Introduction to a Story I Won’t Tell
The day my family shattered, I ate barbecued chicken, iceberg lettuce with carrots, some warmed up rolls and cherry clafoutis for dessert. I remember the meal in great detail. I remember the brownish-red of the chicken, the slightly limp texture of the lettuce, the crunch of the carrots. I can feel the custard taste of the French dessert. I can also taste the metal of the fork as I purposely scraped it against my teeth, can feel the cold of the icy Coke as it passed my lips. I remember each of these details, because I spent most of the meal staring at my plate, concentrating as best I could on the food, rather than on any of the chaos that went on around me.
My family has always specialized in denial. I thought I had escaped that particular fate of genetic predisposition, but that day, I realized I had it as badly as anyone else. I craved safety and simplicity. I longed for a family that did not throw glassware at each other during dinner, families that limited their use of the f word to yelling at refs during the Super Bowl. As I sipped my Coke and avoided eye contact, I realized just how much comfort I found in denial.
They yelled, they screamed, and I sat there. I sat there and ignored it all. A braver me would have stood up and joined in the arguing, but the quiet, scared Helen just stuffed her face and waited for it all to be over.
The yelling always stopped. The argument would end. My parents and I would leave my grandmother’s house, slamming the door behind us. My parents would dissect the argument in intimate detail on the ten minute car ride home and for the next two or three weeks, depending on the contents of the argument. If it were my mother’s weight (only a problem in the eyes of my grandmother), or my uncle’s violent outbursts, or my grandmother’s drinking, well, there was a different standard for how long we would have to spend apart, stewing.
But this time was different. This time my mother was sharing a secret she had carried around inside for over forty years, a secret she knew that my grandmother probably had always been aware of, somewhere inside. There was no way that two or three weeks would be enough to heal the wounds.
The day my family shattered, I sat quietly and ate barbecued chicken.
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