by Ayn Dillard
He then asks, “Certain you don’t want a glass of wine? It’ll relax you.”
“No, I’m fine. The Perrier I brought with me is fine.”
Dad continues, “I’m looking to buy another yacht.”
“Yes, I noticed the brochures on the table. They look pretty.”
“Pretty, hell, they’re multi-million-dollar yachts. The one I have now is too small. So, I need to get another one.” He chuckles, “My grandsons have fun on the water. Here take a look.” Points his finger to the brochure on the coffee table. A direct command for me to take a look at the pictures of the new toy he’s thinking about purchasing, and for me to be impressed enough to make him feel more important. I obediently do as I’m ordered to do—as mother sits in silence sipping her wine anesthesia out of a crystal glass.
Finally, after both have downed multiple glasses of wine, we go to the country club for dinner. It’s one of the finest in America, but to me it seems a bunch of arrogantly insecure people sitting in a dark-paneled hole—drinking. Perhaps, if I was with different people, I might view it from an entirely different perspective. Sitting in the mixed grill, I’m happily surprised to notice several people that I haven’t seen in a while. Chatting with them is fun and helps to break up my father’s boasting about his money and self-importance. After the people leave our table, my parents criticize each one of them. I detest hearing their words, but keep my mouth shut, so as to try to avoid arguing.
Mother states, “Natalie, your hair looks a bit too dark.”
“Well, mother I have dark hair. Remember, I was born with it and have the color of hair daddy once had.” She always says the same things about my hair or something else about my appearance that displeases her. Observing her over-processed, over-colored blondish orange hair that used to be dark brown, I chuckle to myself—geez Mom, I wonder how’d you’d feel if I told you what I think about your coif? Because it looks like the wig Dustin Hoffman wore in the movie ‘Tootsie.’
She continues, “I guess, I just don’t remember it being so dark. I liked your hair better the last time I saw you because it was lighter.”
I reply, “I don’t remember exactly what my hair was like over a year ago.”
My father adds, “Did you realize that you have a pimple on your nose?”
I feel pretty much like shit by now, “No, daddy, I didn’t, but thanks for letting me know.”
Ordering glass after glass of wine, they’re beginning to get word-slurring drunk. The waitstaff continues to humor them as they maintain the wine glass parade, as my parents spend more time conversing with them than me. Having few genuine friends, they talk endlessly with servers as if they were intimately involved. And then of course criticize them when they leave the table. Expectation of a large tip is enough to keep this going for quite some time. I wonder, do my parents really think the people waiting on them, actually care about them, or how important they think they are? Being ignored and bored, they succeed in letting me know that I’m not as important to them as the people who serve them. All I want to do is to get into bed and shut the door behind me.
Finally, my father declares he’s ready to leave. On the way to their house, he begins his usual haranguing. “Your mother and I just don’t understand why you’re such a failure.” He always says, ‘your mother and I’, as if they’re connected somehow mysteriously in the brain with no separate thoughts. I don’t respond, because I know he’s trying to get me to defend, respond or argue—to hook me into his game. Having been down this road many times before—tonight I’m not taking his bait which only makes him escalate his verbal tirade.
“And what do you mean talking to all those people at the club as if you’re somebody? Who do you think you are? You don’t have a pot to piss in. If they knew that, do you think they’d be so friendly or even talk to you? Why in the world did you get involved with a man who rapes women? Why would you associate with someone of that caliber? All you ever do is fuck-up. Your mother and I wish you were never born.”
Mother sits in her alcoholic coma saying nothing as he continues his litany almost weaving his black Mercedes sedan off the winding road on the road home. I often wondered, does mother just block him out or did the lobotomy she had and he authorized, give her the ability to hear anything he says and not react. Or is the behavior, he’s exhibiting now—the real cause of her mental breakdown? His words and the energy behind them create terror to pulsate through my body, but I don’t say a word. My poor mother has lived with this for decades. I chuckle internally in my pain—a lobotomy might be nice just about now. At least, then perhaps, I couldn’t feel the pain his words inflict.
Immediately, I feel guilty about what I just thought about my mother. Having a mentally fragile mother has created a kind of shield for my father, while creating deep guilt and blame in me. Nothing true or real is ever confronted where she’s concerned and her ability to comprehend, react or even feel have always been a mystery.
His ranting continues. “Answer me! Who do you think you are talking to so many people? Your mother and I are the important ones, not you. You’re nothing to anyone and you have no money.”
As Dad rambles on with his insults, I wonder what really did happen to my mother when I was a baby? My father’s caustic way of being, could very well have been what pushed her over the edge along with the hormonal changes created by giving birth. My father, of course blames my mother’s mother for her breakdown, then takes no culpability for his own children’s tribulations. And he was the one giving the authority to the man wielding the sword that cut a part of my mother’s brain—the part that houses her ability to express her feelings.
God, what a nightmare my mother must’ve lived through. Except damn, here I am feeling sorry for her again when I was harmed just as much by the circumstances and will never really know the truth of what occurred. If Daddy came home and found her in a catatonic state, then where was I? What was I feeling and experiencing? No one ever mentions me and surely mother exhibited other signs before that day. I’ve asked Dad many times, but all he’ll say is what he told me when I was twelve.
