It struck me that it was a very strange thing to think about at that particular moment. It was just a few moments ago that Warren and I resolved our divorce after two years of acrimony. As I was walking to my car from the courthouse I realized that I would never see or hear from them ever again. I would never know if they graduated from college, married, and had children. Why did I care? It seems to me that under certain circumstances a connection can never happen no matter how hard we try. Even in the best of times of our marriage a connection never happened between Warren’s two daughters and I. Circumstances can make it impossible. That was the case here I think.
It was ten years ago – the first time I met them, Teresa and Louise. They were young girls at that time and very timid and shy. They had come to my house to spend the day. Somewhat sheepishly they examined everything in the house carefully. They tried to do it so I wouldn’t notice. After checking everything out in the house they wanted to go swimming. That seemed like a good idea. Participating in an activity together usually is a good ice breaker. It is certainly beats standing around trying to make conversation with a stranger.
“Where the heck is Wentworth, Mississippi?” I asked Warren after the girls had returned home. I had never heard of it. That is where his daughters lived. It is a town of about 100,000 people. I had absolutely no point of reference to understand living in such a small town in the South. I would later discover, to my surprise, that our lack of such a common experience would be significant. In this day and age of so much national and international travel, communication and information it struck me as so odd that this difference could be so powerful.
“The girls are coming to visit for the summer,” Warren told me. They would be coming to the megalopolis of Southern California. Warren and I had married and moved there a few months earlier. They had spent vacations there before so it was familiar to them. For my family it was a new full time living environment. We had visited there but never lived there. There were a lot of firsts and new beginnings that summer. It was definitely too much change all at once but I was blind to the need to introduce change carefully in those days. Maybe this was a result of my impatient nature. I wanted everything to be resolved as fast as possible or maybe “in place” would be a better phrase.
It was, to put it mildly, crazy that first summer. We had six kids living with us ranging in age from 6 to 21. We, the parents, or at least I, were walking around on egg shells. I can’t speak for Warren. I so wanted all of us to somewhat gel, i.e, to at least arrive at an amiable tolerance of each other that had the potential to blossom into something more when everyone matured. I understood it was a difficult process. I had been through it before. I did not want to adopt the attitude of let’s wait to enjoy ourselves until the kids no longer come to visit or no longer live with us. I am not sure what Warren thought because we really didn’t talk about it. I should have pressed him to communicate about it but people’s children are such a sensitive topic. We did what I imagine most second marriage couples do – we muddled through without any thoughtful plan. Maybe we were just too involved in enjoying being with each other to formulate a plan. Did we naively think that because we were happy the children would follow suit? It is hard to believe we could think that! That first summer ended up being all about damage control.
“I’m not going to do it!” I heard someone shout downstairs. I heard some more commotion downstairs. It sounded like someone was screaming or crying. When I got to the kitchen Teresa was standing by the dishwasher with her head bowed down. The phone was in her hand. Her shoulders were shaking. In between sobs she was able to blurt out, “I have to unload the dishwasher!” I hate it here. I want to go home,” she continued. By that time the commotion had drawn an audience – pretty typical for those early days of the marriage “Did you call your mother because you have to unload the dishwasher?” I shrieked. “Everyone is pitching in and helping out. You need to the same,” I said not very nicely I’m sure. I left before I said more I would regret. The crowd dispersed. I have no idea if Teresa ever unloaded that dishwasher. I went upstairs to finish getting ready to go to the office. I was already late.
I am sure it started earlier but this was the first time I really saw it. Of course on the drive to the office I went over everything about that scene in my mind. I remember observing that my kids, except for my youngest –the six year old, were elated. Warren and Louise were silent. I know that when I spoke to Teresa she reeled to look at me with eyes filled with hatred and loathing. I knew previously there was some animosity but this was something more. Did it start that morning? Is that when the animosity turned to loathing? No, I think it started on our wedding day. On that day Teresa looked like she was attending a funeral not a wedding. She never said she was unhappy but then she didn’t need to. Her demeanor said it all.
I had intentionally asked very little of Teresa that first summer. Before this explosion Warren and I had discussed nicely with Teresa on many occasions that she had to help out at the house. Everyone had some assigned responsibilities. Her response was that she didn’t have to do any chores at home and she didn’t see why she should do any here. She managed to avoid doing anything for several weeks but eventually my children started getting angry. Children always feel like they are doing more than their siblings. It is much worse when the other sibling is a step-sibling. Truthfully Teresa was not doing anything. I had made a point of observing her for a few weeks because I didn’t want to be favoring my children or being unduly harsh on Warren’s children. I wanted to be fair. Warren acknowledged Teresa wasn’t doing anything. We discussed that she needed to pitch in. Warren was going to insist that she do some chores. I guess he must have insisted that morning. Maybe I finally insisted with him. So what happened during the first overt breakdown of the summer? I got angry, lost it and I yelled at her. As I drove to the office, I remember regretting my behavior and asking myself what it would take to make things work. I wasn’t asking for the moon. I just wanted everyone to tolerate each other. Even that may have been asking too much as I found out later. As soon as I got home that night I should have gone downstairs and apologized to Teresa for my outburst but I didn’t.
To be continued...
