I wrote this last year; it's all true, but the names have been changed...
Thursday
He tells our two daughters that he wants to be ‘fair’. He’s still ‘fond’ of me and hopes that we will be friends in the future once the divorce is over. He’s squeaky clean. Just like the perfect Dad on ‘My Three Sons’. Nice, moral, honest, loving.
“I know it’s been a difficult time for us all…” he spouts. They’ve heard it all before. He takes them out to a restaurant and gives them the presents he brought for them. But they won’t be bought off any more. They know he’s been whoring around Asia. The T-shirt he gives Lisa has a long strand of someone else’s black hair on it. She points it out and he laughs, “I’m single now.” He doesn’t acknowledge the look on her face.
Friday
Jessica tells him on the phone that she no longer wants to have anything to do with him. It felt good she said. It’s been coming for a long time. He had told her that her moral standards were too high. She feels guilty that he might be crushed now that she’s cut her ties with him. He sends her an email to say how much he loves her and that he is hurt that they are not on good terms. Oh, and could she drive him to the airport on Monday night?
He was ecstatic when Lisa was born. He took a week off from work to celebrate being a new Dad and to help out when we came home from the hospital. He had the perfect little family. Only her infant cries would wake him up in the night. He said that his mother had told him that babies would get spoiled if their mothers went to them too often and I should just let her cry. That way, he said, she would learn not to cry. I always went to her.
His father was a strong man who was boastful of his rough hands that he had gained from years working in the forest felling trees. He would leave before dawn with a cooked breakfast in his belly and enough packed food to last the day. He said that he only talked about things that he knew about. So he wasn’t particularly interested in what others said. He was the Head of the Household and refused to eat anything unless his wife cooked it. Plain simple food he wanted, not covered in sauces and muck. He wouldn’t eat coleslaw or frozen peas or a stew if it was called a casserole. His wife would cook things just how he liked it and she was perfect.
“I would kill myself if I ever lost her,” he would say. She would run around him and ensure that nobody ever upset him.
“Don’t upset your father, he’s a good provider,” she would warn protectively if there was any threat to his authority.
They lived in the best house on the hill. He said it was. A huge house with a tennis court overlooking the harbour. They could see everything. He built another house on the tennis court so that they would have a better view. And then he built another level to get an even better view. Perfect.
My husband was the second of their four children. His mother said he was a happy little boy. The children were not allowed to hang pictures on their bedroom walls because the wallpaper would get damaged. She would wash their mouths out with soap and water if they ever said a naughty word. They were always clean and neat. Her daily wash would be pegged out early in the morning long before the neighbours hung theirs out.
“She won’t have her washing put away by lunchtime,” she would casually remark.
His mother was a small, chatty woman, always frantically busy dusting, cooking, knitting, cleaning. His father’s cigarette smoke had permanently damaged her lungs so she took medication to help her to breath.
“I always want to be doing something,” she would pant, trying to catch her breath. She would sweep the kitchen floor and hide the dirt under the kitchen mat until it could be sucked up later with her vacuum cleaner. Her pantry shelves were lined with preserves and the cake tins always filled. A cup of tea after every meal, one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one for supper. A cup of tea was always perfect. It meant she could sit down for a minute.
She kept a diary so she could remember. She knows how much she spent on Christmas presents in 1982. She remembers that a case of peaches cost $10 in 1973, which was the year that her sister had her knee operation and she sent her that crocheted rug that had been given to her when the old neighbours had moved into their new house that they had built. Remember? She remembers every birthday. She tucked a handkerchief into the card she sent for my husband’s 40th birthday. Just a little something. Just to show that she cared.
I said a handkerchief is a lousy way to show your son how much he means to you. His face is sad.
“At least she remembered,” he says defensively as he pathetically clutches onto the crumb that she had cast out to him and quickly patches the flaw in her image.
The perfect illusion remains intact. She’s still nice, moral, honest and loving. Untouchable qualities that conveniently mask the imperfections of reality.
Tuesday
He’s gone back to work in Singapore. It’s like a hurricane hits every time he comes back for his break. Wild winds, flooding and then we mop up once he’s gone again. I wonder how long it will be before Lisa has also had enough. Jess says she doesn’t feel guilty anymore. She remembered how he went white in the face with rage when he found out that she had spent the night at her boyfriend’s parent’s house. Hypocrite.
