1997, Norwell, Massachusetts

By Gabrielle Joyce

I was 15 the night my father left. It was Halloween, and I was standing patiently at the front door, waiting for the trick-or-treaters, with their plastic pumpkins and ghost flashlights, to bravely venture down our long dirt road.

“I’m leaving Suzy,” my father said in almost a whisper.

My father kissed my forehead and walked out the front door, being careful not to let the wooden screen door slam as he hurried down the steps. He was wearing his good jeans and a black leather jacket, and he was carrying a small green backpack.

I watched him as he started the Harley (a gift he bought for himself when he made tenure) and slipped the helmet over his head, his long thin ponytail hanging just below his shoulders.

My mother was standing in her pink nightgown, crushing peppermints with a rolling pin and mixing the small pieces into vanilla ice cream and hot fudge. She stopped and turned quickly, just in time to see the screen door close. She called after him, and when she heard the rumble of the Harley, she ran through the kitchen, out the door, down the steps and out to the driveway, running until she ran out of breath.

“Come back, Edward!” she screamed. My father did not look back. The single headlight bounced up and down over the bumpy road until my father was out of sight.

That night, my mother’s sobs lulled me to sleep.

My mother was fat - not just a few pounds overweight, but fat. She had gained 90 pounds since her hysterectomy three years prior and had blamed her weight gain on a glandular condition coupled with the loss of her metabolism. My father hated my mother being fat; in fact, he despised her for it.

“You do it deliberately. You stuff your face just to piss me off,” he would say. “How can you let yourself go like this?”

My father’s insults were accompanied by my mother’s laughter. She stuffed whatever was handy on the counter into her wide mouth any time he made that comment.

“He’ll be back, Suzy,” my mother said through swollen eyes the next morning, having coffee with her three sisters, who were often called in for family crises.

But my father did not return that night or the next night, and it was just about a week later when my mother heard that he taken up with one of his students, a 21-year-old named Jenny.

“It’s so humiliating what he did to you,” my aunt Linda said. “Has he lost his mind, leaving you for a 21-year-old?”

“All men like a fresh piece of ass,” said my aunt Jean, a lesbian who came from Northampton with her partner Joan to comfort my mother.

“But I love him,” my mother said, her large chest rising and falling in between sobs. “I know he’ll come back.”

But Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter passed, and my father did not come back. That summer, he bought a sailboat with the money his mother left him.

“Your college money,” my mother said.

He moored his 26-foot sailboat in the next town, where he would live with Jenny and sail to the cape and islands during the summer months, often being gone for weeks at a time.

But my mother held on to hope after running into a friend of my father’s at the local market who said Jenny was accepting a graduate assistantship at a large university out of state.

“It’s just a midlife crisis,” he said. “The temptation is there every day, staring you in the face - those young girls with clear complexions and perky breasts.”

My mother clung to those words and began a new program of walking, swimming and Atkins. She wanted to prove to my father that she could look good again - the way he liked her, the way she was when they first met.

My father began coming around in the fall to help with the roof repair of the old farm house. My mother began making him sandwiches while he worked, and she asked him to stay for dinner.

His acceptance of food was a hopeful sign for my mother. He complimented her on her weight loss. They often sat on the front porch, looking at the sunset, my father drinking Jack Daniel’s, my mother Diet Coke. They went for walks along the road, my mother pointing out the perennials she had planted, a new hobby for her.

During this time, my mother’s vigil to remain hopeful that my father would return continued. One night, with 30 pounds behind her and a new dress three sizes smaller than the last one she bought, my mother asked my father for dinner.

“It’s a special occasion; Suzy and I want you to be here,” she said.

My mother laid out her white linen tablecloth, lit candles, made her famous chicken marsala, and served sangria on the porch. She wore a new dress and had her hair professionally colored, adding blonde highlights. She applied soft makeup to her round face and pink lipstick. For the first time in a long time, my mother looked beautiful.

My father arrived with a bottle of my mother’s favorite chardonnay, and together, they sat on the porch laughing as I set the dining-room table. My father laughed at my mother’s jokes, and my mother listened to Dad’s plans for the house. They seemed comfortable with each other, and any anger either had secretly harbored seemed to disappear when they were together.

“There’s something I want to discuss with you,” my father said.

“Oh Edward,” my mother said happily. “Don’t you think it’s about time you came home?”

I stopped placing the silver next to the plates and listened.

My father cleared his throat, and his voice cracked as he spoke. “Jenny’s pregnant.”

The porch was silent.

“Get out,” my mother said softly. “Get out of my house.”

My father left for good this time, letting the screen door slam and driving quickly down the dirt road in his new Land Rover, the one he bought for Jenny and the baby.

Gabrielle Joyce lives in Massachusetts with her three daughters and two dogs. She has a master’s degree in literature from the University of Massachusetts at Boston. She is using a pseudonym.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 | Email This Post

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