Family - The Ties That Bind...And Gag! (18 page)

I had children who were eaters. They ate everything: chairs, turtles, blankets, hymnals, shoes, and anything else that didn't fight back. I never slept behind a door that wasn't locked.

I watched my son play tennis at a nice club one day wearing his pajama top and cutoff jeans with boxer shorts hanging out of the legs. I was horrified he signed up for the court under his right name.

“He always seemed to stand around like he had a lip full of Novocain,” said my husband. “Did he ever talk to you?”

“One day when I was baking a cake, I broke an egg and it slid down the side of the bowl and the entire length of the cupboard and onto the floor. He said, 'Way to go, Mom.' ”

“That was it?”

“No, there was the brief period when he first went away to school. Remember, he used to call us about every fifteen minutes?”

“I remember. That's when it cost $2.40 for the first three minutes. What did he talk about?”

“We paid $3.10 to hear him inquire if we had any mail for him from Reader's Digest Sweepstakes ... $4.70 to find out if it was raining where we are ... $6.34 to inquire if the dog missed him ... and $3.04 to find out how often you can take a twelve-hour cold capsule.”

“God knows I tried,” said his father. “One day I picked him up at school and when he got out, I noticed a picture on the floor of the back seat done in crayon. I had it framed and I took him to my office and there among the degrees, honors, and plaques for membership was his simple little picture, remember? And I said, 'What do you think of that?' He said, 'It's nice, but why would you want Freddie Cohen's picture of his family hanging in your office?' ”

There was no doubt about it... this one, racing to catch an airplane that was at the end of the runway when he left home, defied all books on child-raising ... all the timetables for development ,.. all the cliches that worked for mothers from the beginning of time.

I remember when he was late for dinner one night and I said, “What's the matter? Get hit by a truck?” A truck had run a red light and it nipped the back of his bicycle and threw him for a few bruises.

And there was my Mother's Day speech of 1978. It was one of the most eloquent speeches of sacrifice and dedication ever delivered to a group of ungrateful bums who appeared presentless. As I was getting to the good stuff about how the doctor had always said I was too short for pregnancy and would never wear pleated skirts again, and how all they ever thought about was themselves, the doorbell rang and a large bouquet of flowers was delivered with Mother's Day greetings from the three of them.

You'd have thought that I would have learned my lesson, but he was off one year in another country working when I wrote him a searing letter ending with, “Why haven't you written? Is your arm broken?”

He wrote back it was just his wrist. I should have known better.

ALONE AT LAST

Sunday: 9:35 a.m.

“Move your feet,” I said to my husband as I shoved a broom under them.

He put down his coffee cup and continued reading the paper at the breakfast room table. “Good Lord,” he said, “remember the restaurant we went to with Dick and Bernice? You know, the one with Brick, Wendy, Stud, and Frank?” I nodded. "Well, it seems they've been cited for violations of sanitation procedures. Listen to this:

“ 'Food not covered in refrigerator, improper dishwashing practices, carbon buildup on pans, corroded vent fan, raw garbage in garbage cans in kitchen, no soap or towels at sink, evidence of rodents on premises.' ”

I looked at him tiredly. “Add rancid butter dish by phone and a hair dryer on the countertop and you've just described this breakfast room.”

“It's not that bad,” he said.

“This place is a dump! Trust me when I tell you the trash flow is at flood stage. I'm going to make some tracks in it today.”

“Tell me you're not going to play musical furniture again.”

“I am not going to play musical furniture. I just bought a few new pillows to brighten the place up.”

“Thank God.”

“I just want the sofa bed brought out of the den because it matches the pillows, so the living room sofa will be returned to the media room and the two chairs to the bedroom suite. The picture grouping over the sofa goes into the hallway so the bookcases will have to go on the opposite wall which will, of course, necessitate moving the TV set and the antenna. And I want to make some changes in the personal fitness room.”

“Why don't we just have it condemned and boarded up?”

“The spa isn't working out in there.”

You mean the scale and the exercise bicycle. Where are you going to put it now?"

