Chapter Ten
Nobody had turned the porch light on at my parents’ house. It looked foreboding from the street, like the house you wanted to avoid when you went trick-or-treating as a kid because you knew they would hand out pennies instead of candy.
That basically summed up my childhood. Always pennies. Never anything sweet.
The front room was dark as I stepped inside, even though the still winter sun had started to set an hour ago. Typical. My mom wasn’t concerned with making me feel welcome. She’d already invited me over for supper, so her obligation had been fulfilled.
Light from the kitchen situated at the back of the house glowed burnished orange on the dated carpet, spreading a long rectangle to the edge of a scuffed coffee table. I could hear my mom knocking around in the kitchen, putting the final touches on supper. Pots clinked and water boiled, drawers opened and spoons stirred, but no radio or TV could be heard. Just her huffing at our supper and my dad’s distant cough from their bedroom.
I stood there for a minute, invisible and unnoticed. Taking a deep breath, I inhaled a bouquet of memories and emotions. My chest tightened and I couldn’t tell if it was from regret for agreeing to this or nostalgic longing for when I was a kid and hadn’t had any responsibilities. Whatever the feeling that settled so heavily on my heart, it made me want to purge it from my body, get it out of me and eternalize it on something else. I wanted to paint this exact moment, somehow move it from reality to canvas.
I would focus on that stretched rectangle of light, make it the very center of the portrait. The carpet would need to be just the right, faded shade of brown. I would need to spend hours detailing the grains of wood from the coffee table. The doorway would need to be the right proportion.
And then in the background I would add my mom at the stove, her peppered black hair pulled in a low ponytail. I would bow her head over her pot, taking care to detail her curled fingers around a wooden spoon and the black sweatpants and t-shirt she would no doubt be wearing. But I would leave her face hidden, unseen.
Somehow I would bring in the master bedroom. Maybe just a sliver of the doorway with the corner of a bed and a pair of large socked feet hanging off the edge.
I would put it all together in grays and blacks and woodsy browns. I would reserve all the color for that one window of light. And then I would let the viewer read into the story whatever they wished. I would let them look at this secret picture of my family and infer whatever story it told them.
Because it would depend on them, on their view of the world. This could be a story of resilience and loyalty, of people sticking it out no matter what, a happily ever after. Or this could very easily be a tragedy. I still hadn’t made up my mind.
I jingled my keys and cleared my throat. Dropping my purse on the recliner near the window, I made as much noise as possible and headed toward the kitchen.
“I’m here!” I called so everyone in the house would know I arrived.
My mother turned from her spot at the counter and looked over me in her hawk-like way. She never wore makeup so her eyes had a beady quality that was unsettling when they were critical. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi.” The pressure in my chest tightened. I subtly worried over my choice of clothes and shoes and every single life choice I’d ever made.
She turned back to supper and tilted her head. “I need you to set the table. I asked your father to, but he has a very important obligation in the other room.”
“By that, you mean taking a nap,” I teased. “No worries, Mama. What’s the point of coming home if I don’t get to do chores?”
Without turning around or acknowledging my upbeat candor, she snorted at her simmering dishes. “He’s had a very rough day of napping. His afternoon nap apparently wasn’t enough. And you know, I interrupted him with the vacuuming, so he had to start over once I was finished. The man has no stamina.”
“He has stamina, Mom. He’s been married to you for over thirty years.” I had long since stopped trying to stay out of things between my parents. That might sound crazy to the normal, non-confrontational person, but for me, I’d learned my lesson the hard way too many times. If I stayed out of it, it never ended. If I jumped in and started reminding my parents of how much they loved each other, they stopped just to get me to stop.
It was how I kept the peace.
One might think that this would make me brave enough to jump into any kind of conflict or throw myself into volatile situations or maybe, even simply stand up for myself. But the truth was, having to handle my parents all of my life made any kind of conflict extremely uncomfortable for me.
I even congratulated myself for the great relationship Vann and Vera had. I took full responsibility for them loving each other so much.
I couldn’t stand them fighting when we were kids. I burst into hysterical tears the minute they started after each other. It wasn’t so much that Vann cared so very deeply for me, rather he has always hated when girls cried. It’s one of his biggest fears—weepy females. So he would do anything to get me to stop—even get along with his annoying kid sister.
As we got older, Vann started treating me less like a girl and more like a sister which meant my tears had less and less effect on him. So, during our teenage years, I stopped crying and resorted to simply leaving. We could have been in the middle of a homework assignment or a Vera-inspired cooking experiment, but if the atmosphere felt even slightly tense, I would pack up my things and leave.
