The Driveway or My Mother the Domestic Terrorist

My stepfather had to wake up at 5 AM to read

in peace.

He had to tell my mother that watering the plants 

was his time to relax 

along with doing the crossword puzzle while smoking a pipe

in the black leather Eames chair

 

When I was 12 they were on the verge of divorce

 and I hoped it would happen

 so I could live with my step-dad.

Then our mother's gallbladder attacks started

 and her pneumonia while in the hospital recovering

 

She told my older brother "Don't let me sleep or I could die" 

and proceeded to

test him by faking sleeping

He caught the game.

 

Couples Therapy went nowhere. 

Group therapy just brought them eccentric friends to entertain

Eventually they bought a country house to renovate. 

They drove three hours each way every weekend

 in separate Volvo's 

to work on the house.

 

Their bed was so huge all five children could've joined in and we did

One year for a Christmas card photo in the driveway. 

 

The same driveway that the ambulance came to take my brother out on a stretcher

 when my mother "lost" the anal thermometer up his butt.

He was eleven.

All the kids on the street were out asking what happened.

 

The same driveway where my mother gunned the brown ford station wagon 

on the icy hill 

over and over.

Woman against machine!

 

The same driveway snowy mornings we would shovel snow with our father 

so he could get to work. 

The only chance we ever got to be with him.

Our mother couldn't bear it shouting from the house

 "You'll get nauseous without breakfast"

  We were not nauseous we were HAPPY to be with him.

 Even then I knew

 she was jealous when the attention lifted off of her.

 

She drugged us on car trips with doses of Dramamine

 so she could have conversations with my father

 on the 3 day driving trip from NY to what I called "Tampax" Florida.

 Honeymoon was all she wanted, every night. All year long. 

No kids.

 

Our housekeeper Jean made us dinner lentils rice chicken or pork chops.

We walked home from school every day for lunch.

Jean made us grilled open face Muenster cheese and ate with us. We never saw our father and mother except on Sundays when our grandparents came or on holidays. 

All other nights they were having a honeymoon