I always thought that selective memory was something that I had better than anyone else, excluding my father, in my family. After all, I am the only one who has an unadulterated view of my childhood, who believed my parents were happily married at one point, and who doesn’t remember carving her initials into the dryer when my parents brought it home from Sears. However, there is one memory that I have in vivid detail that others present have forgotten. Maybe it is that this moment holds in it my deepest regrets that I have not been able to look past it, as my sisters and father have.
Mom was in London; more importantly, she had been in London for nearly five months. Even Dad, who had two deaf ears and two blind eyes when it came to the real world, had begun to suspect that something wasn’t right with their marriage. I had escaped the brunt of it by running away to “I-want-to-be-a-senator-when-I-grow-up camp”, as Heather called it. Someday I won’t even remember that it was called Junior Statesmen of America. All that mattered was that I lived in my own world of political science nerds and Starbucks. Nora and Heather, who lived in Boston, drove out to see me at Yale. Joyce had been abandoned at home. She saw the liquor bottles in the fridge, and she saw the websites listed on our computer’s history.
That is what the fight was about, though even that may have been a surface reason. I got home from Yale, and Nora from Boston; and Dad still waited for Mom with growing despair. We had visited her in England with possibly the worst results of a family vacation to date. The cords had to snap. Naturally, the breaking began on the side of Joyce. Dad yelled about something—he often yelled about nothing—and Joyce no longer felt the need to take it, not when she felt so much disgust for him. The two yelled, which shouldn’t have surprised anyone. That’s how they communicated.
Nora, on the other hand, likes the world to be fluffy pink and blue, perhaps out of unwillingness to give in to her manic depression the way Dad and Joyce have. She began to intercede on Joyce’s behalf, to try to calm Dad down and stop the hurt. I was in the room the whole time, listening with the practiced passivity I have developed in a family of high-strung individuals. I determined not to be a part of that stupid anger; until, that is, Dad yelled at Nora. Her eyes brimmed with tears, and my heart filled with very articulate rage. I stepped up.
I don’t remember the exact words he said to Nora, except that it ended with “I’m just so damned depressed.” Those words, that phrase, held no meaning to us anymore after having heard them so many times—like PTSD, a hiss and a by-word, the phrase used to caricature Dad. No more would he get away with the pouting routine! “Everyone gets depressed, Dad, but that is no excuse to abandon moral and parental responsibilities.” I went on, systematically naming all his shortcomings in perfect destroying diction. “F— you!” he bellowed. “I hate you!” I screamed back, throwing a tantrum like I had never done as a child. I ran to my room, literally throwing myself in my closet. I landed hard on top of my shoes and cried until Nora came in. She kept him away from me until I chose to see him. Nora always has stood up for others better than she has for herself.
Nora told the story to Heather, the sardonic hard case of the family, who praised my performance. Now, however, Nora does not remember the event ever occurring. For Joyce it is a vague recollection of one of the times she and Dad fought. I haven’t asked Dad if he remembers it. I finally understand why Nora chose to let it go. Her “la vie en rose” approach to life would be tainted by this ugly scene. She couldn’t have remembered it and forgiven any of us. To her, forgiveness means literally remembering it no more. Now I alone remember how awful that day was, what exactly everyone did that was unforgivable and how we all managed to forgive each other for it. For me, the fact that I remember serves as much of a lesson as what I remember. I just wish I could ask Nora for the details; because, like I said, I was pretty articulate.
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