Not for their sake, but for mine.
Fighting drove me crazy. And after having listened to a pretty constant soundtrack of it for my entire life at home, I had gotten decently good at stopping it, fixing it, or running away from it.
“He can’t afford the divorce,” my mom grumbled.
“Mom, he knows I’ll set the table for you. I always do. And I always will.”
She snarled something under her breath and threw potholders at the table like Frisbees. My mom was this interesting mix of plucky, tell-it-like-it-is ballbuster, and pearl-clutching church lady. In one breath, she’d give my dad hell or toss potholders at the table like she was a frolfing superstar, and the next she’d lecture me for complaining about my boss or putting my elbows on the table.
When the potholders were set, she spun back to her stove and mumbled angrily about my dad’s grotesque use of his napping privileges. I already knew what kind of night it was going to be before my dad ever made an appearance. If my dad was on his second nap today, there was a reason.
Because in this house, if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody gonna be happy until the very, very end of time. Like the way end. Like after the epilogue and acknowledgments and sequel preview.
I picked up three napkins and started folding them into origami cranes, placing each one in the center of our ancient Corel plates. The eat-in kitchen was small and dated, but it did something to ease the aching in my hollow chest.
My parents were difficult and angry and deeply bitter, but they also cared about me above everything else. And I knew they loved each other. Even if they had a hard time admitting it. But it always made my memories an interesting mix of longing and loved, of bad memories mingled with great ones.
“You know he lost his job again,” my mother said in a harsh whisper. “Again, Molly.”
I stared at my mom’s back and lost the ability to form words. Her stiff shoulders and robotic movements said words she would never say out loud. What are we going to do now?
She never asked that question aloud, because she’d always had the answer. She would figure it out. On her own. Without help and without my dad. She would scrimp enough money to get by and continue to do whatever it took to pay the bills and put food on the table. She would do what she always did—clean up my dad’s mess.
My dad had never been able to keep a steady job. Which was kind of funny considering how many times he had been hired. That was the thing about my dad, he had no trouble finding work. He just couldn’t keep it. People loved him. His bosses always started out loving him. I loved him. He was boisterous and charming and completely irresponsible.
And he was a salesman. When I was very little, he sold cars. And knives, and cookware, and even life insurance policies at one point. In middle school, he’d moved to canvassing neighborhoods to sell roofs and then fences and finally gutters. When I got to high school, he had a steady job of selling medical equipment out of an office.
My mom and I had sincerely hoped that the office job would be a turning point for him. He even wore a tie to work and came home every day whistling.
But whatever it was that afflicted my dad when it came to finally pulling it together, had reared its ugly head and come back with a vengeance. When he lost the office job, he didn’t find another one until after I’d graduated and left the house.
In recent years, he’d had sporadic part time work with a tree service, but he wasn’t exactly a spry twenty-something-year-old. Manual labor was hard for him at his age. So he’d given that up, to try his hand at selling boats.
He’d managed that for eight months.
My heart dropped to my toes like it was made of stone. I grasped at my chest where there was only a gaping hole now. “He’ll find another job, Mom,” I assured her in an insistent whisper. “He always does.”
She didn’t turn around. She didn’t even flinch. “At least you’re not here anymore,” she said.
I focused on the napkins again. I didn’t know what she meant by that. Maybe she was happy I didn’t have to carry these burdens anymore, that I didn’t have to watch my dad spiral into depression as he tortured himself for not being able to keep work like most other people. Or maybe she was happy she didn’t have another mouth to feed and body to take care of. Maybe she was just glad she had one less thing to worry about now.
“If you need help, Mom, I can—”
Her hand snapped up cutting my words off, stiff as a board. “No, we don’t need help. Especially not from our daughter. You got your bills to pay, and that new car of yours, so don’t you even think about us. This is your father’s mess. Let him figure out what we’re going to do.”
The hole in my chest widened, cracking my body cavity with dense fissures that spread like disease all the way to my toes. “Well, just let me know if I can help,” I said stubbornly. “You’ve taken care of me my entire life, it’s important for me to be able to help you.”
“Molly Nichole, it’s my job to take care of you.”
And there it was, the confusion that always bit at my skin, like little stinging gnats. Was that all I was to her? An obligation? Another job where she had to pick up all of my dad’s slack?
I accidentally bent the neck of my crane napkin. I tried to fix it, but the napkin wasn’t stiff enough and I only made it worse.
My dad’s heavy footsteps could be heard ambling down the hallway. Without verbally discussing it, Mom and I shut down our job conversation and focused on our individual tasks.