I recall watching the movie about Frances Farmer, an actress in the early fifties who had a lobotomy. Daddy ordered me to turn it off yelling, “Don’t watch something that’ll make you sad. You don’t need to know about any of that. Of course, I watched it anyway because I wanted to learn more about what my mother suffered through and why. As if I could find out from a movie, but the same Dr. Walter Freeman, who operated on my mother, was the one who also lobotomized Frances Farmer. His famous quote was—‘lobotomy gets ‘em home’.
By the depiction in the movie played by the actress Jessica Lang, Farmer appeared a victim, a rebel who people, especially her mother tried to control. She had a drinking problem but by all she accomplished as an actress and her intellect—it appeared she was just dramatic, difficult and an alcoholic, but not insane. Seems an awful injustice was done to her and I wonder was my mother difficult and that’s why my father opted for such a drastic measure? Only he has lived with a Stepford-like woman and that has got to be frustrating as hell.
While thinking about what happened with my mother, I can vaguely hear my father’s insults in the background—and ignore him.
Dr. Freeman visited us when I was fifteen. Angry at having to give up my teenage room—my private domain as a place for him to sleep, I stayed in the downstairs playroom next to my room to keep guard. His presence was annoying and instilled fear in me. I was afraid that he might hurt me like he did my mother, then I’d become zombie-like and always play Solitaire. Except, I was also curious to see if I could find out more about what really happened to my mother from this withered old man.
As a cover up, I sat on the sofa reading Steinbeck’s ‘Winter of Our Discontent’ and observed him. Impressed by my choice of reading material, he must’ve determined I was intelligent enough to talk with. So, he spoke to me.
Dr. Freeman asks, “That’s quite a serious book you’re reading yo
ung lady.”
“Steinbeck, he’s one of my favorites.”
He continues, “People do things in life that fill them with regret and there’s nothing that can be done for remedy.”
This weary old man must be talking about himself because I haven’t done much anything, but ballet. “Have you done many things you regret, Dr. Freeman?”
Clearing his throat, he responded nervously, “Um, yea, yes some.”
“Being a psychiatrist, you must’ve helped people, right?” Surprised myself by my sarcastically implied double-sided question, I took an immediate dislike to this old man who’d hurt my mother and found him to be condescendingly kind while taking over my room.
Dr. Freeman states, “You appear an intelligent young woman. Be aware that people in the field of psychiatry or psychology are the ones who need the most help and commit suicide more often than the general public.”
I inquire, “Really, why’s that?”
“Many enter the field only to try and figure out their own psychosis then when they can’t—they sometimes go off the deep end. There’re no answers for so many things and certainly not many when it comes to the workings of the mind. Mistakes can be made because research findings are always changing. Tell me, young lady, have you had a happy life thus far?”
I answer, “Well, I guess so”, as I think—except my mother hates me and I’m hoping you can tell me why. “Why do mothers sometimes hate their children?”
He appears sickly and very sad, “Some people aren’t able to show love.” Then he announces, “You’re a fortunate young lady to have such a lovely room and thank you for letting me sleep there tonight. Goodnight young lady, I’m going to turn in.”
I think to myself, yes, I have a pretty room you stupid, cruel ugly old man, but what I want is a mother who loves me. I was too frightened to ask him directly about the brain operation because we were supposed to behave as if nothing is really wrong with mother. I’d be breaking the family code and if my father found out. He’d probably kill me.
The next day, the doctor drove off in his Winnebago, while I stood at the front window watching. He turned back to give me one last glance. I could tell by the look on his face that he knew I had a mother who couldn’t show me love and he’d been part of the reason why. My awareness didn’t matter because I was still being held in a prison of pretending, trying to be good and not realizing the insidious effect all this had on my subconscious. Not long after that, my father informed that Dr. Freeman had died.
Startled into present time by my father’s loud yelling, “Natalie answer me! Who do you think you are to know so many people at a club where your mother and I belong and not you?”
“I lived here most my life, Dad—don’t you remember? I know lots of people in this town and I was once a member of this club.”
“Hell, you... .” I block him out as I continue pondering. Why would my father bring my mentally ill mother home after having a prefrontal lobotomy, then proceed to have three more children in quick secession? Sure, there wasn’t birth control, like now, but it’s clear he was only trying for a son. This was all that mattered to him because, he couldn’t have been thinking at all about my mother or me. Common sense and kindness to mother would’ve been to not have more children—given her fragile mental state. Never succeeding at having a son, he focused on making lots of money, drinking and yelling degrading things at the women in his life. He finally had a vasectomy after four tries at not having a son.
I wonder—if mother hadn’t had a breakdown, would she have stayed with him all these years? What other woman could have stood his abuse? He controls her so completely and it disgusts me so. Thinking about what happened to my mother makes me hate and fear my father because of his decision. What if she was only depressed after giving childbirth and needed hormones or caring treatment, instead of the radical irreversible barbaric operation that was performed on her. It all makes me want to throw-up.
