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Authors: Dorothea Benton Frank
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filled with recrimination. You need to get over her! How can I? You ruined my life! I did not ruin your life! Yes, you did! Then, when she wanted to really stick it to me, she would pick up the framed photograph of Betts I kept on my desk and sigh.
She would say something really insensitive, like, “Why don’t you just throw this away, son? She’s out of your life now.”
And I would say, “Why don’t you mind your own business, Mother?”
“Don’t you speak to me that way, J.D.,” she would say.
I would curl up the corner of my mouth and shrug, an indication that I didn’t give a damn what she thought.
“You’re acting like a zombie,” she would say.
“You made me one,” I’d say.
When Mother and I weren’t arguing, she pretended to be perky while I smoldered. I swear, in today’s market, someone would have carted me off to some classes in anger management and some serious grief counseling. But years ago things were different. Back then I called a buddy, we just went out to the woods, bagged a deer, drank a bunch of beer, and I came home to smolder some more. Pitiful.
It’s funny what you remember and what you forget. In those first months, I had tried many times to reach out to Vaughn and Joanie, but they wanted no part of me—or of Betts, for that matter. They told me they didn’t have her address or phone number. They hadn’t heard from her. Part of me actually believed them because everyone knew Adrianna’s death had caused a terrible schism in their family. Even Sela advised me to stop trying to find her, saying Betts would find me if she wanted to find me. Betts had been all but officially banished from her family and she disappeared into Manhattan, becoming one of the anonymous swarm.
So there it was—my first semester in law school and life with Betts was behind me. The holiday season was in full swing, and I was unenthusiastically at home. Naturally, pretending that there was peace on earth, Mother had decorated the house from stem to stern. There were Christmas trees in almost every room, wreaths in every window, and candles burning on every table, or so it seemed to me. My toy train from childhood was running around on its track in the den and the old Christmas village was up on display in the sunroom.
The night was dark and unusually cold. Small fires flickered andburned in three fireplaces to take the chill from the rooms. Someone was playing a selection from Handel’s Messiah on my parents’ Steinway. If old Louisa knew how to do anything, she knew how to throw a party. Amazing to me, everyone she invited always came, and they brought their holiday houseguests. There must have been two hundred people in the house, beyond the catering staff. I figured this would be the occasion when Mother would slip in a ringer and she didn’t disappoint me.
As commanded, I put on a tie and a smile and came downstairs, committed to being nice for a while. My plan was to eat a little, drink a little, and then disappear back to my room. My inner smartass taunted me, saying that my mother had planned this party with the singular mission of pissing me off, and it was working. I was feeling sour and cranky. Just then I spotted Mother in Dad’s study, talking to someone. I went in to say hello and make my token appearance. As I came around the corner, I saw that she was talking to a breathtakingly gorgeous young woman around my age with more teeth than I had ever seen in one mouth. My mood took a sudden and dramatic rise. The red dress this creature wore had some kind of a treacherously low scooped-out neckline, with her…you know, propped up like a couple of flawless ivory balloons. Not one freckle. I must say, they were riveting. Was she for real? At that moment I did not care.
“Oh! J.D.! There you are, darlin’! Come and meet my new friend, Valerie! Her mother, Alice, is a trustee on the Spoleto board with me. Valerie, this is my son, J.D.”
“Hey, J.D.,” she said with a slow and
She would say something really insensitive, like, “Why don’t you just throw this away, son? She’s out of your life now.”
And I would say, “Why don’t you mind your own business, Mother?”
“Don’t you speak to me that way, J.D.,” she would say.
I would curl up the corner of my mouth and shrug, an indication that I didn’t give a damn what she thought.
“You’re acting like a zombie,” she would say.
“You made me one,” I’d say.
When Mother and I weren’t arguing, she pretended to be perky while I smoldered. I swear, in today’s market, someone would have carted me off to some classes in anger management and some serious grief counseling. But years ago things were different. Back then I called a buddy, we just went out to the woods, bagged a deer, drank a bunch of beer, and I came home to smolder some more. Pitiful.
It’s funny what you remember and what you forget. In those first months, I had tried many times to reach out to Vaughn and Joanie, but they wanted no part of me—or of Betts, for that matter. They told me they didn’t have her address or phone number. They hadn’t heard from her. Part of me actually believed them because everyone knew Adrianna’s death had caused a terrible schism in their family. Even Sela advised me to stop trying to find her, saying Betts would find me if she wanted to find me. Betts had been all but officially banished from her family and she disappeared into Manhattan, becoming one of the anonymous swarm.
So there it was—my first semester in law school and life with Betts was behind me. The holiday season was in full swing, and I was unenthusiastically at home. Naturally, pretending that there was peace on earth, Mother had decorated the house from stem to stern. There were Christmas trees in almost every room, wreaths in every window, and candles burning on every table, or so it seemed to me. My toy train from childhood was running around on its track in the den and the old Christmas village was up on display in the sunroom.
The night was dark and unusually cold. Small fires flickered andburned in three fireplaces to take the chill from the rooms. Someone was playing a selection from Handel’s Messiah on my parents’ Steinway. If old Louisa knew how to do anything, she knew how to throw a party. Amazing to me, everyone she invited always came, and they brought their holiday houseguests. There must have been two hundred people in the house, beyond the catering staff. I figured this would be the occasion when Mother would slip in a ringer and she didn’t disappoint me.
As commanded, I put on a tie and a smile and came downstairs, committed to being nice for a while. My plan was to eat a little, drink a little, and then disappear back to my room. My inner smartass taunted me, saying that my mother had planned this party with the singular mission of pissing me off, and it was working. I was feeling sour and cranky. Just then I spotted Mother in Dad’s study, talking to someone. I went in to say hello and make my token appearance. As I came around the corner, I saw that she was talking to a breathtakingly gorgeous young woman around my age with more teeth than I had ever seen in one mouth. My mood took a sudden and dramatic rise. The red dress this creature wore had some kind of a treacherously low scooped-out neckline, with her…you know, propped up like a couple of flawless ivory balloons. Not one freckle. I must say, they were riveting. Was she for real? At that moment I did not care.
“Oh! J.D.! There you are, darlin’! Come and meet my new friend, Valerie! Her mother, Alice, is a trustee on the Spoleto board with me. Valerie, this is my son, J.D.”
“Hey, J.D.,” she said with a slow and
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