Read Online Tales From the Crib by Jennifer Coburn - Free Book Online Page A

someone – anyone—what was going on with Jack. Since she was right there, Anjoli was my choice.
    “You’re right,” I admitted. I knew if I laid these two words at her feet, she would go easy on me. “Jack’s and my relationship has changed. We’re sort of married in name only. We’ll raise the baby together, but have separate lives.”
    “That sounds like a divorce.”
    “No, we’ll still live together. We’ll just be friends—and co-parents.”
    “There was an article in the Times about this!” she said excitedly. Then she gave a moment of thought with knit brows. She rarely knit her brows because of the wrinkle it caused. In fact, every night she walks around the house with a piece of Scotch tape between her eyebrows so she cannot create a “concentration line.” So when she knit her brows, I knew she was in serious contemplation. “Jack is gay, isn’t he?” Anjoli said.
    “No, he’s straight as ever.”
    “Are you sure? I could see him being gay.”
    “Mother, Jack is not gay. He’s already dating—women!”
    “He may still be in denial.”
    “Jack is not gay, Anjoli! Stop saying that.”
    “Please don’t tell me they’ve turned you into a homophobe out there in New Jersey!”
    “Mother, stop it! Look, if Jack were gay, I’d say he was gay, but he’s not.”
    She seemed disappointed. “Oh. He seems so gay.”
    “Mother! What is your problem?!”
    “I have no problem, darling. It’s just I know someone I think Jack would really hit it off with, but if you say he’s not gay then it won’t work.” Anjoli continued, “It would be so much easier if he were gay.”
    “Why is that? Do you think I’m hoping for a reconciliation?” I accused.
    “No, darling. It seems such better PR to have him gay, though. If he’s gay, no one will say the breakup was because you were difficult, or because of another woman. Oh come now, Lucy, be sensible. Let’s tell people he’s gay. I have a friend, Marlies, in California who lives with her gay husband and she came out of the whole thing beautifully. Who could blame the wife if it turned out the husband was just gay?”
    “Mother, is that what you think?! That unless my husband is gay, the breakup is my fault?”
    “Of course not, darling, but you know what imbeciles people can be.”
    “I certainly do,” I shot. “Might I remind you that you and Daddy divorced when I was six months old? Did anyone say it was your fault? Or did you just tell everyone he was gay?”
    “Lucy,” she said with overdone sympathy. “Your father was a drug addict.”
    “Mother, frankly, I can see why.”
    I hated when my mother called my father a “drug addict.” Yes, he smoked pot daily, and did more than his fair share of LSD, cocaine, and heroin, but he did other things too. Admittedly, they were not necessarily performed as coherently as they may have otherwise been, but to call Sammy a drug addict seemed to detract from all his other qualities. Drug addicts were useless losers who pissed on themselves in alleyways. Guys who simply did drugs on a daily basis were something different.  They were musicians. He never missed a visiting Sunday, a school play, a horse show, or a parent-teacher conference. He had an IQ of 146 and could debate just about any issue with anyone. So to call him a drug addict really gave a very one-dimensional picture of my father. I’ll admit, he wasn’t Pa Ingalls, but we didn’t live in a little house on the prairie either, so I don’t know why Anjoli always needed to use that tired old characterization with me. The man was dead. Hadn’t she already won Parental Survivor?
    Anjoli burst into laughter. “I must say, darling, you certainly did inherit his comedic delivery.” Every time I am convinced she is nonmaternal, she does something incredibly warm and nurturing. Just as I’m convinced she’s trying to body slam a dead man, she acknowledges that Sammy was quite funny. This woman was so infuriatingly inconsistent I