I honestly didn't know. The exercise bicycle, which seemed like such a good idea at the time, had been everywhere from the media room where I could watch TV and pedal my way to Linda Evans to the breakfast room where it clashed with the dishes.

For awhile I had it in the closet in our bedroom suite, but it was such a hassle lugging it out from behind the skis and the card table, I put it in the bathroom.

“We could put it in the sun room,” I said hopefully. “The sun room is only a sun room when the sun is shining. Right now, it's still the porch and it has no heat. That would eliminate your using the bicycle in the winter months.”

“I want to cry,” I said holding his gaze. “Now, where would you like your chair?” “I like it where it is.”

“It can't stay. It won't match the sofa bed and the new pillows.”

I knew I was skating on thin ice. This chair was his throne. All decrees came from it. “Keep those kids quiet.” “Get me a cold one while you're up.” “Did you lock the doors?” “Tell them I'll call them back.”

I learned the importance of a man's chair early in life. I learned that he may love several wives, embrace several cars, be true to more than one political philosophy, and be equally committed to several careers, but he will have only one comfortable chair in his life.

I learned it will be an ugly chair.

It will match nothing in the entire house.

It will never wear out.

I had tried them all. The canvas butterfly chair in shocking pink that he used to sink into and whimper, “I'm ready to get out of the chair now. Can someone come and get me?”

There was the antique chair Grandma left me where he had no place to put his tackle box and flies when he sorted them. The wooden rocker, the beanbags, contours, ottomans, headrests, loose cushions, plastic, bucket seat, tufted arms, Queen Anne, early attic, Victorian ... all became history.

This chair was a bilious green recliner that elevated his feet and flattened out his shoulders. If it had a Water Pik on it, it would have looked like a dental chair.

From September through January during the football season, it was his home. I used to worry about him. It couldn't be good for him sitting there day in and day out nearly comatose watching plays, instant replays, stop action, pregame and postgame interviews, and wrap-ups.

I read where a bartender who watched three games nonstop on New Year's Day developed sharp chest pains and shortness of breath afterwards. He was diagnosed as too much inactivity.

When you think about it, it made a lot of sense. Most men just aren't in shape to relax that much ... especially after a long summer of watching a few tennis matches and an occasional golf tournament. I always thought there should be a few aerobic exercises for football couch potatoes.

Like the warm-up: Stand in the middle of the floor, turn your neck to the right, all the way to where the screens need to be replaced by storm windows before October. Now pivot your neck to the left far enough to see the burned-out porch light and the trees that need fertilizing.

Next, try to touch the door, which needs sanding, with your fingers. And finally, stretch and reach, extending your waist all the way over to where the pipes are leaking under the sink.

Now, for the arms, grab a stack of papers from the top of the basement stairs and, balancing them, make small circles as you head toward the garage. Make it burn. While you're in the garage, work the shoulder muscles by heaving some of that insulation that has been sitting around for three years in the attic.

Ready for aerobics? Start slowly, running in place, then run past the bathroom where the toilet needs to be reseated, the bedroom that needs painting, and through the front door where the bell no longer works. Eight minutes should increase your heart rate.

For the cool-down, sit on the floor with legs outstretched and bend over one knee. You should be at eye level with your wife who is painting the baseboards. Next, lie on your back and tighten every muscle in your body:

the buttocks, the pelvis, the arms, and the legs. Now, relax. Clear your mind of the dog that wants to be let out, the phone ringing off the hook, and the timer on the oven.

“You are not getting rid of my chair,” he said emphatically.

“Okay, but it will have to go in the guest room. And you'll have to wear something beige with it.”

“Why are you acting like a crazy person today?” he asked. “It's Sunday, so just sit down and enjoy the peacefulness while you have it.”

He didn't understand.

In the last three days, I had met my past. My life before deadlines, travels, and career. Before I became a fulfilled woman of the eighties, before my worth was measured by a credit line and a gold card ... before I got my black belt in goal-setting.

