But about six years later, when I was eleven, I learned how closely the two emotions are aligned. That was the year that my mother had an “alleged” affair (she still denies it) with my elementary school principal, Mr. Higgins. I steadfastly maintain that short of being orphaned or severely disfigured, it is about the worst thing that can happen to a fifth-grader, particularly when you’re the very last person in the school to hear about it. I never had any illusions that either of my parents was perfect, as I frequently compared them to the ideal parents in books. I wished that my father were a little more like Atticus Finch, and that my mother would occasionally behave like Ramona Quimby’s nurturing, understanding mother in my favorite Beverly Cleary books. But overall, I was happy with my parental lot. I appreciated the way my father always took us to do fun things on the weekends, rather than doing yard work or watching football like the other dads in my neighborhood. And I was proud of how beautiful and funny my mother was and how much my friends admired her fashion sense.
And for the most part, I didn’t think too much about my parents one way or the other. Most kids don’t. If things are going well in life, parents are more of a backdrop and safety net than central characters who, say, take center stage during recess. Which is actually what happened on the playground one day when Chet Womble, a boy I hated for his nose-picking and name-calling, decided to break the big news of my mother’s affair via chalk graffiti. He drew two large stick figures, complete with some vivid male-female anatomy, and the words CLAUDIA’S MOM DOES MR. HIGGINS. (The video cover for Debbie Does Dallas had just been passed around the cafeteria the week before, so even without Chet’s clever graphic, there was no confusion about the word does.)
I remember staring at my mother’s loopy, lopsided boobs, then desperately trying to rub out my name with my heel, all the while thinking that no matter what, I would never get over it. I had become a pathetic victim in a Judy Blume novel (although, at that moment, I would rather have been “Blubber” than my mother’s daughter).
It didn’t help that Chet was suspended for a week or that very few people saw the drawing before it was hosed off by a janitor. All that mattered was that upon one glimpse I knew in my gut that it was true: my mom was , indeed, doing Mr. Higgins. The pieces came together for me in a rush of shamefaced horror: my mother’s sudden and uncharacteristic flurry of volunteering at our school; the care she took applying lipstick during carpool, followed by her excuses to come in the building with me; the fact that Mr. Higgins knew my name and seemed to go out of his way to smile and greet me in the halls.
The night of Chet’s stunt, I went home and somehow made my way through my homework and a particularly horrible chipped beef dinner. I debated on when exactly I should confront my mother, and saw some merit in doing so with the five of us seated together around the table. She deserved as much. But for my dad’s sake, I waited until dinner was over and he retired to the family room to watch his beloved Mets. My sisters stood to clear the table and load the dishwasher when I came out with it. “Mom,” I said, “why are you cheating on Dad with Mr. Higgins?”
Maura dropped a plate and Daphne burst into tears while our usually brazen mother shushed me, looking frantic as she glanced toward our family room. I kept talking, saying that it certainly wasn’t a secret, thanks to Chet Womble’s vivid portraiture. Of course my mother denied everything, but she did not do so convincingly or strenuously enough to change my mind. Instead she sent me to my room. I obeyed not because I felt that I had to, but because the sight of her made me sick.
Over the next few weeks, I found myself remembering Jimmy’s mother in the grocery store as I vacillated between anger and grief. I’d be sobbing one minute and then scribbling furious cursive in my journal the next, calling my mother names I had only heard uttered from boys like Chet. Slut. Whore. Bitch . Real healthy stuff for a fifth-grader.
Throughout that ordeal, I learned that getting mad was easier than being sad. Anger was something I could control. I could settle into an easy rhythm of blame and hate. Focus my energy on something other than the ache in my heart.
I think my mother and Mr. Higgins stopped seeing each other a short time later. But other affairs followed until she met Dwight, a tanned plastic surgeon who wore a pinky signet ring and ascots on special occasions and always conjured a rich, tacky character on The Love Boat . My mother was so smitten with Dwight and the lavish lifestyle he promised that she left us for real, giving up custody to my father when I was thirteen. Of course, that is a whole nother story (Ha! Screw you, Ben!), a far more serious in our family lore. But somehow nothing that followed was as hurtful as that day on the playground, gazing down at my mother’s white chalk breasts.
That brings me, of course, to the elephant in the room. The thing that Jess and Ben and my sisters all are thinking, but won’t come out and say altogether: the fact that I don’t want children because I have such issues with my own mother.