talk so loud?’
‘Good question. And here’s the answer: Because I had a mother who was always screaming at everybody and complained a lot about how life had been one big let-down, and how: “If you want to be really disappointed by things, then you should definitely have children.”’
‘Charming.’
‘That she wasn’t.’
‘She’s dead?’
‘They’re all dead. My dad, my mom, my brother Phil . . .’
‘How old was he when he died?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘Had he been sick?’
‘It was suicide, so, yeah, he’d been sick.’
‘Why did he—?’
‘Hang himself in his bedroom on Christmas Eve 1979 . . . ?’
‘Oh, my word.’
‘Can’t you be American and use “fuck”?’
‘That is just horrible.’
‘Fucking horrible. I was twelve at the time and my big brother was just home from his sophomore year at the University of Pennsylvania. It was a big deal in my family, the first-born – the guy – getting accepted into an Ivy League university, being pre-Med and all that. What my parents didn’t know is that, after a brilliant first year, near straight As, he had some kind of breakdown and suddenly got a C in Biochemistry. Now for anyone who’s pre-Med, a C in Biochemistry is a huge setback. And Mom gets his report card on December 23rd. Having nothing better to do – and being fucking Mom – she begins to do this vast big number on him, saying how he’s a huge disappointment, how she’d given up everything to raise him, and this is how he repaid her. My mom ruined everything – and everyone – she touched. And if I’m sounding like a shrink, well . . . I did do nine years of the talking cure after finding my brother hanging from the clothes rail in his closet.’
‘You found him?’
‘That’s what I said.’
She paused and downed the Martini, then put her hand up for a third one.
‘Not for me,’ I said when she tried to order two.
‘You’re having one – like it or not. Because if there’s one thing I know about life, it’s the fact that everyone needs to get drunk from time to time – even you, Miss Propriety.’
‘Your parents must have been devastated after—’
‘Dad died about six months after Phil. Throat cancer – the payback for forty years of non-stop cigarettes. He was only fifty-six and I’m pretty damn sure that everything started metastasizing after Phil killed himself.’
Trish said she never wavered in dealing with her mother after that. When her mother tried to make phone contact Trish changed her number. When she had an uncle and a second cousin show up at her office to make entreaties, she refused to see them.
‘“Surely you’ll feel terrible if she suddenly dies on you,” they all told me on the phone, to which I could only say: “No, I won’t feel a single iota of guilt.”’
‘And when it finally happened . . . ?’ I asked.
‘That was around three years after my dad went. Mom was driving to the mall near our house in Morristown and had a mild coronary. The car went out of control and crossed over into the oncoming lane, and there was this motherfucker of a truck barreling down the highway – and splat . I was an orphan.’
She downed the dregs of the Martini. Like anyone who was staring down into the bottom of a third Martini, she was seriously smashed. So, for that matter, was I. The difference between us was that, when I spoke, I wasn’t shouting at the top of my lungs.
‘You want to know if I felt guilt afterwards?’ she asked, sounding like she was talking through a megaphone. ‘Of course I felt fucking guilt. The cunt was my fucking mother and even if she was a total scumbag who drove my poor screwed-up brother to lynch himself with a fucking Boy Scout’s belt . . .’
That’s when a guy in a tux showed up at our table, informed us that he was the hotel’s duty manager, and that we were to settle the check and leave the premises immediately.
‘Listen, asshole, you’re gonna have to get every
‘Good question. And here’s the answer: Because I had a mother who was always screaming at everybody and complained a lot about how life had been one big let-down, and how: “If you want to be really disappointed by things, then you should definitely have children.”’
‘Charming.’
‘That she wasn’t.’
‘She’s dead?’
‘They’re all dead. My dad, my mom, my brother Phil . . .’
‘How old was he when he died?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘Had he been sick?’
‘It was suicide, so, yeah, he’d been sick.’
‘Why did he—?’
‘Hang himself in his bedroom on Christmas Eve 1979 . . . ?’
‘Oh, my word.’
‘Can’t you be American and use “fuck”?’
‘That is just horrible.’
‘Fucking horrible. I was twelve at the time and my big brother was just home from his sophomore year at the University of Pennsylvania. It was a big deal in my family, the first-born – the guy – getting accepted into an Ivy League university, being pre-Med and all that. What my parents didn’t know is that, after a brilliant first year, near straight As, he had some kind of breakdown and suddenly got a C in Biochemistry. Now for anyone who’s pre-Med, a C in Biochemistry is a huge setback. And Mom gets his report card on December 23rd. Having nothing better to do – and being fucking Mom – she begins to do this vast big number on him, saying how he’s a huge disappointment, how she’d given up everything to raise him, and this is how he repaid her. My mom ruined everything – and everyone – she touched. And if I’m sounding like a shrink, well . . . I did do nine years of the talking cure after finding my brother hanging from the clothes rail in his closet.’
‘You found him?’
‘That’s what I said.’
She paused and downed the Martini, then put her hand up for a third one.
‘Not for me,’ I said when she tried to order two.
‘You’re having one – like it or not. Because if there’s one thing I know about life, it’s the fact that everyone needs to get drunk from time to time – even you, Miss Propriety.’
‘Your parents must have been devastated after—’
‘Dad died about six months after Phil. Throat cancer – the payback for forty years of non-stop cigarettes. He was only fifty-six and I’m pretty damn sure that everything started metastasizing after Phil killed himself.’
Trish said she never wavered in dealing with her mother after that. When her mother tried to make phone contact Trish changed her number. When she had an uncle and a second cousin show up at her office to make entreaties, she refused to see them.
‘“Surely you’ll feel terrible if she suddenly dies on you,” they all told me on the phone, to which I could only say: “No, I won’t feel a single iota of guilt.”’
‘And when it finally happened . . . ?’ I asked.
‘That was around three years after my dad went. Mom was driving to the mall near our house in Morristown and had a mild coronary. The car went out of control and crossed over into the oncoming lane, and there was this motherfucker of a truck barreling down the highway – and splat . I was an orphan.’
She downed the dregs of the Martini. Like anyone who was staring down into the bottom of a third Martini, she was seriously smashed. So, for that matter, was I. The difference between us was that, when I spoke, I wasn’t shouting at the top of my lungs.
‘You want to know if I felt guilt afterwards?’ she asked, sounding like she was talking through a megaphone. ‘Of course I felt fucking guilt. The cunt was my fucking mother and even if she was a total scumbag who drove my poor screwed-up brother to lynch himself with a fucking Boy Scout’s belt . . .’
That’s when a guy in a tux showed up at our table, informed us that he was the hotel’s duty manager, and that we were to settle the check and leave the premises immediately.
‘Listen, asshole, you’re gonna have to get every
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