Home: Part 40

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Expect nothing, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for a while.

March 1976

Marilynn, Shannon's mother, was as polite as Howard, Shannon's father, was gruff. I often tried to compare her to my own mother, but Marilynn seemed more assured in some ways. My mother usually acquiesced to my father's moods and whims when she was pressured, but Marilynn seemingly acquiesced to nothing. When Howard bellowed and cursed,  Marilyn either simply stared him into submission or left the room. I always had the impression that she had dealt with bullies throughout her life, and she knew that bullies are given power more than they earn it.

To a fault, though, Marilynn also refused to acquiesce to growing old. For her mother's fiftieth birthday on the last day of winter, Shannon had arranged a surprise party that, Shannon told me, was more expected than a true surprise. "It's how my family works," Shannon said. "We pretend to not care about these celebrations, but we feel slighted for a long time if there are no celebrations." The party was held in the back room of the Breaker's, Marilynn's favorite restaurant. The gathering was small. Howard arrived late from a plumbing job, and Marilynn held court in the center of the room as her sisters, brother, and assorted relatives drifted in and enjoyed the catered dinner. When Howard finally entered the room, he was dressed dirty work clothes. His name was stitched onto his shirt above the left-hand pocket. From my seat in the corner of the room, I watched as he walked toward his wife before stopping short when he saw the look on her face. When he turned and found a seat across the room from me, Shannon patted her mother's shoulder, and then she sat down next to me.

"You think you're safe in the back of the room?" Shannon asked.

"I've been ignored, so I guess that's the same thing."

"Did you see my dad? Good god."

"I saw how your mom looked at him."

"He'll pay for it," Shannon said. "One way or another."

"He's here, though," I said, finding myself in the strange position of defending a man who didn't seem to like me. 

"That's not enough," Shannon said. "But look at her. She's loving this--this attention."

"She should enjoy it. She looks happy."

"She is. At least, she's happy with the party. She's not happy about being the big five-oh."

But Marilynn wore her age well, and her dress formed in such a way to advertise how slim her hips and waist were, how they curved into each other. Shannon said that her mother's hair was naturally brown, but she had recently begun dying it a dark blonde to, according to Shannon, "hide the grayest roots a woman could possibly have." In the months I had known her, Marilynn seemed to have worked hard at changing her appearance so that she looked more and more like her daughter. 

Shannon learned into my shoulder. "She cut her hair to look more like mine. She asked me this morning if I mind that she's started wearing some of the dresses I left at home. That's my dress that she's wearing."

"Maybe she admires your looks," I said.

"Yeah, maybe. I think she had some surgery on her eyelids, or something, but I can't be sure."

I hadn't known Marilynn long enough to have noticed if her eyes had changed, but she did seem to be dressing as though she were twenty years younger. "Your mom's attractive," I said. "There's nothing wrong with her trying to look good."

Shannon nodded. "Then why can't she just be an attractive person who's growing older? Christ, look at my dad. I don't even know when he last combed his hair."

"So, you're unhappy with your mother because she's trying to look younger than she is, and you're unhappy with your father because he's not trying to do anything like that?"

Shannon looked at me the same way her mother had looked at Howard when he'd come into the room. "I'm going to go help my mom open her gifts."

Home: Part 39

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Expect nothing, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for a while.

January 1958

My parents, starting at some point in their marriage and our lives, went for long stretches of time without speaking. They would barely acknowledge each other, though how they dealt with Cindy and me did not seem to change. My father would leave for work in the morning and say goodbye only to me and my sister, and our evening conversations at the supper table involved us all, but never the two of them directly. 

Home again after my first visit to Cindy's church, my mother walked into my bedroom and asked me about my experience. I told her it had been fine, and that I had neither sung the hymns nor closed my eyes during the prayers. "Do you want to go back?" my mother asked.

"I'm not sure why I would," I told her. "Do you think I'm a bad person and need to go to church?"

She smiled. "No, I don't think you are a bad person. But it wouldn't hurt you to keep going. You'll learn about god, about doing good things in your life."

"That's what Cindy says, too. And she wants me to go to Sunday school."

"You might like that more than church since you'd be around people your own age."

"It's just more school," I said.

She didn't say anything else about it. Later that day, though, my father asked me similar questions, and I gave him similar answers. We were in the garage sorting through his tools. He kept them clean, regularly wiping them with a rag. I enjoyed sitting with him and smelling the oil and dust emanating from the workbench he had built. 

He handed me a Crescent wrench to clean. "There are things worse than going to Sunday school."

I wondered why my mother hadn't already covered all of this with him, why I had to relive the same conversation. "Mom already told me all of this," I said. I handed the cleaned wrench back to him.

"She did?"

"When I got home. We talked about all of this."

He nodded. "Oh."

For an hour we cleaned tools and sorted out the bins of nuts and bolts that crowded the workbench. That night, Cindy stopped me in the hallway that ran through the middle of our house. "How about Sunday school next week?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I already told Mom and Dad that I don't think I want to go."

"I'll talk to them," she said. "I'll tell them why it's a good idea." She walked away, leaving me in the hallway to consider my choices.