Ron Savage has a BA and MA in psychology and a doctorate in counseling, all
from the College of William and Mary. He has been a newspaper editor and broadcaster. He has also worked
27 years under the title Senior Psychologist at Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, Virginia. Ron's writings
have appeared in numerous magazines and journals.
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During the morning, when the sun came through
the bay window and turned the dust gold on the oak floor, their parents would sit in the living room. Afternoons
and early evenings lent themselves more to the family area with its view of the lake and those magnificent sunsets.
If the truth be known, though, the parents seemed to enjoy the bedroom best of all. They would settle down for the
night, lounging in their favourite chairs, facing each other and smiling.
"Oh, God love those two," whispered Martha. She was the oldest daughter, forty-nine
and heading far too quickly toward the big five-O. Jeanie Ray, a mere forty-four, agreed with an affirming nod.
Both sisters were standing in the sunlit living room now, admiring their parents, amazed at how young they looked for being so old.
"Y'all are just too cute for words," Jeanie Ray said to them. "Aren't they
the cutest little things, Martha?"
Between Martha and Jeanie Ray, they had seven children, two husbands, three ex-husbands
(on Jeanie Ray's side), a golden retriever, and seven gerbils, counting the one Jeanie Ray's eight year old had
recently flushed down the crapper.
The sisters found sporadic comfort among husbands, children, and pets, but none of
that remotely compared to hanging out with Mommy and Daddy, particularly on Sundays for dinner. These family
assemblies were seen by Martha and Jeanie Ray as moments worthy of a Saturday Evening Post cover, something
Norman Rockwell would have yearned, if not grieved, to paint. Picture the two sisters, along with their
well-behaved husbands and seven children, gathered about a white linen draped table. Mommy’s food was to die
for, steaming bowls of mashed potatoes and baby peas, hot home made rolls and whipped butter, and a silver
platter of roasted chicken. The parents were always seated at either end, so sweet, so peaceful, beaming
appreciative, reassuring smiles at everyone.
Norman, Norman, paint this quick.
When Martha became temporarily depressed with her twenty-eight year marriage to
Taylor--a tax lawyer whose attorney-client privilege occasionally included the privilege of sthupping his
clients--she would trudge wearily over to the parents, brew herself a nice hot cup of Chamomile tea, then plop
herself down in front of Mommy and proceed to discuss her life. This was pretty much done on a daily bases,
except for the times Jeanie Ray, who had her own problems, beat her to it.
If you have a perfect marriage, good advice doesn’t come easy. So Mommy did a lot
of smiling, which was probably the best approach, since no one wanted advice, anyway. Last month, January 22nd
to be precise, the parents celebrated their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. Daddy was eighteen when he married
his sixteen-year-old bride. Daddy liked to say, you didn’t have to be a mathematician to know they were a couple
of happy old farts.
Another Sunday was finally here. Everybody had seated themselves around the dining
room table. Taylor, the tax attorney, sat to Daddy’s left with Martha and the four kids. The children included
six-year-old Holly Dawn, thirteen-year-old Jeremy David, who kept taunting Holly to lick the new paper cut on his right
forefinger, the seventeen-year-old eye-roller Lisa Lee, and the twenty-seven-year-old--will this child
ever get married?--Yorktown High English teacher Kirsten Clare. These kids didn’t care whether the
grandparents were there or on the planet Mars.
On the other side of the table, Jeanie Ray’s fourth hubby, Buster, currently
unemployed but with good social skills and prospects, sat to Mommy’s left, Jeanie and her three boys sitting next
to him. All three kids had A.D.D. That would be the eight-year-old nose picker Thomas Boyd, who'd been trying
to wipe the latest nugget on his twelve-year-old brother Harland Patrick. While Harland absently batted him away
with his left hand, he shoved an elbow into the ribs of his twenty-year-old brother Lindsey “Skull Crusher” William.
Lindsey had been nick-named “Skull Crusher” by his fraternity, Gamma Gamma Phi, after giving six of the twelve
freshmen pledges frontal lobe concussions with his forehead. These children couldn’t tell you if the grandparents
were clothed or naked.
