was just too hot to eat anything else. They would swing together in the same old Pawleys Island hammock that had hung on our porch forever until the lightning bugs came out and then they would run around to catch them.
Those were magical days when we were all together, our eyes so filled with one another. Every wonder of nature was right before us and history was never more alive. And we were happy. I missed the days when my sons were little boys and they looked up to me. And I longed to take my grandchildren to Sullivans Island to tell them the stories, but Dan and Nan had no interest or time to fly across country for something so frivolous. Or they claimed to be impossibly busy and booked up.
But that wasn’t the truth. We all knew it.
Oh, I had been a very foolish woman to tell my boys they had to choose between their father and me. They had never really declared a choice but had drifted away from both of us, never understanding why I had drawn a line in the sand in the first place. I thought they should come to my defense and try to talk some sense into their father’s head. Could they have saved my marriage? Now I think not, but at that time I resented that they would not try. I was so deeply and pathetically desperate then to hold everything in place, for our lives to return to their orbit, and for Judith to disappear. Along with the two illegitimate children of hers that my husband had fathered.
I never should have let the duplicity and the immoral philandering ofany man, even their father, come between us. But it had. I couldn’t stop it. I harangued them mercilessly to tell their father how wrong he was, that I was a wonderful spouse and how could he do this to us? Once the cat and the kitties of Charles’s other family were out of the bag, there was no stopping the bad news. Charles simply moved out and I was left alone with my town house and very little cash.
You know how you always hope that when life gives you a great challenge you’ll be noble and wise and do the right thing? That you’ll conduct yourself in ways that won’t embarrass anyone? That you won’t be an emotional albatross? Well, I was flat-out robbed of the opportunities to be noble or to be a raving lunatic.
Charlie, my oldest, was already in medical school, studying twenty-seven hours a day, and Dan was in California married to Nan. The only good thing about my behavior then was that at least I had maintained enough dignity to wallow in the privacy of my bedroom. But I cried enough tears to refill Lake Superior, which is what I thought I was.
Charlie had helped the most. He was the one who found the contractor to convert the town house into apartments. I turned my space into a small three-bedroom apartment in case the boys ever came back for a visit. It was a useless conciliatory act but my way of demonstrating contrition. Soon after, Charlie moved himself to Harlem and immersed himself in his studies, which he had to do if he was going to be a pediatric surgeon someday. Did I say that he thought I disapproved of his live-in girlfriend? Well, it wasn’t because she was Jamaican. Really. It wasn’t. It was because she had the worst personality I had ever encountered. Yes, she was studying to be a pediatrician, so obviously she wasn’t a dummy. It was just that every time we had lunch or dinner I felt like I was going to fall asleep in my plate. I wasn’t the only boring woman on the earth, you know. And okay. To be perfectly honest? I did think there were too many cultural differences for me to ever be comfortable with her. I knew I owed Charlie a phone call. Admittedly, I was avoiding him because the last time we spoke it had not gone well.
I had invited him to dinner on the spur of the moment and he said, “Is this invitation for me alone?”
That was all he had to say and I knew we were heading down a dark path.
“Well, Charlie, sometimes I just like to get caught up with my son and discuss family matters.”
“Matters
Those were magical days when we were all together, our eyes so filled with one another. Every wonder of nature was right before us and history was never more alive. And we were happy. I missed the days when my sons were little boys and they looked up to me. And I longed to take my grandchildren to Sullivans Island to tell them the stories, but Dan and Nan had no interest or time to fly across country for something so frivolous. Or they claimed to be impossibly busy and booked up.
But that wasn’t the truth. We all knew it.
Oh, I had been a very foolish woman to tell my boys they had to choose between their father and me. They had never really declared a choice but had drifted away from both of us, never understanding why I had drawn a line in the sand in the first place. I thought they should come to my defense and try to talk some sense into their father’s head. Could they have saved my marriage? Now I think not, but at that time I resented that they would not try. I was so deeply and pathetically desperate then to hold everything in place, for our lives to return to their orbit, and for Judith to disappear. Along with the two illegitimate children of hers that my husband had fathered.
I never should have let the duplicity and the immoral philandering ofany man, even their father, come between us. But it had. I couldn’t stop it. I harangued them mercilessly to tell their father how wrong he was, that I was a wonderful spouse and how could he do this to us? Once the cat and the kitties of Charles’s other family were out of the bag, there was no stopping the bad news. Charles simply moved out and I was left alone with my town house and very little cash.
You know how you always hope that when life gives you a great challenge you’ll be noble and wise and do the right thing? That you’ll conduct yourself in ways that won’t embarrass anyone? That you won’t be an emotional albatross? Well, I was flat-out robbed of the opportunities to be noble or to be a raving lunatic.
Charlie, my oldest, was already in medical school, studying twenty-seven hours a day, and Dan was in California married to Nan. The only good thing about my behavior then was that at least I had maintained enough dignity to wallow in the privacy of my bedroom. But I cried enough tears to refill Lake Superior, which is what I thought I was.
Charlie had helped the most. He was the one who found the contractor to convert the town house into apartments. I turned my space into a small three-bedroom apartment in case the boys ever came back for a visit. It was a useless conciliatory act but my way of demonstrating contrition. Soon after, Charlie moved himself to Harlem and immersed himself in his studies, which he had to do if he was going to be a pediatric surgeon someday. Did I say that he thought I disapproved of his live-in girlfriend? Well, it wasn’t because she was Jamaican. Really. It wasn’t. It was because she had the worst personality I had ever encountered. Yes, she was studying to be a pediatrician, so obviously she wasn’t a dummy. It was just that every time we had lunch or dinner I felt like I was going to fall asleep in my plate. I wasn’t the only boring woman on the earth, you know. And okay. To be perfectly honest? I did think there were too many cultural differences for me to ever be comfortable with her. I knew I owed Charlie a phone call. Admittedly, I was avoiding him because the last time we spoke it had not gone well.
I had invited him to dinner on the spur of the moment and he said, “Is this invitation for me alone?”
That was all he had to say and I knew we were heading down a dark path.
“Well, Charlie, sometimes I just like to get caught up with my son and discuss family matters.”
“Matters
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