“Patty, have you seen my green t-shirt?” my dad started talking before he’d even reached the kitchen.
“It’s in the laundry room,” my mother answered, still staring at her ham balls. “It’s dirty.”
“Son of a bitch,” my dad grumbled in return. He turned the corner to the kitchen and stopped in his tracks, surprised to see me standing over his table. “Well, now, if it isn’t the most beautiful girl in North Carolina.”
I looked up from my task and grinned at this man I wanted so desperately to be the hero instead of the villain in my life story. He was thin and gangly, but for his round belly stretched by his six-foot three-inch frame, made it an awkward effort for him to stay standing. He leaned against the doorframe and smiled back.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Hey, kitten. Missed you.”
I left the table to wrap my arms around his middle. “I missed you, too.”
He kissed the top of my head and said the same thing he always said to me. “You know, I didn’t think this growing up thing all the way through. I didn’t think you’d move away and stay away. You were supposed to come back, Molly Monster.”
I sniffled against him, feeling frustrated tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I would not let them fall, but the pain in my chest had become a crushing, shaking, life-smashing pain and it was all I could do to hold myself together for him.
He smelled like cheap beer, Old Spice, and my dad. I squished my eyes closed and imprisoned every rogue tear.
“I’m here now,” I told him. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
He kissed my head again, not calling me on the lie. He knew I would miss this if I could. That I had missed plenty of invitations for supper with my parents. He knew I would rather be a hundred different places because so would he.
“It’s ready,” my mom declared.
Dad and I moved apart. He ambled over to his seat while I pulled water glasses down and filled them. My mom and I added ham balls—which sounded gross, but were, in fact, amazing—rice pilaf and lettuce salad to the table. Once we were all seated, we began passing the food around.
“Well, Molly Monster, let’s hear it. Tell us all about your life,” my dad demanded with his rich, warm voice. “Who are the boys that are chasing after you?”
Just like that I was transported to my twelve-year-old body that had no idea what to do with boobs or how to get my knees to stop being so knobby. “There aren’t any boys,” I answered honestly. “I’ve decided to focus on cats instead.”
I always assumed my mom was uninterested in this conversation or at the very least rebelliously uncooperative. But tonight, she surprised me by asking, “I thought you had a date with someone last week?”
“No, not in months.
I’ve given up going on dates forever and ever amen for now. I always end
up with refreshed disappointment with the human race as a whole,” I corrected.
“I hung out with Wyatt and Vann last week. Is that what you’re thinking of?”
“Now what’s wrong with Vann?” Dad asked. This wasn’t the first time or the hundredth time he’d tried to convince me to go after Vann. Since I was a kid, dad had constantly been pushing me toward him. “He’s a nice boy. And he won’t disappoint you like the rest of them poor bastards.”
I smiled patiently at my dad. “Vann and I are never going to happen, daddy. We’re friends. Nothing more.”
My mother’s left eyebrow rose. “What about the other one?”
“Wyatt? He’s a friend too.”
“All these friends,” my mother tsked. “You say they’re good guys, but you’re never interested in them. Maybe you’re too picky for your own good, Molly Nichole.”
I was definitely that. “Is it so bad to be picky?”
“Of course not,” my dad assured me.
My mom’s voice hardened and she threw surreptitious glares at my dad from across the table. “Of course, be picky. You’re not in a hurry. Just make sure they do what they’re saying to do. Don’t just listen to the words they say or believe them at their word. Most of the time those mean nothing. Find a hard worker, Molly. Find someone that’s going to work hard all his life.”
“Patty,” my dad growled, picking up on the dig. “Is that really necessary?”
My mom’s unrelenting stare jerked to him. “I just want her to be careful, Tom. Decisions have consequences. Or have you forgotten?”
My dad’s teeth clicked together and he gritted out, “Oh, I’m perfectly versed in consequences. My entire life is built on a house of consequences.”
“So maybe you should stop encouraging her to go out on these dates. We don’t want her to marry the first guy that asks and get stuck with someone that can’t carry their share of the burden.”
“I got a new project!” I announced as cheerfully as any human was capable of. “There might be a promotion of sorts at the end of it!” And by promotion, I loosely hoped people would start noticing me.
So like a social promotion.
“That’s nice, kitten,” my dad mumbled.
“You already told me about it,” my mom muttered.
I pushed my ham ball around, my appetite disintegrating. “Well, it’s a big deal.”
