The Survivors by Adam Frankel

Author:Adam Frankel [Frankel, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2019-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

20

Genealogical Bewilderment

With Mom and Dad at Cambridge Beaches in 1985.

Courtesy of the author

I DON’T HAVE A lot of memories of Mom and Dad before they separated. Mostly, what I remember are fragments. That fight in Bermuda. The sound of Mom shouting. The crack of their bedroom door slamming. That, I think, is why I never really wondered why they split up. It wasn’t like I’d seen their marriage fall apart; I’d never really known them as a couple.

That’s not to say I never asked about it. Once, in high school, I raised the subject with my mom. We were sitting at our dining room table, having one of our nightly meals together.

She gave the beginnings of an answer before cutting herself off.

“No, I can’t tell you that,” she said. “You’re too young.”

“Too young?” I asked.

She wouldn’t say any more—and I didn’t push.

I also have another, older memory. I’m four or so, clutching my mother’s hand as she lies in bed. She seems tired, sick.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

She says something about a baby.

Along with these memories are others, different ones. Growing up, I always thought it was strange how little I resembled my dad. I’d often go up to the mirror, scouring my features for similarities to his and feeling a rush of happiness, a sort of reassurance, when I’d find one. The way my cheek curved. The arch of my nose from a certain angle.

On those few occasions when someone did tell me how much I looked like my dad, I’d always be surprised. Maybe I do look like him after all, I’d tell myself.

All these memories lay dormant until, like some ghostly vessel exhumed from the ocean depths, they resurfaced sometime in early 2006. I’d moved back to New York City after working on the Kerry campaign in DC, and I was living at home while helping Sorensen finish the book.

Mom and I were spending a lot of time together, more than we’d spent since I’d left for college. I suspect anyone who has tried living at home after college has found it challenging. Even the closest relationships with parents can become strained with such proximity, as I was beginning to see for myself.

I discovered how sensitive, how easily offended, my mother could be—more so than when I’d been younger. How quickly a conversation could go sideways. Mom had been out of work for some time, and after one potential employer failed to get back to her, I told her it might be because they didn’t have any jobs she’d done before. “You get hired to do lots of jobs you’ve never done before,” she snapped. Of course I did, I thought. I was only a few years out of college. I’d never done anything before.

All those months together in that apartment meant a lot of unstructured time to fill with conversations. And at some point, I broached the subject I’d raised at that dinner table all those years earlier—about why she and my dad split up.

I don’t recall exactly why I raised it.

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