
They had dinner together that first night, and, as my mom describes it, all “the bells and whistles went off” for her. By the second night of the trip it was clear that there was a mutual attraction.
They dated very casually at first, but Mom still felt she shouldn’t be in his employ anymore. She took a waitressing job and saw Mark every other weekend, when I was with my father. But by the time I was four, some three years after her first day as his cleaning lady, there was no denying that they were in love.
—
When my mom decided to quit working for Mark after they started dating, it was for two clear reasons. Reason one was my grandfather’s legendary mantra, which she first heard at sixteen. It was her inaugural day working with him at the Yankee Stadium concession stand, and he had been showing her the ropes for so long, he was down to strings—this ursine man in an apron, trying his best to be dead serious yet unable to shake his
—
My parents’ nine-year marriage would convert, in “Catholic years,” to all of about three minutes. Plus, my father being one of seven children, and my mother being one of six, the fact that I am an only child is nearly statistically impossible for Catholics. I cannot exist. I do, of course, but I am the first and only only child in the history of both sides of my family.
Because I was just two years old when my parents split, I’ve never known them together. The consolation for that is,
I’ve never known them together
. Those old, dark days of two rough jobs, too little money, too much drink, and too little in common were only ever spoken about reluctantly, in dribs and drabs, after a lot of prodding, when I was well into adulthood. And the few photos that exist of my parents during their marriage capture only their rosiest moments.
Those pictures weren’t dug up from the bottom of long-buried shoeboxes until I was a teenager. Seeing them for the first time gave me a smile, quickly cut short by a queasy “oh, shit” feeling I can only liken to seeing photos of happy people waving to the crowd as they pull away from port onboard a great ship you then realize is the
Titanic
.
Eventually I was charmed by the photos, finding, however ironically, that seeing my parents in the early days of their marriage was a pretty satisfying source of closure—the official portrait of my dad, baby-faced with a side part, in his police blues; the three-part series of my mom in a tight pair of bellbottoms kneeling in a field plucking daisies; the shot of them holding hands and flashing smiles as they led the recessional out of St. Francis Xavier; him mid-dive in a pair of belted short-short swim trunks; all ninety pounds of her climbing a pool ladder; and the two of them together on a balcony overlooking the beach, him bare-chested beneath a fully unbuttoned short-sleeve guayabera shirt, her in a halter-top bikini, his right arm disappearing behind her back, a half-smoked cigarette and a half-full glass in his left hand raised in a toast to the camera.
My mother met Mark for the very first time in a conference room at a Detroit hotel. She was a ball of nerves in a red skirt suit, arranging tent cards and glasses of water on the table for the clients and wondering when he would arrive.
Having cleaned his apartment for over a year, she knew he was a tall man from the size of the suits in his closet, but still, she was in shock when he walked in—he had steel-blue eyes, reeked of intelligence, and stood six feet, ten inches tall.
She had just taken the job as his administrative assistant. The position was very part-time—two or three days a month—and required traveling to big cities around the country. Mark was a business consultant with a growing clientele, and he needed some on-the-road assistance, particularly to set up his conference rooms and film his presentations. Mom had done very little traveling in her life and was thrilled at the chance to see new places.
They had dinner together that first night, and, as my mom describes it, all “the bells and whistles went off” for her. By the second night of the trip it was clear that there was a mutual attraction.
They dated very casually at first, but Mom still felt she shouldn’t be in his employ anymore. She took a waitressing job and saw Mark every other weekend, when I was with my father. But by the time I was four, some three years after her first day as his cleaning lady, there was no denying that they were in love.
—
When my mom decided to quit working for Mark after they started dating, it was for two clear reasons. Reason one was my grandfather’s legendary mantra, which she first heard at sixteen. It was her inaugural day working with him at the Yankee Stadium concession stand, and he had been showing her the ropes for so long, he was down to strings—this ursine man in an apron, trying his best to be dead serious yet unable to shake his
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