My Mother's Son

The couple looked very much in love. They were older but not old. He looked to be over fifty, but I couldn't guess by how much; aside from his full, wavy, salt-and-pepper hair there wasn't anything distinctive about him. His eyes never left the woman who sat next to him in the cozy booth though. Her hair was shot through with silver too, though it was harder to tell because the rest of it was blonde. It was the bright blue eyes shining at the man that I noticed. The couple smiled and laughed easily, comfortable and secure in each other's company, and joy just radiated from their table. I'd seen them here last week as well, and they looked just as happy today.

I'd always wanted a love like theirs.

My parents' marriage was difficult, almost entirely because of my father, a sculptor. He wasn't a volatile artist -- in fact, he was quite the opposite. Introspective to a fault. Taciturn. Closed. I'd had no more than a dozen meaningful conversations with him over my twenty-eight years, and I'm not sure that my mother had many more. My mother indulged him, and not just because his works brought him fame and us not a fortune exactly, but a comfortable life. She loved him, and told him so every day.

I once asked her why he didn't care about us, and she said that he did care, but that he didn't know how to express his love, that we had to look to his art to see it. His art was mostly stylized androgynous human forms. He said that all art should speak for itself, but to me it spoke Greek. I could never make sense of it.

I carried half his genes, but I was my mother's son, a practical problem-solver with a sardonic sense of humor and an ability to read a situation and keep perspective. At least most of the time. We had no time for games. And like my mother, I seemed to be attracted to partners who were, well, challenging. Flighty, even shrill. Or withdrawn, unsharing. Every woman who interested me for more than a couple of dates turned out to be work. A lot of work. And most of the time they rejected me, usually for not being understanding enough. One called me ungenerous because I wouldn't help her finance a new car. After four dates. I don't know how my mother managed it for thirty years.

"I love him," she'd say. "Besides, he wouldn't know what to do without me."

I admired her loyalty and commitment and vowed to be that same kind of partner someday. Assuming I could find a woman who wanted me, that is.

I discovered this small family-owned restaurant not exactly by accident but more like serendipity. I'd been retained by the estate of a collector, and the restaurant and companion inn was about halfway between my condo and the estate. It was a little before noon, perfect for lunch, and it looked just too quaint to skip.

I was an appraiser, specializing in art. The hard side of art. No art has inherent value; I didn't have the discerning eye that distinguished great creation from the pedestrian, but I could tell you what other people would pay for it. I fantasized about the day that I'd be asked to assess one of my father's pieces. Maybe today would be that day.

I slid into the couple's booth to the woman's left. The man could see me, looking at her as he was. His eyebrows rose and his eyes widened.

"Hello, Mother," I said.

I thought her head might spin off as it whipped around, and then she flushed beet red when her eyes confirmed what her ears had heard. Her whatever-he-was looked alarmed, but I couldn't tell if it was my presence or her reaction causing his consternation.

"Thomas! What are you doing here?"

"Checking to see if your assignation last week was a one-off or a regular thing. I see it's an affair."

She gaped, and her paramour blushed now too.

"I -- it's not -- I...."

It might have been the first time I witnessed my mother at a total loss. I knew it wouldn't last, but I wasn't going to help her either. She finally took two deep breaths, then deliberately put her hands on either side of the plate in front of her and pushed slightly to ground herself.

"Thomas. I apologize for my manners. You surprised me. Let me introduce -- "

"Not as surprised as I am, mother. And I have no interest in knowing this asshole."

"Thomas! Please! You know better -- "

"If we're comparing transgressions, Mother, I think you win. Easily."

The whatever-he-was decided to join the conversation.

"Kate, perhaps you'd prefer to talk with your son alone? I can go to the room."

My mother looked at him gratefully and smiled.

"That might be best, darling. Thank you."

He returned the smile and slid out with only a curious glance at me. I gave him credit for not speaking to me. My mother watched him walk across the room, and when he exited she turned to me. Her eyes were hard.

"Don't you ever embarrass me like that again, Thomas. You have no right to insert yourself in my relationships, and ambushing me like this is completely unacceptable."

