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Authors: Haywood Smith
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary Women
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right back at me, but instead, she came in and pulled me to my feet against her, gently rocking me back and forth despite my stiffness in her arms. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” she said with her cheek against the top of my head. “I didn’t want to get divorced, but your daddy couldn’t handle my sickness anymore. I couldn’t let you go. You’re all I have left in the world. You’re my daughter, and I’m your mother. Nothing should take a daughter from her mother.”
Torn asunder, I felt like some ancient old hag, dried up and empty, with the weight of the world on my shoulders. Of course Mama couldn’t let me go. She needed me to take care of her.
But I was just a little girl. Mama was supposed to take care of me, not the other way around.
In that moment, I hated both my parents for what they’d done and vowed that I would never hurt my children the way Mama and Daddy had hurt me.
Even so, I missed my father so much, I could hardly get out of bed in the morning. At first, I raced to the mailbox every day when I got home from school, praying for a letter from him, but I never got a single one.
I made up all kinds of dramatic excuses in my mind for why he hadn’t written, but as the months passed into years, I gradually accepted the fact that he’d abandoned me.
He was gone, but every Christmas and Thanksgiving after that, the dark bitterness of his absence hovered at the edge of my vision like a ghost. I never got over losing him.
And the more dependent on me my mother became, the more I resented Daddy for escaping, at my expense. I came to hate him as much as I longed for him.
So I never trusted my heart to anyone again, until my own children were born. The love I felt for my girls helped me understand why my mother couldn’t give me up, even for my own good. Thanks to that, I stopped hating her, at least.
And I vowed to be the best wife and mother who ever breathed, so my husband would never, ever have cause to leave me.
Seven
November 15, 1974. Eden Lake Court
W hen Kat came over for coffee, I was reading the paper and fuming.
She greeted me with, “Lord, you look like thunder and lightnin’. What’s got yer panties in a wad?”
I showed her the headline: WILBUR MILLS DRUNK ON BOSTON STAGE WITH STRIPPER FANNE FOX. “Can you believe that idiot?” I fumed. “Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and first he’s caught speeding with that stripper in his car, and now, just a few weeks later, he’s on stage with her, drunk as a skunk. No wonder this country’s going to hell in a handbasket, with idiots like that in Congress.”
He was a Democrat, of course.
Kat poured herself some coffee. “I thought it was pretty funny, myself.”
She would.
“Just like the Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe,” I grumbled. “And LBJ and his hookers, using the Secret Service as pimps. I mean, really. Why can’t Democrats keep it in their pants?”
“I told you,” Kat retorted, “those were just rumors about JFK and Marilyn Monroe.”
How somebody as practical and flat-footed as Kat could still believe the myth of Camelot was beyond me, but we’d been round and round about this, so I didn’t beat a dead horse.
“Well, there’s no denying this stuff about the stripper and Mills,” I told her. “There were plenty of witnesses. The man’s married, for God’s sake.” I slammed the paper to the table in outrage. “It’s bad enough the Democrats spend our tax money like it’s water. Why can’t they keep it in their pants?”
“I dunno,” Kat said. “Maybe for the same reason the Republicans keep lying and selling the taxpayers down the river to special interest groups.”
She had me there. With friends like Richard Nixon, conservatives didn’t need any enemies, and Gerald Ford was the current national joke. “Why do you think their wives put up with it?” I asked. “I’d be out of there.”
Never mind that going home to Mama wasn’t an option. How could those
Torn asunder, I felt like some ancient old hag, dried up and empty, with the weight of the world on my shoulders. Of course Mama couldn’t let me go. She needed me to take care of her.
But I was just a little girl. Mama was supposed to take care of me, not the other way around.
In that moment, I hated both my parents for what they’d done and vowed that I would never hurt my children the way Mama and Daddy had hurt me.
Even so, I missed my father so much, I could hardly get out of bed in the morning. At first, I raced to the mailbox every day when I got home from school, praying for a letter from him, but I never got a single one.
I made up all kinds of dramatic excuses in my mind for why he hadn’t written, but as the months passed into years, I gradually accepted the fact that he’d abandoned me.
He was gone, but every Christmas and Thanksgiving after that, the dark bitterness of his absence hovered at the edge of my vision like a ghost. I never got over losing him.
And the more dependent on me my mother became, the more I resented Daddy for escaping, at my expense. I came to hate him as much as I longed for him.
So I never trusted my heart to anyone again, until my own children were born. The love I felt for my girls helped me understand why my mother couldn’t give me up, even for my own good. Thanks to that, I stopped hating her, at least.
And I vowed to be the best wife and mother who ever breathed, so my husband would never, ever have cause to leave me.
Seven
November 15, 1974. Eden Lake Court
W hen Kat came over for coffee, I was reading the paper and fuming.
She greeted me with, “Lord, you look like thunder and lightnin’. What’s got yer panties in a wad?”
I showed her the headline: WILBUR MILLS DRUNK ON BOSTON STAGE WITH STRIPPER FANNE FOX. “Can you believe that idiot?” I fumed. “Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and first he’s caught speeding with that stripper in his car, and now, just a few weeks later, he’s on stage with her, drunk as a skunk. No wonder this country’s going to hell in a handbasket, with idiots like that in Congress.”
He was a Democrat, of course.
Kat poured herself some coffee. “I thought it was pretty funny, myself.”
She would.
“Just like the Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe,” I grumbled. “And LBJ and his hookers, using the Secret Service as pimps. I mean, really. Why can’t Democrats keep it in their pants?”
“I told you,” Kat retorted, “those were just rumors about JFK and Marilyn Monroe.”
How somebody as practical and flat-footed as Kat could still believe the myth of Camelot was beyond me, but we’d been round and round about this, so I didn’t beat a dead horse.
“Well, there’s no denying this stuff about the stripper and Mills,” I told her. “There were plenty of witnesses. The man’s married, for God’s sake.” I slammed the paper to the table in outrage. “It’s bad enough the Democrats spend our tax money like it’s water. Why can’t they keep it in their pants?”
“I dunno,” Kat said. “Maybe for the same reason the Republicans keep lying and selling the taxpayers down the river to special interest groups.”
She had me there. With friends like Richard Nixon, conservatives didn’t need any enemies, and Gerald Ford was the current national joke. “Why do you think their wives put up with it?” I asked. “I’d be out of there.”
Never mind that going home to Mama wasn’t an option. How could those
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