A YOUNG WOMAN is breezing through the kitchen on the way to the refrigerator. Wearing tennis shorts, a T-shirt, her long red hair in a ponytail, she’s bare-foot, 22 years old, and the phone rings. I can do this with this scene—make it third-person—the way we can at any of those moments just before life takes a tilt; that old where were you when thing.
And just like anyone else, I can make two lists: On one side, what I knew before the tilt and, on the other side, what spills into those things I thought were true and changes them forever. At this age, the sum total of what I knew about my mother could be pretty much tallied up on two hands: She had been my best friend, my sailing crew, my tennis partner; she was unhappily married to my father, who I also adored. That my sister hated her was something I had known when Margaret moved out the first chance she got and had never looked back.
I had a lot to learn.
And the phone rings.
A friend of my mother’s simply said, “You should know that,” and then she said a name I knew well, “has just been killed. Call your mother.”
A dutiful young woman, I called my mother at work and had to wait a long time while they found her, got her off the playground at the preschool where she taught, and nowhere in that time did I think about what I was doing, or that it was anything more than what it appeared: that this young man, brother of my oldest friend, middle son of our family’s closest couple-friends, had just been killed. I stood there in my bare feet with not very much on my mind.
My mother came to the phone and I told her the news.
“How long have you known?” was her reply.
“About two minutes,” I said, thinking her question odd.
“No.” She said. “How long have you known.”
“Oh,” I said, as the facts of twenty-two years recombined into a new narrative.
“About thirty seconds,” I said as I hung up and dialed Margaret.
“I think Mommy’s having an affair.”
“How long have you known?” The question of the day.
“How long have you known?” I asked my sister.
“Since I was nine,” said Margaret.
Next week: Margaret’s version of this story.
See a typo, a grammar flub, my (ever-present) overuse of commas? Point it out, and I’ll throw you in the pool for a monthly free book giveaway. Which book? One of mine – your choice – all of which were professionally copy edited, thank goodness.
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Interesting piece. The only thing I see is that you could have italicized the “you” as in “How long have YOU known?” I asked my sister. :)
“this young man, brother of my oldest friend, middle son of our family’s closet couple-friends, had just been killed.”
CLOSET?
Looking forward to reading the “other take” of the story… :)
Hi, Laura. And thanks. Fixed the typo and put you in the running for a free book for February. You’re a sister, sister. Thanks, again.
reading again still brings tears to my eyes – what I do not know about my own father (died age 72 in 1988) and mother (living, age 88)
hmmm. brings to mind my senior year at college during spring break when my mother told me my parents were getting a divorce. I had plans to be away from home most of that week. When she asked me when I would be back, I asked her what his name was. As her face took on a look I had never seen before I said, “I assume you want me to meet him before I go back to school”.
I stood up for her at the wedding. My brother was nowhere to be found.
When I asked the minister if the wedding was still legal if I didn’t sign as a witness he said, “unfortunately”.
There’s something about the method of alternating distance with present time writing that appeals to me here. I have much to learn.
I just finished a scene in my memoir where my mom suspects my father has a girlfriend, and this girlfriend has a little boy. I wonder if my father loves that boy more than me.
Funny how we can see things and not realize what we are seeing until later.
Hello to Robert, Lynne, Scrollwork and Heather.
Many thanks for adding to this discussion. Life is complex and interesting, isn’t it? What I have learned is that much like success in life, success in writing depends on which details you choose to emphasize, and while I no longer concentrate on our mother’s affair, it is a great thing to write about, and then leave behind.
It took me a long time to develop the ability to look at it, write about it and then walk away, but I do include the ability to do so in my list of life successes.
Please come back for more. I’ve posted my sister’s side of the tale now.