Just Check the Box

True/False: You were a wanted child.

True. You thought my father was leaving you, you got pregnant in your mid-forties, even though you had cancer. You wanted a weapon. True.

True/False: Your father was sick. He needed me. You didn't.

True. Diabetes took a great musician out of his game. The five-year-old with polio, well, she had an aunt.

True/False: You'll never be loved - you aren't lovable.

Unknown. With the one man where it counted, I was young enough to believe you. So call that one true.

Well, what do you know? You never lied to me, after all.

God, all of those are awesome. Karl brings the pain again, just before the deadline.

I think I'm going to have to do fiction again, as my parents never really *lied* to me....

It wasn’t so much that my father lied, although it didn’t take him long to start making big, divorced dad promises about vacations we’d never go on, and visits he’d never make.At least one time, though, I faulted how he told the truth.I was about thirteen and we were driving to have a picnic in the mountains. Somehow we got started talking about marriage proposals and I asked “How’d you ask Mom, Dad?”(My timing has never been much good at all, but enough time had passed that I hoped he wouldn’t sob.)

”I told her a relationship gets to a point where you either have to get married, or break up.” He said, reasonable as always. My dad is often so unflappable, it’s annoying, but at the time it was a relief from being squeezed too tightly by the guy who looked and sounded like our dad, but welled up all the time and told us how much he missed us seven times a weekend and wanted to know just *how well* my mom was getting on.

“And?” There had to be an and. Maybe he was embarrassed by the mushy bits? He was never much good at the mushy bits. Even with me, he pulled back from my new chest like it was radioactive. But the beginning short-story writer felt that that story wasn’t quite good enough to explain fourteen years of marriage and two children, especially with how often my brother and I fought. I would feel very disappointed if somebody asked me to marry him like that, although I was beginning to get that in real life things weren’t often a big deal like on TV where a prospective groom hides a ring in a dessert and forgets which one. My dad wasn’t a one for wacky hi-jinks, but there was a lot he didn’t say. Like “love”.
My dad’s laughter was fond and indulgent. Years later, I would dread that like few sounds on earth. “What do you mean...’and’?”

“You know...” I blushed and squirmed. Somehow, in that context, I was too embarrassed to say “love,” or “can’t live without you,” to my father, who promptly changed the subject while my brain was still saying “Lame!”

Lies my parents told me

We've worked on this. I hold out my hand and say, "please," and he puts the toy in it. I say "Thank you!" and he reaches for it anxiously. "What do you say?" "P'ease!" And promptly, I hand him the toy and wait, eyebrows raised. "'ankoo!" he grins, pleased at learning how the world works. I hope the words, the manners, ease his way, social lubrication.

But what do I say when he learns the magic words don't always work? That hard work doesn't earn a just reward, that one has to be content with self-respect for living with character?

Oooh, Bev, that's a nice one from a different perspective. Nice way to turn it around.

We didn't teach the Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus. StE asked me about SC, when he was in preschool, and I explained that some people believed he was the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of love, and giving to others. He thought a minute and said, "But we don't believe in him?" And I said that was correct. "Would it be okay if I believed in him?" Sure, if you want to. So he did, for a few years, in the way he believed in Superman, or Luke Skywalker.

It was the best I could do, not to lie.

Lies my parents told me

You are an innocent child: book-wise, people-stupid. Mom's just Mom, and don't other kids' mothers get weird in the afternoon, while cooking dinner? She's had a long day, after all, and Dad's traveling again. So the blurred speech is, well, normal. Isn't it?

Don't other mothers hide a glass behind the microwave, tuck a mug into the bookshelf near her chair, leave an inch in the bottle of cheap burgundy in the cabinet under the sink?

You are in college when you finally admit it. You're thirty when she finally gets treatment. She's been drinking for your entire life. She never admits she's an alcoholic: she's anxious and depressed, worried and confused. It's stress, and depression, loneliness and fear.

Alcoholics are bums on the street, smelly homeless men with bad teeth and dirty clothes. Not clean middle-class Irish Catholic women with five successful children and a hyperactive golden retriever. You know that she'll go to her grave denying it.

You have to be the best, they say. So you are. Your talent lies not just in excelling, but knowing where you'll excel. If you cannot report objective brilliance, you discard, coldly and without a second glance. You pile accolade on accolade, and they ask you to do better.

So you do. It's just focus and digging in when the time comes. You can, so you do.

You're in your twenties before you discover the ability to just love, to do for the doing and not for the dominating. But will you ever get over the fear of being average?

Temptation and Desertion (100 words)

Two lies: one I forgave you for without realising it, the other I probably never will.

I'm nearly as old as you were when she couldn't choose between you and her first boyfriend to be her "first time." I've stammered at propositions from a just-nubile con-goer and heard her delighted giggle; I know the power of the dark side. True, my son wasn't dating her, so I couldn't lie to him about it.

But leaving my mother loveless at forty? After twenty years? "Till death do us part" isn't a promise you walk away from, you son of a bitch.

Karl, we'll have to discuss that. What happens if the other person left you first? Are you bound?

Because as the third leg - the one who loved, without any of those legal promised rights that mean so much - I'm prepared to argue it.