I felt the years of childhood conditioning kick in with a modicum of shame, but I'd had a week to game-plan this confrontation, and I also had the moral high ground, so my righteous anger overwhelmed any other feelings.

"But fucking around on Father is acceptable? Good to know what the priorities are, Mother."

As I expected, that took some wind from her sails.

"I won't pretend that I'm not involved with Frederick. I am. But there are many ways we could have had this conversation that would have been more, well, respectful than this."

"I think I've shown as much respect for your involvement with that asshole as you've shown for your marriage and your family."

She bristled at that.

"I have always respected both my marriage and my family! I have been there for your father and for you whenever you needed me. You both have always been my priority."

"And yet here you are with the asshole. For the second week in a row. Looks like a standing fuck date to me."

"There's no call for crudeness, Thomas."

"There's every call for crudeness, Mother. Did Father know about your asshole?"

"That's not your business, Thomas. No one outside a marriage knows all of the details within it."

"So all that time growing up when you were telling me so earnestly about devoting your life exclusively to one partner, that was all bullshit?"

My mother lowered her eyes. "We tell our children simple rules to help guide them, to help lessen the confusion of new experiences. We don't do as well at telling them about the exceptions. Or the gray areas."

"How convenient for you."

Her eyes came up again. "As you are no doubt aware by now, adult life is complicated."

"Is it really? Or do you just tell yourself that so you can justify doing whatever you want to do?"

She sighed. "What is it you want, Thomas?"

"I'd love to hear why everything I thought I knew about you is untrue. But I really can't see how anything you say will make any sense."

"I am still your mother, Thomas, so please show me some courtesy. And I have never lied to you."

I couldn't suppress a scoff. "You are still my mother, but apparently you and I have different definitions of lying. Remember telling me that 'a relevant omission is as bad as a lie, Thomas'?"

"I do." Her gaze didn't waver. "And my relationship with Frederick is not relevant to anything between the two of us. You and me."

"Really? Because I think having a fuckbuddy that's not my father is a pretty big deal."

Mother sighed again. "Can we please have a rational discussion without the language, Thomas?"

"Not today." I watched her press her lips together in frustration, but I continued without giving her a chance to contest my decision. I knew swearing unsettled her, and I was pissed enough to keep doing it. "How long have you and that asshole been playing hide-the-salami?"

"Thomas, please."

"You might as well tell me. Or is that not a relevant detail?"

"I've known Frederick for years. At least twenty. We've been involved almost fourteen."

Fourteen years? That took the wind from MY sails. Fourteen years, and I never suspected once. That re-jolted my anger, and I rallied.

"So you've been lying half of my life." I waited a beat, then added, "Unless he isn't your only side piece."

As I expected, that enraged her.

"How dare you? How dare you, Thomas?" I could tell she wanted to say more, but having been caught red-handed in her affair she didn't have many places to go next. She finally exhaled and said, "Frederick is the only other man in my life since I married your father."

"Speaking of Father, how did he respond when you told him about your asshole friend? Or was that another irrelevant omission?"

It was the crux of my confrontation, the question that mattered most to me, and I had been building up to it. And it hit dead center, a bullseye. Mother sagged a little and looked down again.

"You know your father. I couldn't tell him." Her head came up defiantly. "But I never let Frederick interfere with anything involving your father."

I did know my father. As well as he let me anyway. And I don't think he would have approved in the least. He may have been remote, he may have been inscrutable, but he was highly consistent, and he had a very traditional moral structure. Of course, I thought the same about my mother until a week ago, but I'd still bet on the guy. I didn't like my father much, but he did live his life according to his own principles. A life that excluded me from large parts of it.

"Hmm. So all those lectures about honesty and truth were nonsense?"

"Not nonsense. Just not complete. If I had told your father about Frederick, he would have divorced me. And that would be terrible for your father. He needs me. I am the oil in his gears. I make things work for him. He would malfunction without me."

I knew what she meant. She had always tended to him, around our home, at his studio, socially with friends, even professionally with his agent and galleries and the odd media interview. But to suggest he couldn't exist without her seemed like so much hubris.

