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Boundaries PAGE
TWO I sensed
the uneasiness of people around me, but I was too young to name
the cause. I just thought the Lelands were grouchy and the Whitmans,
who lived three doors down, were hard of hearing. This all changed
when Colleen Whitman had a slumber party for her 10th birthday.
She invited every girl on the block, except me. I begged my mother
to phone the Whitmans hoping my invitation had been inadvertently
misplaced. Mom didn't call, and finally, the day before the party,
my best friend Sally announced in her most grown up voice, "You
weren't invited because your parents are divorced." "Divorce is bad. Your home is broken," Sally stated matter-of-factly with her hands on her hips. She looked exactly like her mother only younger. I ran home and sat by the window waiting for the reassuring lights of my mother's car. "Why are you crying?" she asked as she walked in the door balancing groceries in one hand and fatigue in the other. I told her what Sally said. "Oh, I see." Then she told me how every day she dealt with people like the Whitmans -- people who judged her without knowing her and assumed she had low family values because she was divorced. "I know it's just the three of us, but why did Sally say we're broken?" Mom grinned one of those adult grins always accompanied by a heavy sigh. "Because," she hesitated, "when people get married they promise to stay with each other forever and divorce means the promise was broken." I was shocked, "You broke a promise?" "It wasn't me, and it's complicated. You were little. That's why you don't remember. We were all hurt by it, and the insensitivity of people like the Whitmans makes it that much harder." Hurt by it? I scanned my arms and legs looking for bruises and scars but found nothing except a small rug burn I got the day before, wrestling with Todd. I reminded myself that wounds don't always show on the outside especially for grown-ups. Dad, I realized, must have left us with internal wounds, the kind ice and bandages can't fix. My mind overflowed with questions: Is this why Mom cried late at night? Or why her deep blue eyes welled up when the baseball coach told Todd he'd improve by throwing the ball around with his dad? Did it explain my fear of being left alone for even one minute? I was
still the same kid, but somehow after this conversation I felt older.
I resisted the urge to call Sally and one-up her with my latest
discoveries about grown-ups. I never could have guessed that being
excluded from Colleen's birthday party would change the way I viewed
my world. I felt left out. We all felt left out. So on the night
of Colleen's party, we splurged and went to a drive-in movie, just
the three of us. It wasn't the same as staying up all night having
pillow fights, braiding hair or painting nails, but it wasn't bad
either. At one point, while seated between my mother and my brother
in our small car, I stated emphatically, "See, we're not broken."
It was my attempt at setting the record straight, at making sure
I was right and Sally was wrong. But just at that moment, Mom began
to cry, and she never took her eyes off the screen.
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The
'60s had liberated the minds of some women, but working mothers
were not mainstream, unless of course, they were schoolteachers
or nurses. Our elementary school didn't offer an after-school program
because Todd and I would have been the only two kids in attendance.
My friend Janet's mother cut people's hair, but her clients came
to her house, and our neighbor, Betty, pulled out people's teeth
because she'd had some training as a dental assistant. She once
looped a piece of green thread around my stubborn bottom tooth,
tied the other end to a doorknob and slammed the door. "It
worked," I yelped, as I searched the shag carpet for my prize.
