Tuesday, Jan. 04, 2005
6:24 p.m.
<< [ Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery ] >>
We've just pulled up to a building, maybe a doctor's office, I'm not really sure. It's hard to see over the dashboard.
"Mommy, what are we doing?"
I haven't really been paying attention to my mother in the seat to my left, and at that particular moment, I don't even notice that she's paused extra long after stopping the car. I don't even notice that all her movements are forced. I don't notice that she's sniffling.
"Mommy's going to the doctor."
"How come?"
I'm still fidgeting around the seatbelt, really, I'm much too young to be sitting in the front seat, but I'm a big girl now and I wanted it this way and there's no way I could admit that this is anything but wonderful.
"Because Mommy doesn't want to get sick if Daddy gets sick from his lady friend."
The severity of what she's saying doesn't even really hit me until years later, when I'm old enough to know what infidelity is.
"Oh. Are there going to be needles?"
"Yes."
"Oh. I don't like needles."
The seatbelt is still cutting into my throat. Fade to black.
It's maybe the same day, maybe a week or two later when I'm meeting one of Daddy's friends from work. She's an Indian lady with a pretty face and a baby wrapped in a pink blanket held to her with one arm. She's smiling and I'm looking at her, trying to be friendly, wondering Is this Daddy's lady friend? Is that my baby brother or sister she's holding?
Rewind to my mother in the car, rewind to the seatbelt and the sadness. Fast forward to when I'm standing in the family room looking out the window into our backyard, asking my mother how many times he's cheated on her.
How many times, she asks, or how many different people?
Seven, she says.
Seven.
And I couldn't have been any older than that.