"Shouldn't he get to make that choice?"

"His pride would blind him. He is a great artist, a great man, but he would spite himself for his pride."

"Then why fuck around on him?"

"Because Frederick sees me, appreciates me, loves me. And I like that."

"And you love him." I had seen them together for a half-hour last week and another fifteen minutes this week, so I didn't have to put it to her as a question. She simply nodded.

I had been looking off and on to the front of the restaurant, and I saw a woman dressed in a navy blue pantsuit at the hostess station scanning the tables and booths. It was time.

"After I saw you here last week I called Father."

"No! Please tell me you didn't."

"I did. I asked him if he knew where you were, who you were with. He didn't have a clue, but he got very interested very quickly."

My mother put her head in her hands.

"Oh, Thomas. What have you done? You will ruin your father."

"Me? I'm the one who will ruin him? You're the one cheating! This is all on you."

"Katherine Whitmer?" It was the woman in the suit.

"Yes?" my mother answered looking up. "Do I know you?"

"No, ma'am." She handed my mother a large manila envelope with her left hand, and she snapped a picture on her phone in her right. "You have been served."

"No, no, no, no, no. This can't be happening." Tears spilled from my mother's eyes. She wiped them away aggressively. "How could you do such a thing, Thomas?"

"You raised me to be honest."

"But not cruel! This will destroy your father. Why couldn't you have just talked with me? I could have explained it all to you without hurting anyone."

Why indeed? Maybe because the woman I trusted above all others, the one who gave me life and nurtured me through so many niggling doubts and little torments and unfamiliar feelings that felt so huge at the time, the one on whom I could always count had another relationship that gave her light, caused her to glow with attention. A relationship that she kept from me. A relationship that flew in the face of everything that she had taught me. Her affair hurt me. A lot. And I wasn't going to suffer alone.

"You told me many times that we all have to take accountability for everything that we do. You have to live with the consequences of your sordid little affair."

My mother was not usually emotional -- emotions often get in the way of practicality, and my mother was definitely practical -- but she flushed red again.

"So that's how you see me? Sordid? Little? You may think differently right now, but I will be fine. I'll have you, and I'll have Frederick, full time now. But your father will be alone. I was his link to the world, his only link. He has no friends and few colleagues, no one he talks to regularly. There is so much that he doesn't know how to do. What you've done has freed me to paradise and banished him to hell. I'm so disappointed in you."

I laughed without humor.

"No more disappointed than I am with you, Mother."

* * * * *

I wish I could say my mother was wrong, but most of what she expected did indeed come to pass.

My father was a proud man. His wife was the one person he had trusted absolutely, and her infidelity cut the legs out from beneath him. He now questioned his relationships. All of them. Suspicion replaced trust, and since his interpersonal skills were rudimentary at best he did become increasingly isolated. He had always been able to focus on his work, and in his isolation he became even more productive, but translating that production into sales and placements became harder and harder. He cycled through agents, mostly because he was unresponsive to them, and commissions completely dried up. My mother took very little of their assets in the divorce, so he was never going to be destitute, but he disappeared as a relevant voice in the art world, and he became a much smaller figure in every aspect of his life.

I tried to establish a fuller relationship with him, but we both knew that I had always favored my mother, so I just couldn't reach him. Still, I made the effort to visit, to call, to connect however I could, but he was a gray wall. I know that reticence was mostly just my father's way, but it hurt me that he wasn't interested in trying with his only child and it frustrated me that my own significant efforts yielded precious little return. But even though the sin of betrayal was not mine -- or at least not mine since adolescence -- I felt guilty about being the catalyst for his apparent misery.

And my mother did get the asshole full time. They married the day after her divorce became final. I refused any contact with her new husband. I boycotted their wedding -- I still haven't acknowledged it -- and I never went to their home, nor did I attend any event where they were together. I did run into them a couple times by chance, and I would greet my mother but ignore the asshole. My petulance exasperated my mother, but she found a balance.

"You're the one choosing, Thomas. I will never sever my relationships with either you or Frederick. I love you both, and I won't choose between you. You are the one with the problem, so you will have to find the solution yourself."

