That morning, I take the train to Maura’s house in Bronxville, staring out the window at scenery I have come to know by heart. I only let myself listen to the upbeat songs on my iPod, skipping over any faintly melancholy ones on my playlist as a precautionary measure. The worst thing I could do is show up at Maura’s with any trace of sadness on my face. I have to be tough, I think, as I ponder my strategy for breaking the bad news.
By the time I pull into the station, I have decided that I will tell my family of my pending divorce after the guests have departed, and Zoe has gone to play with her new toys. It would probably be less dramatic to give everyone the news individually over the phone, but this way, I’ll only have to say it one time. I’ll hold one press conference and field one set of questions. When I can stand it no more, I’ll thank my family and make my exit. Just like an athlete after a painful loss. Yes, I’m disappointed. I feel bad for letting my team down and missing that easy lay-up in the second OT. But I did the best I could. And I gotta move on
My dad, who still lives in Huntington in the house we grew up in, drove to my sister’s earlier this morning and picks me up at the train station now. Before I close the car door, he starts in on my mother. “That woman is so impossible,” he announces. My father is usually very positive, but my mother brings out the worst in him. And apparently, he never got the divorced-parent memo that explains that it’s not healthy for a child (even an adult child) to hear one parent tear the other down.
“So what did Vera do this time?” I ask.
“She made one of her trademark snide remarks about my trousers,” he says.
I smile at my dad’s old-fashioned term. “What’s wrong with your pants?”
“Ex- actly ! There’s nothing wrong with them, is there?”
“Not at all,” I say, but upon closer inspection I can see that he has paired cuffed suit pants with a collared golf shirt. It is the sort of offense my mother can’t tolerate. Still, I have to wonder why she still takes his fashion faux pas so personally. What’s it to her ? I always think.
“Is Dwight with her?” I ask.
“No. He had an early golf game,” my dad says, flicking on his turn signal. “I’m sure he’ll make a grand entrance later, though.”
“They have that in common,” I say.
“Yeah. She’s been prancing around all morning,” he says. I picture my mother, head thrown back, perky nose in the air, just like a proud circus pony.
“Yeah. Everything is about her ,” I say.
My mother aims to be conspicuous at all times. She is sure to be overdressed, will likely give Zoe the largest and most expensive present, and will have a crowd of admirers around her at all times. That is one thing that has not changed since my sisters and I were young, our friends adore our mother. They call her things like “zany” and “a hoot” and “one of the girls.” But deep down, I think they are all glad that she’s somebody else’s mother.
“Don’t let her get to you, Dad,” I say.
My dad smiles as if mentally shifting gears. Then he says, “So where’s Ben?”
I knew the question was coming, but I still feel a sharp pain in my side hearing his name. I take a deep breath and muster a breezy tone. “He had to work.”
“Not like Ben to miss a family party.”
“Yeah. He’s quite the family man,” I say. I am being sarcastic, but it occurs to me that this much is actually true, he is quite the family man.
A minute later we pull into my sister’s horseshoe-shaped driveway as I survey her four-million-dollar mansion (Maura insists that her house is not a mansion, but I consider any home with more than six bedrooms a mansion, and her house has seven) with my usual mix of admiration and disdain. I’m disapproving not because of the sheer magnitude of their riches because that is all relative. Rather, I dislike how Scott earned his money, not from hard work or brains, but by being at the right place at the right time. He was working as the CFO of a small software start-up that was purchased for a ridiculous amount of money during the technology bubble. He has so much money, in fact, that I’ve heard him refer to guys with smaller fortunes as “nickel millionaires.”
If he were good to my sister, all of this would be great, and I would applaud his good luck. But Scott is a cad (to use one of my father’s expressions) and their home is a constant reminder to me of the daily trade-off Maura makes: nice things, philandering husband. I often wonder whether my sister would leave if she didn’t have children with Scott. She says she would. I’m not so sure she shouldn’t anyway.