February 2, 2004
OUTLAW TERRITORY
I often sniff a dissonant scent in the familial abode, much as a properly trained canine will sniff Semtex in a death cultist's drawers, should said cultist's faith allow the wearing of such pretentious garb. I feel a stranger to the aura wafting through my own house, and find it disconcerting.
To wit: The Bride arrived home about six o'clock, like me; I had picked up dinner, because she had two contract counteroffers to write up and pass by her sellers, and three new listings to put to paper. About three or four hours' work. So what does she do? She spends forty five minutes talking to her mother. Because she wants to? No, not at that point. But her mother is a needy, miserable wretch, who is convinced she had a Bad Childhood (Daddy gambled, and cheated, and occasionally lashed out with a coathanger. Sounds rather mundane to me. No drinking?) Now she is determined that her family will spend the rest of her life pandering to her in an effort to make her feel special, a princess grandmother in a dangerous fiction.
That never works, of course, but The Bride feels these efforts will keep the peace. They do not. They extend the appeasement. You cannot make happy a person determined to be miserable. I gave up explaining this a long time ago, lest I be lumped into the cast of ogres, and trolls, and devourers of plump lost Bavarian kindergarteners.
The next half hour is spent on the phone with her father, who must then extract his pound of flesh. He has lived with, and enabled, his wife for so long that his life has become a vicious cycle of appeasement and avoidance. And he wants to talk to his daughter, too. When he's allowed to. When it's his turn.
This is what I mean by the odd olfactory sensation. It doesn't smell like a home should, sometimes. Because I don't understand these dynamics between kin. Now, no family is perfect. Why, Hugh Beaumont was a raving drunkard. But a person should be able to come home, see their children fed and homework done, and turn to buttoning up the day's work. Not keeping someone from going bilious with rage because she or the granddaughters haven't called that day (I'm that bastard. I'm immune because I'm an uncaring heartless son of a bitch. I created that construct years ago, by refusing to the play the game, and it works fine).
I know there is some level of jealousy at work here. I'd love to be able to speak to my parents, just once. So I'm sure I'm resentful on some level. But I wouldn't trade three lifetimes for the nanny The Bride must be for a hoo-there on the phone with my parents.
I feel for The Bride, I really do, but I've also learned these areas are heavily mined, and it's always the third party who loses limbs playing there.
So when I lay me down to sleep, I pray I never have to turn the fourth bedroom into an in-law suite. And when a well-intentioned friend tells me about a job in Savannah, I say "Thank you, no. Fuck no".