Scenes from a Marriage … and Family

Hey it’s me, Savannah, sitting in the counselor’s office with my parents.  I finally convinced them to see a marriage counselor. 

Here’s what you have to understand about my parents.  They are drastically different people.  That they’ve been together this long and have produced me and my brother is a small miracle in and of itself.  And they didn’t have the benefit of a Toya or a Halima to keep them straight. 

What I’m not really understanding is, why now?  Why did it all have to fall apart like this?  

I love my parents to death.  I just wish they could see eye to eye.

To my right is my mother.  We had a rough relationship, but now, in truth, I feel sorry for her.  She actually had it pretty rough.  My grandmother was domineering, my grandfather disappeared when she was a little girl, and she didn’t even know who half her family was.  She waited years for my father to commit and then when he did, finally, he goes and does this.   Of course, it didn’t help that I wasn’t exactly a typical girl. 

My mother was basically a single parent, even though my father was right there in the house.  My mother and I definitely had our rough moments, times when we couldn’t stand the sight of each other, but she is still my mother, the only one I’m going to get.  And I love her.

To my left is my father.  When I was little I thought he could do no wrong.  We did everything together.  I was a total daddy’s girl.  I think in some ways I still am.

My father was never the ‘typical’ dad.  For starters, he never ever raises his voice above a whisper.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him angry or upset.  He’s very even tempered.  It’s a Plumb family trait, both Aunt Margaret and my grandfather, I’m told, were the same way.  And I see traces of this even-temperedness in both Noah and Bassy.  I wish I had it but I don’t.  I get really angry, really easily – a lot more like my mom. 

For example, Noah’s reaction when he found out Neil’s GF was pregnant?  A simple posting on his Simbook account, calling himself “Grandpa Noah.”  So typical of him.  But I digress. 

“How did the two of you meet?” the counselor begins, looking in my dad’s direction.

When my dad didn’t answer, my mom spoke up.

“We were both members of the Sunset Valley orchestra.  I had been there awhile and he was the hip, flashy newcomer.  I asked him once, ‘Are you sure you’re a classical musician? Because you don’t look or act like one.’  He told me, and I’ll never forget this, ‘I’m as much of a classical musician as you are.’  He reminded me he was capable of doing pop numbers too.”

“So he played a few bars of my favorite song at the time, Debussy’s Claire de Lune…

“..and then he turned around and told me that he’d once played for the Grim Reaper himself.  I was sold.  I was buying what he was selling.”

“So we had a small commitment ceremony in the community park, for our family and a few of our closest friends, and I moved into his house that he was building on Summer Hill Court.  Then I found out I was pregnant with our daughter, Savannah…”

“When I told Nathan I was pregnant and that I was having a girl, he was ecstatic.  And I remember asking him why he was so happy, and he told me, ‘I’ve got four sons.’

“I fell in love with Nathan because he made me believe the impossible dream.   It was like he had created his own personal wonderland and he wanted me to join him there, if only for a brief moment. 

And for awhile, it worked.  For a while we were blissfully happy.  We were raising our daughter, and then our son Sebastian came after that, and we made it work.  We somehow made it all work.  We lived our lives as members of the orchestra and we were pillars of the community…”

At that point I had to interrupt my mother, because she was engaging in revisionist history.  Lots of revisionist history.  I reminded her that all the parties were her idea, to keep up with her own personal vision of a society dame. 

“I never wanted or needed any of the parties,” I shouted.  “I used to disappear to go to the cemetery just to get away from everything.”

I’m tired of being their band aid.  For once in their lives, why can’t they just tell the truth?

-to be continued -