The clock said it was 12 and blinking. In my other life, it would have given the correct time of the morning and I would have three kids who smelled of spray starch, and vitamins off to school with lunch boxes and thermoses of soup they wouldn't bother to open.

I would promise myself that I would knit until 10 and then absolutely get dressed and bring the house up to minimal standards.

Then I would remove spots, add water, scrub toilets, write letters, kill roaches, polish shoes, clean ears, plant trees, mend wading pools, and blow up balloons.

I would hustle food, keep laundry moving, do volunteer work, decorate the house, keep staples in supply, counsel, discipline, mediate arguments, hand down decisions, and listen. I would listen a lot.

I would call my mother “just to talk,” check in with my best friend to see if she too had lost control of her body, and visit with the neighbors and complain about the trash pickup.

Later, I would fry chicken, bake biscuits, and whip up something fattening for dinner.

I bedded the kids down between clean sheets and reveled in a day without a call from school or a call to the doctor. It was my turf.

I could hardly wait to leave the “crud detail” as I called it. I wanted to go to a place where you were important and people listened to what you had to say. Mothering hadn't done that ... and yet ... wouldn't it be ironic if my turf yielded the most important commodity being grown today? A family? A crop of children, seeded by two people, nourished by love, watered by tears, and in eighteen or twenty years harvested into worthwhile human beings to go through the process again. What if nothing else I would do would equal it in importance? Wouldn't you have thought someone would have told me?

I looked at my husband reading his paper, oblivious that our past, present, and future were at this moment spending away from our lives at a frightening pace. They wcre our reason for being and now they were gone. 1 couldn't expect him to feel as strongly as I. Fathers were different than Mothers.

“Look,” I said, “just sit there and read your paper and I'll go upstairs and move a few things around in the guest room. I'll call you when I'm ready for the chair.”

I know she will. God, it's quiet.

She thinks the Empty Nest is a feminine condition ... a bored, depressed, neurotic woman peeking through starched lace curtains, holding a plate of freshly baked brownies, and eagerly awaiting the arrival of her son's laundry.

She never sees a father, ridden with guilt and regrets for all the times he was “busy” and, when they finally came home, argues about that stupid car!

I told myself it was going to be different this time. God was giving me a second chance. I was going to be there for them. How could I? They kept hours like hamsters. When I was asleep, they were up. When they were awake, they were on the phone. I spent thirty minutes talking to a son behind a closed door about how he felt about life, only to have him yell out, “I'm for it.”

I envy these new fathers of the eighties. They're allowed to cry, to sweat, and to fail. Not me. I was raised to have a garage full of tools that I hated, talk car mileage, and bear the burden of being the sole breadwinner. I was the threat —the one they waited until he got home to get what they deserved for whatever they did that I never even saw.

I want to believe that when my son moves home, I can be the father I would have been if I hadn't been out working to keep it all together. But who am I kidding?

He will be old enough to receive mail, but too immature to toss it in the wastebasket when he doesn't want it. He'll be tall enough to reach the milk on the top shelf of the refrigerator, but too short to put it back.

The child in him will eat and walk away from the table. The adult in him will come in after 3 in the morning. The child in him will leave wet towels on the bed. The adult will say he has to grab a flight to California to “catch the rays.”

No wonder we're confused over our roles. When adults wash their socks, drop off their cleaning, lend them shampoo and money, they figure it gives them rights. It gives them the right to tell them how to lead their life and pick their friends, how to dress, and what kind of a car to buy.

Rules. There will have to be rules. And once again I'll be cast into the role of the conservative, dime-squeezing, lackluster who wouldn't know how to have a good time if it was under warranty.

Good grief! Where is that woman going with my chair, and tell me how is it possible that she cannot open up her own car door but can balance a chair on her head three times her own body weight!

THE DREAM

Sunday: 10:30 p.m.

I sunk into the sofa cushions in the living room no one ever sat in.

Part of my childhood dream was here among the books that were dusted, but never read ... rugs that were vacuumed, but never walked on ... flower arrangements that never died and never lived ... draperies that were pulled to insure privacy for no one.