Forty years ago this fall, they married, having met cute on an air force base in the Philippines some time before.
Even as a child, poring over the pictures of them in a small ivory album, I thought they made an unlikely pair.
She was tall, graceful, with a blond shoulder-length flip and a dreamy look in her eyes. He was shorter, darker, with a military-issue haircut and heavy glasses.
After a year or two, they welcomed a daughter. Three years later, they welcomed another, which made me a big sister.
Were we a happy family? I don't remember. And ultimately, it didn't matter. Before five more years had passed, he'd moved on, and nothing was ever the same again.
They remarried: first him, then her. They divorced, again: first her, then him. In between, other children were born: two here, one there.
He married again, this time for good. She swore she was done with marriage, with love.
Now, they see each other for milestones: when daughters are married; when grandchildren are born. Only when it matters, and no more.
But still, they are bound by that ceremony forty years ago. What do they think about that? I can't help but wonder.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
You know what's hard for me?
In a sweet but misguided effort to protect me from the truth, my mother resolutely refused to say anything negative about my biological father while I was growing up. In what still remains a mystery of epic proportions to me today, she decided, however, to still ship my sister and I off to see him for visits.
Knowing what a psyochotic borderline personality he was.
What keeps the bandaid still occasionally ripping off? Once a year or so, the conversation still rolls around to him. And I find out bits and pieces of what their marriage was like, and what my early childhood was like. It comes in little asides, in off the cuff comments. That she came home and found him overdosed on the floor. That she made the decision to leave him when he pushed my 3 year old face down in a scalding bowl of soup at a Chinese restaurant. That he told her he would kill her, and me, if we left.
I am still learning bits and pieces about this person that gave me half my DNA.
And I do not understand. I am still mystified about those years, from 1974-1979. It is like my mother is determined to keep those years locked away, not realizing that another human being was dragged along with her.
It's hard, isn't it?
Post a Comment