fireworks
dad said he had to talk to me. he was crying. his nose was red. he put his clumsy hand on my shoulder and said he wanted to read me a letter. a love letter from Molly. ‘i love her. i love her. my God i love her…Jesus Christ!’ i hated her. he put his arms around me and squeezed me really hard, and he kept on. sobbing. i didn’t tell him that i hated her, but his whole confession intruded heavily on my feelings for my mom. i was only fourteen. weeks later Syd Page informed on him. it ruined their friendship. and when Cinny Kaiser was visiting us she and ma walked off down the lawn, arm-in-arm. ma was crying. dad gave Molly up. or she gave him up. i can’t remember. and there were others. college girls who ‘understood’. it was a typical upbringing. a 50’s family in a big house. lower upper middle class. private schools. summers at Prout’s Neck. constant cocktails. but we were being exposed to some bizarre emotional fireworks. theirs was such a crazy chemistry, mum and dad. we had to believe they loved each other somehow. in some unseen way. she hit him once, with her fist, in a sleeper car on a train to Montreal. he fell down. we cheered for her because he had it coming. he had insulted her. but we hurt for him because he was down, because she was wearing the pants. all of this blew back later for us kids in ways visible and not. love lives of part-time uncertainty, self-doubt and fear of loss.
This is an excerpt from my book, The Paragraphs — Cutlass Press
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