Denny finally bought a respectable B-grade, quarter-carat, marquise diamond, shining but not stunning, set on a tapered yellow gold band. He showed it to me secretly and told me how much it cost: $161, steeply on sale. They had been together for about six months. In my diary on August 14, 1993, I wrote, “Denny is going to give Mom the ring on the twenty-third, Mom’s birthday! That’s so romantic!”
When Mom left our house that birthday morning, she turned out of our driveway and onto Route 93 to see black balloons tied to a telephone pole. She drove another quarter mile, and there were more dark spheres floating in the morning air, dull with dew. On High Street, there was a big, hand-lettered sign—happy 30th, crystal!—next to more balloons, which appeared at shorter and shorter intervals the rest of the way to the Shoe Shop. When she arrived, there were still more black balloons and crepe paper tied to her workstation, plus a card signed by her coworkers, who spent the rest of the day joking about how she was becoming an “old lady.” No one could know that this would be her last birthday, that she would never be old.
Mom drove home from work that day happy, her balloons making gentle bumping noises in the backseat. So many friends had gone out of their way to show her how much they loved her, had gotten up extra early to make a fuss. When she got home, she tied the balloons to a leg of our kitchen table, started dinner, and waited for Denny to come over. I had a card for her, and a present, a pewter figurine I’d seen her admire in a store downtown. It was a warrior woman, a tiny, curvy lady with a drawn sword and a dagger in her boot, a jewel set into her prizefighter belt.
When Denny came, we all sat down to dinner and cake. He seemed to be in a ruffled, edgy mood, and I started to wish he hadn’t shown up. Sometimes he was so fun and sweet, and other times he was like this: moody and fuming, just on the edge of an explosion. It was clear the proposal would not be happening that day, and I was smart enough not to bring it up. I went to bed early, for once putting up no resistance, and quickly drifted off to sleep. I awoke soon after, as their voices rose into an escalating argument. A high voice, a low one. Soon they were screaming at each other. Mom sounded frustrated, mostly, but Denny’s anger had a commanding quality about it, scarier than in their previous arguments. They were in the kitchen, and their voices rang out against the hard surfaces of the linoleum floor, the steel refrigerator, the Formica counters. Finally I heard a loud bang, a hollow sound punctuated by a crack that resounded in the thin walls. I sat up tensely in bed, listening to the thick silence that followed. Then I heard our side door swing open and slam, echoed by the sound of Dennis climbing into his truck. I heard Mom stride down the hallway, shut her door, and start crying. I snuck out to the kitchen for a glass of water, and stood next to the sink drinking it down, looking sadly at those black balloons floating in the dark.
* * *
It would take Denny three more months to overcome Mom’s reservations, months during which we both saw many of his good qualities. He took us on long walks through the woods, and he made me a bow and arrow from a sapling and then taught me how to shoot it, explaining that you had to aim higher than your target, because time and distance would pull your arrow down. He told funny jokes, and he never seemed bored by my long descriptions of the books I was reading. We drew up plans for a tree house he would build me, once he had extra money for the lumber.
One Friday night, Denny stayed home with me while Mom went out dancing with Linda. We watched movies, and at some point we went outside, then turned off the porch light and gazed at the stars while he smoked and I pointed out the constellations. I told him about the Big Bang theory. He listened, then thought aloud, “But what came before that?” He was sure that beyond any observable phenomena, there must be some guiding force, an idea I found beautiful and reassuring, even if we couldn’t identify exactly what that force was. I felt so safe that night, standing in the darkness with my friend and thinking about the universe.
When Mom and I watched romantic movies, I imagined her and Denny in the lead roles. They were more thrilling to me than any movie romance, and like a movie romance, they seemed inevitable. I knew that their age difference was one reason Mom kept saying no to Denny’s proposals, but I think we both saw that his youth was also an asset. He was still a work in progress, and among other things, he wanted to be defined as the man who loved Crystal Perry the most, who took care of her. I could see he had flaws, but he showed up. He wasn’t some flaky college boy who messed with her emotions, like Tim, who I knew was still sending letters to our house. Dennis was composed mainly of potential and passion. If that passion occasionally translated into bouts of temper, well, his impetuousness went hand in hand with his spontaneity, his energy, and the urgent rustlings, the caught breath, the buoyant laughter I heard from her bedroom when he stayed overnight. I forgave him his tantrums, just as she did. I kept thinking they would disappear. Maybe if she just said yes, I thought, he would calm down.
Then one afternoon not long before my birthday, during a happy week, Denny took Mom’s hand and led her to her bedroom. He shut the door behind them, then casually handed her a paper bag, twisted shut at the top. “Look what I got Sarah!” he said, with a ta-da! smile. When she uncoiled the bag and reached in, she found that simple ring Dennis had bought her months earlier. She finally said yes. I know I was excited that day, but I can’t remember if she was. As she later told a friend, she was reluctant even to show her ring to anyone.
* * *
The engagement didn’t bring the sudden change I’d hoped for. Dennis kept exploding, then making amends. She kept taking him back, and I didn’t want to hold grudges. I wanted to believe in them. She wanted him to be the person with whom she would finally make the family she’d been dreaming of; she wanted him to make her feel safe.
But Dennis’s presence did little to protect us from threat. Teresa—who still lived with Tom—started calling us. The phone would ring, and Mom would hesitate before getting up from the couch, giving the receiver a suspicious glare. She’d pick up, and I’d hear a few moments of Teresa’s grating voice spill out before Mom slammed the receiver back onto its wall-mounted cradle. Sometimes she would miss, and the receiver would bungee to the floor. She’d replace it more gently, then turn back toward me, run a nervous hand through one side of her hair, and come sit back down on the couch. The restraining order must have timed out—I don’t know if Mom ever did call the cops again, but they took no further action against Teresa. A known loose cannon getting wasted and calling her boyfriend’s ex, threatening to kill her, wasn’t much of an event in Bridgton. Through all those months when I’d forgotten about Teresa, Mom must have been waiting for the day she’d resurface.