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Show of returning. He left a bitter woman and a great deal of debt at a time when divorce just didn't happen. By the time my mother returned to the US, the drinking that had previously marked the social hour had become the only thing that kept her mother moving, nursing injustices decades old. One night, after perhaps several too many martinis, my mother confronted my father about his drinking and partying. I can only imagine how it unfolded. You 're drunk, my mother says, the babysitter having been ferried home, the lights still on in the kitchen. It has to stop. I'm fine, he responds, flicking his ear as if brushing away a fly while trying to loosen the Windsor knot. No, you 're not. You can't stop weaving to get your tie off. He stops trying and instead looks for a place to rest his arms. / didn 't marry a drinker, she says. / only drink because I have to. That, she says sitting down in a kitchen chair, her petite body hardly making it creak, is the problem. I'm done, she continues. Good, let's go to bed, he says, moving toward the bedroom, removing his belt and feeling the buckle graze the wall. No, done with all this, she says and points to the tiny kitchen, the table where she has spent hours waiting for him, wondering about the long hours, tired of the waiting. And then she gives him the ultimatum that has become legend in our family. 39 |
