Truancy

When my grandmother Ruby died, my daddy packed a small suitcase and boarded a plane. My mother howled in frustration about being left alone for even the few days he would be gone but he was adamant and ignored her protests and tears. She sulked for the first day or two and then retreated into an alcoholic haze, refusing to leave her bed except to refill her glass. We steered well clear of her, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for meals and somewhat joyously skipping the nightly rituals of baths and early bedtimes. We told no one and it didn't occur to us that three children can't suddenly not attend school without someone noticing.

My grandmother Alice arrived in a fury, raging through the house like a mine sweeper. Truancy! she snapped at us, The very idea! We were unceremoniously packed up and dispatched to her house while she confronted our bewildered and dazed mother with a voice that would've frozen hell. Get out of my house! my mother shrieked and there was the sound of breaking glass before the sound of a slap. With pleasure! Nana snarled back, You can explain it to the police! This unexpected threat caught my mother's attention as indeed there were two uniformed officers at the door and my grandmother was too outraged to worry about neighbors or appearances. She hustled us out without a backward glance.

Overall, it was pretty much a small crisis. My daddy returned and smoothed things over with the school, an easy task considering the effort it took to smooth things over between the two women, and for a time, things drifted back to what we thought of as normal. He didn't speak of his mother's death or his time away but there was a little more sadness to him, a trace more weariness in his eyes. A quiet man to begin with, he withdrew a little further into his own thoughts and was often distracted. It was a time of silent mourning, I thought later, since there was no one to share the burden with. My mother, impatient, jealous and angry about the lack of his attention became more sullen and sharp tongued, but it washed over him harmlessly - he wouldn't be provoked except once when he mildly responded that she was behaving like a frantic fishwife. In a rage, she pitched her martini glass at him before breaking down into tears and running through a long list of his sins. When he still refused to engage her, she thundered out, slamming the storm door so hard that the glass cracked.

Addictive households tend to be isolated and secretive and it was a very long time before I realized that our way of life was a little out of the ordinary - I assumed that all parents fought violently, that all siblings were strangers and didn't get along, that icy silences, cold words, and contempt were the basics of family interaction.

Like so much in life, normal is a mostly a matter of your point of view.