Chapter 40
In the days and weeks that follow, Chris and I both seem determined not to let anything change between us. I know he might
meet someone else anytime now, but I’m just not there yet. I haven’t had enough time rolling around in the sacredness of my
own self to think about adding another person to the equation.
There’s a lot to focus on other than that because I start putting on two performances a week at the Populists’ Playhouse.
Demand is greater than supply; we’re sold out just about every night. Word of mouth spreads from the first shows, and then
I post about it in my Women’s Revolt stock trading forum and some of those people start coming too and telling their friends
and it’s this amazing intersection of New York’s corporate and creative sphere. Everyone’s bursting out of their little bubbles
and nothing’s better than the sound of a good pop.
By the time December rolls around, I’m able to afford space heaters for the garden and start paying Tara and myself a small
salary. We even get written up on this website that reviews indie shows and concerts in New York. I’d have a lot of cash stockpiled
by now if it weren’t for all these itty-bitty clothes and playthings I keep buying for June. That stuff adds up but it’s worth
it; I love that little goon. I’ve declared myself co-godmother and Jenni agrees, says she knew I’d come around.
One night after a show, I’m walking around in the garden alone.
Everyone has cleared out and I have a whim to call my parents to share the news of how their delinquent daughter is making it in the big city after all.
My mom picks up the phone right away. She’s all freaked out, asking if I’m okay.
It kind of cuts me to realize that I call so rarely, they assume it must be from the emergency room.
She puts me on speakerphone and my dad comes over and joins.
I tell them about the theater company I’ve founded, though I leave out the name of it.
No need to get them riled. I expect them to ask when I’m getting a real job or a husband who can support me, but they’re actually pretty interested, or at least pretend to be.
We could end the conversation right there, pocket the win, and avoid conflict. I nearly say goodbye, but my tongue catches
and I know what I’m being asked to do.
“I need to tell you something else,” I tell my parents over the phone. “It’s about the piano lessons I took when I was little.”
“Yes, we know you blame us for forcing you into hobbies that you hated,” my mom says in a tired voice, anticipating the same
old attacks. “But it didn’t ruin you too badly. Look at what you’re doing now.”
“No,” I say. “It’s not about that.”
I lay it all out there as minimally as I can, just the cold, hard facts, no gory details or anything, but my mom starts bawling
and my dad drops more expletives than I’ve ever heard, even when the Lions lost the Super Bowl. They’re aware that Mr. Hubert
died—he was their neighbor after all—but they begin talking about how we should press charges against his widow because leave
it to them to blame a woman somehow. I’m just kidding, sort of. I really do appreciate their outrage but I say no, I don’t
want to do that, I just want to move on. I’m not going to use the abuse as an excuse.
“Yeah, it was awful and it hurt me,” I say. “It messed me up in ways I probably still don’t fully understand, maybe never
will. And I think I’ve been punishing both of you for this thing that you never even knew about.”
“Well, of course you’ve been punishing us, honey, as you should,” my mom says between hiccups. “Does your sister know?”
I say no, she doesn’t, but this is why I fought so hard for her not to take piano lessons too, even though she resented me
for it. I tell them that I don’t want to keep circling over the past, I just want to live in the now, and it would be good
if maybe our family could sort of start fresh?
“How about a family vacation soon?” my dad suggests. It sounds very quiet in the background, like he’s turned off the TV,
or at least muted it. “I start collecting Social Security next month. I can treat us all to a Caribbean cruise.”
The suggestion feels like a big hug from him, the kind I used to wriggle out of but vow not to anymore. “I don’t do cruises,”
I say. “But a beachside villa and swimming with dolphins wouldn’t be the worst thing.”
They say they would like that very much, or at least I think that’s what my mom says. It’s hard to understand her since she’s
still choked up, and my dad is all congested with emotion too. The old me would be thrilled about how worried they are about
me, how they’re beating themselves up over this thing that happened so long ago, but the new me doesn’t want suffering to
beget suffering. Though I have to admit it’s a nice feeling to be heard and cared for in a way that I never thought I would
from my parents ever again. They stopped showing up for me long ago, but maybe it was partially because I stopped giving them
a chance to show up for me. It was easier to suffocate the shame in a coffin than let it air out in the cold. Easier to twist
my parents into caricatures, complicit in the crime, than to see them as the complex characters they are.
After we say goodbye, there’s this peace rippling around me, rippling in me.
I have the urge to swat it away or do something dramatic to disrupt it because peace is boring, right?
Peace means you’re content with the way things are, and where’s the inspiration or innovation in that?
But the longer I breathe in the peace, the more I want to keep it, nurture it.
Maybe Chris has a point about contentment. Maybe contentment can carpet your life and free you up to do cartwheels and handstands
and backflips without worrying about cracking your head on the cement because you know you’ll have a soft landing no matter
what. It’s an interesting theory. I’ll have to test it out a while longer, but for now at least I’m not feeling like contentment
and happiness are rivals the way I used to think they were. It feels truer to me that contentment is a prerequisite for real
happiness. I mean, how much can you really enjoy the flight up in the sky if you know you’re going to shatter the second you
hit the ground again?