Member-only story
BOOKS
No More I Love You’s
CH. 2 || DON’T CRY: MEMOIR OF A BIPOLAR MOTHER OF SIX
I kept seeing the ads on TV: Woodstock ‘94. It was happening later this summer, said the pay-per-view channel advertisements. Dad rolled his eyes when I asked about it at dinner.
“Come on. The sixties are over,” he groaned in mock-annoyance and tilted his head to the right, baiting Mom a little bit with his grin.
Mom and Dad. Were two people so opposite ever joined in marriage?
Dad wasn’t a Navy pilot anymore, but he was still in the military world—inside the buildings in Crystal City, filled with high-and-tight haircuts and important, swinging dicks. Mom was ten immensities away, going to wine tastings after work, dressing more and more like a bohemian, and sometimes helping with abortions at the reproductive health clinic she worked at in Georgetown. I knew, because through the closed door to their bedroom — all the way from downstairs, and from the shelter I’d taken in front of the TV — I’d heard her the previous night, hysterically sobbing to Dad about a particularly hard day at work.
That awful night, I lay on my back in front of the TV cabinet, my feet splayed into the air as if I were getting a Pap smear. I tried to focus on the sitcom in front of me. For an eleven-year-old…
