How my parents ever got together, I can never figure out.
My mother is tall, my dad isn’t exactly short, but he’s a good two inches shorter than Mama. He has dark curly hair; she has blonde straight hair. He’s a Republican; she’s a Democrat. He’s a teetotaler; she loves wine and overindulges regularly. He sings in the church choir; she only goes to church on Christmas and Easter and that’s a little too often. He can count the number of books he’s read on one hand; she reads constantly, sometimes instead of cleaning or cooking or visiting with friends. He smokes; she hates cigarettes. He’s a little tight with money; she’s a little loose with money, her opinions and her emotions. So, where is the attraction?
And there is an attraction for sure. When Daddy’s gone off to work for the week, Mama mopes around pretty much every day until it’s time for him to return on Friday. Then she rushes around and does all those things she was supposed to have been doing all along: the laundry, the bills, the meals, the housework, the tending of the kids. She goes into a whirlwind of motion and makes everything look as if she’s been doing her job so well all week that she should be nominated for Best Wife and Mother of the Year. Daddy walks in that door on a Friday night and the fried chicken is crisp and the mashed potatoes don’t have a single lump and there’s cherry pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert, and Mama stands in the kitchen with her hair all washed and her prettiest dress on and Daddy’s blue eyes turn to a deep sapphire shade just looking at her and the next thing we kids know, he’s lifting her up and twirling her around and kissing her neck and telling her how much he loves her, just before he grabs her hand and pulls her into the bedroom for a quick “little talk” before we sit down for our meal. And we kids smile as we hear them giggling, and then we nibble on chips until they come back out all rumpled and happy just a few minutes later. Then Daddy hugs each of us and tells us how much he loves us before sitting down and saying Grace over our meal. Yes, there is definitely an attraction.
Mama’s different when Daddy isn’t there, maybe because she misses him so much, maybe because she doesn’t know how to organize herself when he isn’t around. It’s as if his presence gives her something to center her life around, to keep her eyes on, so she doesn’t just swirl into a big hole of nothingness. When he isn’t there, she stays up until 4 in the morning, wakes up at noon, forgets to pay the light bill and then has to beg the man from the electric company not to pull the meter. Daddy would be embarrassed if he ever found out how many times Mama has had to ask the school principal to forgive her for leaving the twins stuck sitting at school until 4:30, even though she doesn’t have an outside job. She just shrugs and say, “Time gets away from me.”
As the oldest, it’s my job to make sure that Mama doesn’t forget too many important things. I make sure that we get to school on time and that my little brother and sister have their lunch money. It’s also my job to do the grocery shopping every week and to make supper on the nights Mama doesn’t think about eating. I also help with homework, which isn’t too hard since Mandy and Miles are only in 3rd grade, but everything gets trickier on the days when Mama’s unhappy and drinking wine by the time we get home. On those days, she doesn’t want any of us doing homework; instead, she wants us to go outdoors with her and play. Yes, Mama loves to run down the hill and roll in the grass or jump in the creek when the weather’s warm and splash all of us until our clothes are soaking wet. She also loves to read to us, sometimes stories that are a little too complicated for the little ones, especially that one about Hester Prim, or even Huck Finn.
Yes, Mama can be fun, but also hard to reach some days. Those are the days I like the least. Those are the days when I wish Daddy didn’t work for Luther Montgomery’s construction company with jobs all across the state. Life would be better if Daddy could just come home at the end of the day like other fathers and make Mama feel calm and happy. He has promised to do just that once I graduate in May. He’s going to quit Montgomery Construction and open his own remodeling business in town. He knows Mama needs him.
As much as I love my parents, I wish more than anything I could just have a normal family. I’m going to marry Jimmy and live in a pretty little house in town, not out in the country on a back road like we do, and I’m going to work as a nurse at the hospital. It’s my dream to be a RN. Jimmy already works on weekends at the cable company. They’ve told him he can go full time once he’s done with school.
We’ve got a June wedding planned and I’m so happy. I can’t wait to start my new life with NORMAL written all over it. Then when I want to see Mama and Daddy, we’ll invite them to Sunday dinner and just make sure there’s no wine.
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