Zero Tolerance

My mother used to buy pre-done needlework. She would work the background and then take credit for the entire piece. The walls in the house held a number of paint by numbers pictures, all of which she claimed to have done herself. She began drinking in the mornings before we left for school - sherry, in a faded coffee cup - graduated to beer by lunch - and icebox manhattens in the afternoons. Regular as clockwork.

Supper was at six and you were never late because late didn't fit into her schedule. Conversation was limited and most nights it was just a prelude to whatever explosion had been scheduled for after supper. She would pick at her food, planning her moment and ever so gradually let the tension build. Dad would be resigned, knowing that he could escape back to work if it got too bad. I would pray silently that he'd take me with him.

The fight would go on well into the night, some version of no one loved her, she was too unhappy, he was a failure and how she wished she'd never married him or had kids. He rarely responded to any of it and eventually she would wear herself out.
They went to their separate corners and after she was asleep, he would come to my room and tell me not to worry, she was not well, she had a difficult life, he'd been a disappointment to her, she was unhappy. It was almost like a lullabye.

There might be a day or two or relative peace before it began again, there might not. Some nights he would pack us all up and take us back to work with him. Some nights he would take us to my grandmother's. Some nights, we just went driving in whatever direction suited him , staying out until he thought it was safe to go home.

He did his best, did what he thought was right at the time. He used the tools he had - self sacrifice, secrecy, and denial. He made exuses for her, blamed himself. If there was a road to least resistance, he always found it. And I thought he was a hero,
could not imagine that he would ever turn on me. We had made an alliance against her and it held for years. When I said I could not, would not see her again, he was hurt and he asked me to reconsider. I said no.

When her cancer was diagnosed it was far too late for any hope of treatment or recovery. Dad called to tell me and although I heard the words, heard the pain in his voice and wanted to feel something, I didn't. He said she wanted to see me, wanted to reconcile. I said no. And very slowly, very reluctantly, he said that if I refused to see her, then he would refuse to see me, that the only thing that mattered now was that she was dying, that she had to have whatever she wanted and what she wanted was to see her daughter. I said no and that was the last conversation we ever had. A few weeks later, he had a friend call to let me know she had died. I was set free.

He remarried not too long after my mother's death and I was glad. I hope that he was set free as well.