But her affair had badly damaged our relationship, so she never truly had me again. Not like before. I still spoke to her -- she was usually the initiator, but I would call her sometimes too -- and I was civil, even warm at times, but whereas we were in nearly-daily contact prior to the divorce we now might speak just once a week, sometimes less often. Whenever she brought up the asshole I excused myself from the conversation. It took a couple dozen hang-ups and walk-outs before she stopped. I missed my mother, but I became more emotionally independent out of necessity.

I know it bothered her that I wouldn't even say the asshole's name. And when I didn't invite him to my wedding she was perturbed. She never said anything to me, but Maggie reported back during our wedding preparations that my mother wished I could forgive her and accept Frederick.

"That's never going to happen," I replied, and Maggie nodded.

I met Maggie at a chamber of commerce mixer. I joined the chamber because I'd just left the small firm that trained me, and I wanted both to be a good community citizen and to see if networking would pay off, since mine was a business where word-of-mouth was the gold standard. Maggie owned a little crafts supply business, mostly online, but she did have a tiny retail space a block off the main drag in our small city.

I'm not naturally loquacious, so it fell to Maggie to introduce herself. I was distracting myself with internal conversation, trying mental approaches to the loud-and-getting-louder clique of decorators and designers hooting it up by the wine table, so I didn't see her slide up to me.

"Hi! I'm Maggie. I own Sew N Sew. It's a crafts store."

I'm not a towering presence -- I'm right on the average for height and weight -- but I looked down on Maggie. She was slight, just a wisp of woman really, but her brown eyes sparkled and her wide mouth gave me a generous smile of perfect white teeth, and I was smitten. I took her offered hand, and I could feel its strength. She clearly used it a lot.

"Thomas. I appraise art."

"How interesting. I should know more about art than I do, but maybe I can just outsource all that to you!"

We went to dinner after the mixer and closed down the restaurant. We hadn't yet exhausted our topics of discussion, so we met again for lunch the next day. And dinner the following evening. And just like that we were inseparable.

We had the conversation about fidelity early on, and I was grateful that we were on the same page. I explained what happened to my parents' marriage without protecting either my mother or my father. Maggie had no up-close-and-personal experience with infidelity, though she saw some of it with her girlfriends' reputed boyfriends, but she backed me one-hundred percent. She did ask me why I didn't see more of my mother though, since we had been so close as I grew up.

"I can tell that you miss her, Tom," she said one night over glasses of red wine. "Do you think that you're too hard on her? She cheated on your father, not on you."

I sighed. I'd worked out my feelings over the two-plus intervening years, and I was actually glad to have a chance to share them with Maggie.

"I feel betrayed too. I mean, I was an open book. I told her everything that was happening with me: what I did, who I saw, what I thought, what I felt. I shared it all. And I thought she shared everything with me too, since Father was pretty closed off to us. It was devastating to find out that she had a secret, and not just a little guilty pleasure either, but a full-blown romantic relationship outside of us, and I never had the first clue about it. The one person I idolized, the one I trusted completely, and she was withholding so much from what should have been the two most important people in her life. I still can't fathom it."

Maggie put down her wine and kissed me.

"I'll never keep a secret from you."

I was thirty when we met, and she was almost that, so we didn't have a whirlwind courtship. Our sex was frequent and varied enough to sustain our mutual interest but hardly all-consuming. We were both running our own businesses too, so we didn't have a tempestuous obsessive romance either. But we connected in so many ways from our very first meeting that our intimacy progressed relentlessly. We moved in together after eighteen months, and all it took was an engagement ring that I found after scrounging more than two dozen estate sales.

She'd met both my parents -- separately, of course, and without the asshole when we had dinner with Mother -- and I'd met her folks and three siblings and partners and nieces and nephews on many occasions. Her family seemed far more normal than mine, and I enjoyed the hurly-burly of their gatherings with simultaneous conversations and constant interruptions and good-natured teasing and laughter and even a raised voice once in a while. That sort of kinetic family was foreign to me, and I found it not just refreshing but stimulating.