Then on the other side, why’d he stay married to a woman who has little emotion or any separate thoughts? Was it out of guilt, duty or love? It must’ve become terribly boring and frustrating just being with her all these years. Might be the guilt and responsibility that leads him to drink so much because just being around her for a few days takes its toll on me—as her appearance of being ‘normal’, while not showing emotion or interest is utterly exasperating. She indulges in escapes of alcohol and television, except for a bridge game once a month and the hairdresser twice a week. My father is her world. Well perhaps, they fit together perfectly because who else could stand either one of them considering who they aged into? I wonder what my mother was like before her breakdown?
Dad continues his slurred verbal abuse the entire ride home. Arriving, I quickly go into the bathroom to check out my pimple then wash my face. I enter my bedroom, close the door and try to fall asleep, but can’t. I can still can hear my father’s muffled yelling coming from somewhere in the house. Nightmares from living with my parents come flooding back to further torment me.
Agonizingly, I recall one night during the time I was in planning to marry my first-husband. My father came into my room drunkenly accusing that I was the reason for my mother having a nervous breakdown and if I had never been born, she would’ve been fine. Next day, he told me he was unhappy in the marriage and was thinking about divorcing mother because she wasn’t good in bed. My body still trembles remembering the hurt, anger, guilt and fear that his disclosures created. The next day, I confronted him about what he’d said about my being the blame for mother’s breakdown. He denied ever saying it and called me a liar.
Another night, his drunken haze directed him to wake me and my younger sisters up, screaming that we were all whores. We were all crying hysterically, ages ten to eighteen. None of us had even had sex yet, except perhaps for Tammy.
She’d had some sort of an involvement with one of her married teachers, a black man who picked her up one night at our house when my parents were out on the town. There was a big to do at the time, then the teacher was fired. Daddy ordered us to not speak another word about it. Damn, I hadn’t thought about that in years. One awful memory opens up to another one. Tammy began young with her sexual fetish of getting involved with married men.
Being the older sister, I thought I could take it and protect my younger sisters. So, on those nights of terror, I’d try to defend them from my father’s venom. Screaming desperately through my tears, “What are you trying to do to us? Please, stop this and leave us alone! We’re sleepy and want to go to bed.” Then he’d turn and direct all his anger towards me. Mother never showed her face or mentioned a word about any of it. I recall how the pain cut into my soul as I cried myself to sleep wondering what I’d done to make him hate me so much. The next day, he sent us all flowers, but spoke no words of apology.
Does he really blame me for mother’s illness and that’s why I repulse him so?
After he told me about mother’s breakdown when I was twelve, along with his warning that since I was getting older, I must be extra careful of her, I felt guilt anytime she became upset and almost everything upset her. Nothing I ever did pleased her and it seemed as if she hated me because she always told my father everything that I’d done to upset her. She blamed me and so did he, while I was allowed no opinion or feelings about any of it. Mother was always right, the injured one, and she appeared to enjoy it when my father yelled at me. I could barely breathe, except when I was at ballet or alone in my room. My father bought me nice things. We were rich or is it wealthy? I laugh ironically in pain. My friends were envious. I had a Mustang convertible, lots of clothes, and lived in a big house, but I was envious of them because they had a mother who talked to them.
I realize that my father mostly bought me nice things, more for him than for me because having a pretty daughter with material possessions reflected positively on him.
Tonight, watching my diabetic father pour wine down his throat was beyond pathetic. His mindless search to find
some comfort in each glass hoping that it might be in the next one—goes on seemingly forever. His knowledge that I’m having extreme financial difficulty and flaunting his purchase of yet another yacht, shows again that I’m of no value to him. All that matters, is his money and buying power, because that’s all he must think he is.
Withholding his affection and money shows his lack of empathy and ability to see or have compassion and surely none for me. One definition of evil is the absence of empathy towards your fellowman with the ability to act accordingly. Shivering, I vow that tomorrow, even though I can’t afford it—I’m going to a hotel. I can’t endure hell any longer.
Only the next morning, he’s in a pleasant mood and being overly friendly.
“Natalie, I was looking at your rear tires, you could use some new ones. When you get back from your doctors’ appointments, I’ll take you to get some.”
“Oh, that’d be nice.” The cycle of abuse is alive and well in my father. His guilt at having been abusive, never admitting it, then he does something nice to make it go away, or so he mistakenly thinks. Well, I do need tires. So, why not let him buy them, since he’s ‘wealthy not rich’. I chuckle painfully to myself while thinking—the pompous asshole.
In the tire shop, I observe in amazement, my father’s behavior as he talks to the employees.
“Clark, used to own this place, huh? Yeah, I almost invested a couple of million in a deal with him, but decided against it.” He looks around to make sure everyone heard ‘a couple of million’.
Employee, “Yes, Mr. Clark used to own the whole chain of shops, but now he’s retired. I’ve worked for him the whole time. Probably good, you didn’t invest in it, Mr. Duncan because I heard it didn’t go well.”
Dad laughs full of arrogance and more boastfully, “Yeah, I figured the guy was just blowing smoke. Clark always liked playing the big shot. I’m getting ready to buy another yacht.”