“Is this about work, Patty?” my dad demanded. He jabbed his fork down in a ham ball so it stood up straight on his plate. “You’re still pissed off that I got canned? If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, the company couldn’t support four salesmen! There’s only room for two or three and the jobs go to the guys that have been there the longest.”
My mother leaned forward, a dark storm cloud brewing over her head. “It’s not about this job, Tom. It’s not about this one! It’s about all of them!”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” My dad shoved back from the table, his plate rocking precariously in protest. “I am so sick of your holier than thou attitude about this, Patty.”
“You’re sick of me?” my mom railed. “Of me?!”
And on and on it went. I felt sick to my stomach, but I forced myself to eat, knowing it would be worse if I didn’t. I tuned out the familiar fight and focused on counting my bites of food, and sipping my water as slowly as possible. I drew little pictures in the sweet sauce that went over the ham balls with the tip of my fork. I didn’t engage. And I didn’t speak. I simply listened and endured and waited for the moment I could slip away unnoticed.
Eventually my mom stood up from the table and started clearing the dishes, and my dad stomped back to the bedroom with a few more beers in hand. Mom would spend the rest of the night regretting every minute of her life up until now while she furiously cleaned the kitchen. And dad would drink until he passed out in a blissful heap of unconsciousness. They would go to bed, not really recognizing their dysfunction. Or at least not caring enough to do anything about it. And then tomorrow it would start all over again.
I was the one that would carry this with me when I left, that would wrestle with it all night and tomorrow, and on and on, forever. I would tuck it into the imaginary backpack I’d carried since I was a child and add it to all the other memories like this one that have never left me.
Tomorrow, I would go to work and I would bust my ass to do the very best I could at every single element of my job. I would make a conscious effort not to end up like my dad who didn’t value a steady job or a bright future. And I would vow to never to turn into my mother who never let my dad hear the end of it, who didn’t care about whatever ailment he had that wouldn’t let him work or kept him from being successful. I would swear to myself that I would never be a nag or cruel for the purpose of being cruel.
I would love my parents always, but I would never let myself become them.
As for tonight? I would paint.
I all but crawled back to my apartment after I left my parents. I thought about a bottle of wine, but then I remembered my dad carrying half a six pack back to his room and couldn’t stomach the idea of drowning my own sorrows in alcohol too.
So instead, I settled for my favorite playlist, a Diet Coke, and my paints. Despite work in the morning and an irresponsible agreement to meet Vera at the gym even earlier than that, I didn’t leave my canvas until after eleven.
And when I had finally finished purging my emotions and frustrations, and expelling everything I didn’t say or think or want anyone to know, I stumbled back from my easel and sucked in a steadying breath.
For once, it wasn’t a version of Ezra staring back at me. I hadn’t focused on minute details of eyes or lashes or lips. I hadn’t bothered to make anything lifelike, eye-catching, or pretty.
Instead, it was all slashes of bright paint. Red, blue, and yellow. Splotches of orange, green, and black.
And then just black, and black, and black.
And red on top of that.
And so much color in places it hurt my eyes and then so much more color everything turned black and I wanted to weep.
I left my brushes without washing them and my palette without cleaning it. I turned my back on the room, not having the energy to deal with it tonight.
The mess would wait for me until morning, just like this room and all of the paintings that remained in it.
I leaned against the doorframe for a long minute, examining the room with tired, frustrated eyes. Part of me wanted to walk away from painting forever. For a hobby, it was a painful one. It demanded too much of my soul, forced me to admit too much of myself. And then it put all of those pieces and parts of me I tried so desperately to keep hidden on display for everyone to see.
On the other hand, yes it was a hobby, but it also felt like so much more. It felt deeper and more stable than anything else in my life. But most of all, it felt like the lifeline back to sanity I needed so desperately.
When I finally fell asleep it was with tears in my eyes, but if you would have asked me why I was crying, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.
Maybe it was for my parents that couldn’t even be decent to each other.
Maybe it was for myself and my perpetual state of singlehood, the inability to find a decent guy, and the very real prospect that I was going to be alone for the rest of my life.
Or maybe it was for the art that meant so much to me, the creative outlet I relied so heavily upon to heal the broken pieces of my spirit.
Maybe it was because I knew I didn’t have the ability to fix any of the things that haunted me. I couldn’t mend my parents’ marriage or make them respect each other. I couldn’t make Mr. Right suddenly show up in my life and sweep me off my feet. I couldn’t make Mr. Tucker give me lead on a good account. I couldn’t make my coworkers respect me and take my ideas seriously.
From where I sat everything felt impossible. Everything except painting.