The only people acknowledging dear Mommy and dear Daddy were Martha and Jeanie Ray.
| "If you have a perfect marriage, good advice doesn’t come easy. So Mommy
did a lot of smiling, which was probably the best approach, since no one wanted advice, anyway." |
Then six-year-old Holly Dawn said, “How come pop-pop and nana never talk to us?”
“They’re listeners,” whispered Martha.
“The best listeners in the whole world,” said Jeanie Ray.
Mommy and Daddy seemed to smile directly at their two wonderful daughters. This
made both Martha and Jeanie Ray tear up and pat their chests with their fingertips.
“But they’re so boring,” said eight-year-old Thomas Boyd. Jeanie Ray slapped
the back of his head.
Thomas gave her a look. “Hey, excuse me, but they definitely are boring.”
The boy immediately flinched, expecting another whack, but his mother, taught by
the best, was a bigger person than that and would wait until she and the nose-picker got home before dispensing
justice.
“…chicken sucks,” said seventeen-year-old Lisa Lee, rolling her eyes and laying
down her fork and knife in an act of protest. “Don’t you people know about all the hideous chemicals they feed
these stupid little beasts?”
“My daughter the humanitarian,” muttered Taylor.
“Lisa Lee.” Martha’s voice had that crisp threatening edge to it, the sort of tone
hinting of penalties that would affect her daughter’s social life, which, under the most favourable conditions,
was no walk in the park.
“You know, farmers could like engineer better chickens.” Lindsey “Skull Crusher”
William had lumbered into the fragile world of dinner conversation. “They could like blow weed through the vents
and all--I’m truly serious here, okay?--and like all your hens and whatnot would be, you know, spacing on the weed
and getting all mellow and all. And they’d be eating Oreos and laying like Terminator-sized eggs and everything. I
mean, they use the mighty weed for Glaucoma, right?”
The twenty-seven-year-old Yorktown High English teacher Kirsten Clare used this moment
to say: “I'm surrounded by crazy people. This is awful, don't you know it's awful? Can't you see? What is
wrong with you all? I dunno, maybe it's me. God, why do I come to these things?”
“Because we love you,” said Martha.
She squeezed her eldest daughter’s damp quivering hand and saw the old cluster of
scars on the young woman’s wrist. Thank God the child made it past that--thank God we all did. Her baby’s
adolescence had not been a good time. Martha was sure nobody could’ve managed such a nightmare without the
support and love of Mommy and Daddy. For a few years there, all the girl seemed to know how to do was cut herself
and put a finger down her throat. And sulk, lots of sulking.
Mommy had told Martha: “All children go through rough patches. Parents just have to
weather the storm.” Or maybe Mommy didn’t say that. Maybe Martha said it, and Mommy had done one of her
better smiles, as if to say, “That sounds real good to me, Martha, hon.”
Snow had started to fall now. Through the dining room windows, you could see it
coming down in the backyard. Small drifting flakes were covering the wooden pier and the frozen white lake.
| "Kirsten Clare stared out the window. The wind slanted and whirled a
thickening snow, the February storm building, blowing a swarm of flakes over the already white lake. She thought
this might be the big one, maybe the biggest storm ever." |
Kirsten Clare glanced down at the black leather pocketbook on her lap. Opening it,
she did a four-finger paddle through keys, wallet, makeup bag, brush, a clear plastic pill box, and two disposable
lighters, trying to find a cigarette.
Leaning in, Martha whispered, “You can’t smoke in here, dear. It’s dangerous for
Mommy and Daddy.”
“Smoking isn’t cool,” said Taylor, examining a chicken leg as though half expecting
to see chemically enhanced bacteria staring back at him.
“Saying ‘cool’ isn’t cool,” mumbled Harland Patrick.
“You go, Harland,” said Skull Crusher, and gave his brother a High Five.
Harland was what psychologists call “the lost in the crowd” middle child, and these
family dinners reminded him of that blessing.
Throughout all of this, Mommy and Daddy did not lose their serene, gentle smiles.
