respectful period of solo divorc é hood, my father went and found himself a better familyâor thatâs how I viewed events at the timeâa shrewd move, it must be said, because in 1986 my father, by then married to a petite blonde, a tragic widow named Carla, with two sweet blond daughters, Marcy and Steph, was elected to the Maine House of Representatives, 120th district. His wife bore him a son, Joe Junior. I baked him pound cake.
The cake was supposed to be a peace offering on my part, an apology for bringing shame on our family and a congratulations to my dad for his new, more successful lifeâalthough Iâm sure to my father the act of baking was nothing more than further confirmation that I had never been cut out for a role in The Kennedy Plan. Anyway, I would never have cooked the thing had I known at the time what my brother told me in a bar many years later, that my father had in fact first met Carla all the way back in 1976âat the Democratic National Convention in New York City, at which time Carlaâs husband was very much alive. Apparently, shortly after the party nominated Jimmy Carter for president, my father and Carla made their way to a midtown hotel, where I imagine they discussed Ford v. Carter at great length.
For the next six years Dad and Carla continued their affair at various political functions across the Northeastâa meeting of minds, my father told Sean, my mom never having been the worldâs most enthusiastic party foot soldierâuntil, with his seat in New York seemingly lost, wouldnât you know it, we upped sticks and moved to a house less than a mile from the home of my fatherâs mistress.
But for almost seventeen years I would continue to believe that the reason for our move, and my parentsâ subsequent divorce, was all because of something Iâd doneâor hadnât done, I suppose you could say.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
MOM WAS ADAMANT THAT SHE didnât want her boys moving school again, so we stayed put in our neat house, a family home fit for a modest politician on the rise. Wanting to avoid the black mark of a messy divorce, mainly for the sake of my fatherâs political ambitions, my parents agreed financial arrangements between them without resorting to a court. But either Mom was too sheepish to ask for much, or Dad was too skilled a negotiator to offer a comfortable monthly sum, which meant that, struggling to pay the mortgage and bills on a house slightly larger than we needed, my now-single mother had to find work. And so, having nothing recent or of note on her r é sum é other than homemaker, she took various cleaning jobs in private homes and dental practices, car dealerships and real estate offices. And when she wasnât cleaning, even if she was at home around dinnertime, she was always too tired to prepare food, so instead of home-cooked meals, we ate sterile TV dinners from segmented foil trays. One day my brother, his Salisbury steak only half-eaten, dropped his tray to the floor and said, Mom, this crap tastes like death.
Grateful for my brotherâs bluntness, I was about to toss my tray as well when I saw that Mom had started to cry.
I cooked my first ever meal the next day from a recipe I found on the side of a pasta box. Our mom still gave us an allowance, even though she never had anything to spend on herself, and so I had enough money to buy vegetables, canned tomatoes and ricotta. We already had some ground beef in the freezer and although I couldnât afford Parmesan and mozzarella, I knew there was some waxy orange cheddar in the fridge, so I used that instead.
I think that lasagna turned out pretty well. My brother said it wasnât bad and when my mom finished her last forkful, she cried for the second night running.
Gradually I became quite the home economist. Mom would tell me how much money we had to spend on food each week and I would budget. I bought secondhand cookbooks
The cake was supposed to be a peace offering on my part, an apology for bringing shame on our family and a congratulations to my dad for his new, more successful lifeâalthough Iâm sure to my father the act of baking was nothing more than further confirmation that I had never been cut out for a role in The Kennedy Plan. Anyway, I would never have cooked the thing had I known at the time what my brother told me in a bar many years later, that my father had in fact first met Carla all the way back in 1976âat the Democratic National Convention in New York City, at which time Carlaâs husband was very much alive. Apparently, shortly after the party nominated Jimmy Carter for president, my father and Carla made their way to a midtown hotel, where I imagine they discussed Ford v. Carter at great length.
For the next six years Dad and Carla continued their affair at various political functions across the Northeastâa meeting of minds, my father told Sean, my mom never having been the worldâs most enthusiastic party foot soldierâuntil, with his seat in New York seemingly lost, wouldnât you know it, we upped sticks and moved to a house less than a mile from the home of my fatherâs mistress.
But for almost seventeen years I would continue to believe that the reason for our move, and my parentsâ subsequent divorce, was all because of something Iâd doneâor hadnât done, I suppose you could say.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
MOM WAS ADAMANT THAT SHE didnât want her boys moving school again, so we stayed put in our neat house, a family home fit for a modest politician on the rise. Wanting to avoid the black mark of a messy divorce, mainly for the sake of my fatherâs political ambitions, my parents agreed financial arrangements between them without resorting to a court. But either Mom was too sheepish to ask for much, or Dad was too skilled a negotiator to offer a comfortable monthly sum, which meant that, struggling to pay the mortgage and bills on a house slightly larger than we needed, my now-single mother had to find work. And so, having nothing recent or of note on her r é sum é other than homemaker, she took various cleaning jobs in private homes and dental practices, car dealerships and real estate offices. And when she wasnât cleaning, even if she was at home around dinnertime, she was always too tired to prepare food, so instead of home-cooked meals, we ate sterile TV dinners from segmented foil trays. One day my brother, his Salisbury steak only half-eaten, dropped his tray to the floor and said, Mom, this crap tastes like death.
Grateful for my brotherâs bluntness, I was about to toss my tray as well when I saw that Mom had started to cry.
I cooked my first ever meal the next day from a recipe I found on the side of a pasta box. Our mom still gave us an allowance, even though she never had anything to spend on herself, and so I had enough money to buy vegetables, canned tomatoes and ricotta. We already had some ground beef in the freezer and although I couldnât afford Parmesan and mozzarella, I knew there was some waxy orange cheddar in the fridge, so I used that instead.
I think that lasagna turned out pretty well. My brother said it wasnât bad and when my mom finished her last forkful, she cried for the second night running.
Gradually I became quite the home economist. Mom would tell me how much money we had to spend on food each week and I would budget. I bought secondhand cookbooks
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