As Martha and Jeanie Ray attempted to herd and contain the questionable comments of husbands and children--redirecting
potential confrontations, extinguishing inappropriate subjects and language, chastising, if not threatening,
offenders--the daughters would look at their parents and see the smiles and know the world was turning as it should.
This endorsement swelled the chest with feeling and again brought tears. The two women waved their hands rapidly in
front of their eyes.
“We love you so much,” Martha said to Mommy and Daddy.
“Love you bunches,” said Jeanie Ray, blotting her mascara with a paper napkin.
Kirsten Clare stared out the window. The wind slanted and whirled a thickening
snow, the February storm building, blowing a swarm of flakes over the already white lake. She thought this might
be the big one, maybe the biggest storm ever.
Then Kristen tapped twice on her water glass with a knife, saying: “Okay, attention
everyone.” She felt her fingers start to tremble, and she laid the knife down next to the glass, resting her hand
beside it. “Pop-pop and Nana, your grandchildren--and that includes myself, of course--want to wish you a belated
but blessed sixty-fifth anniversary.”
“Pop-pop and Nana, you rock,” said Skull Crusher, and gave his brother Harland Patrick
a quick but abrasive head noogie.
“Yeah, rock,” muttered Thomas Boyd. He’d just removed a pinky finger from his left
nostril and was examining the results of his dig. Then he looked up at the grandparents and said, “You guys can
be like totally boring but you also have your awesome moments.”
The kitchen door swung open. The eye-roller Lisa Lee brought in a big triple layer
German Forrest cake with sixty-six small white candles, one for good luck, and set it in the middle of the linen
draped table.
While Lisa returned to her seat, Kristen Clare searched the interior of her pocketbook,
her thin nervous fingers finding two disposable lighters. One was a mauve colour; the other, a robin’s egg blue. These
were the new “Easy Light” models that kept a flame until the user capped them, ideal for shaky smokers.
Kirsten stood, a lighter in each hand. Immediately, Martha and Jeanie Ray stood, too.
They seemed measurably more nervous than Kristen Clare, the long time designated nervous person of the family.
“What’re you doing?” Jeanie Ray wanted to know.
Martha cut Jeanie Ray an I’ll-Handle-This look. “Kristen dear, I’m sure Mommy and
Daddy appreciate your absolutely lovely gesture." Martha glanced around the table at the other children.
“All of you, you’re so thoughtful and sweet," she said. "Why, we could simply eat you all up with a spoon.” She
paused, thinking of just the right way to put it. “You see, Mommy and Daddy, well, they –”
Jeanie Ray interrupted: “They don’t like fire.”
“You gotta light the candles,” said six-year-old Holly Dawn. “Whoever heard of a
cake where you don’t light candles and make a wish.”
“She has a point,” said Taylor the tax attorney.
Then Jeanie Ray said, “Shut up, Taylor.”
Then Martha said to Jeanie Ray: “ Hey, don’t tell my husband to shut
up. Go tell that unemployed hobo of a husband you married –”
“ Whoa, bitch fight,” announced Skull Crusher.
Then everyone joined the argument of whether or not to light the candles on Mommy
and Daddy’s anniversary cake, except Mommy and Daddy themselves. The old folks were smiling, though, so you could
tell they were having fun.
Kirsten Clare’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. As the argument heated and came to
full boil, the comments more specific and hurtful, her hands got worse. With quivering thin fingers, she lit
both disposable lighters, simultaneously tossing them toward opposite ends of the table, the mauve one to Mommy,
the robin’s egg blue to Daddy.
Instead of catching fire, the old folks exploded like a match to flash paper, an
enormously loud FOOOOMP!
The argument shut down in mid-word.
Martha and Jeanie Ray, husbands and children, everyone and everything in the dining
room, turned silent. Mommy and Daddy looked like smiling dolls made of pressed gray ash. As that ash began to
break apart and crumble, their bodiless clothes paused in the air, keeping shape for a second before drifting
down and settling on the empty chairs.
Martha and Jeanie Ray began shrieking at Kirsten, who was now watching the snow swirl
across the pier and the lake. For the first time since she couldn’t remember when, her hands had quit shaking.
* * *
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