A Bittersweet Goodnight by Linda C Wright

Author:Linda C Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2019-12-06T19:20:37+00:00

“Forget what hurt you, but never forget what it taught you.” - Anonymous

Chapter Eighteen

December 7, 1974

Dear Hath,

I have a couple of Christmas “presents” for you. I hope you’ll accept them; they are all I have at the moment.

One - Linda will be home on the 13th. We are going to Detroit the 20th until the 25th, but feel free to have her with you whenever you wish. She’ll be working as a file clerk while she’s here - but her evenings and weekends are yours, if you want them.

Second - I’ve been saying for several years that our divorce was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I really mean that!!! For you, now, I say thank God you had the courage to make the break. I never could have and we probably both would have lost.

I love it here in New York. Life is lovelier for me than it has been for many, many years.

Thank you. My best to you and June and a Merry Christmas.

Sallie

As I read this letter from my mother to my father that June had kept all these years in my box, I felt I was being used as a piece of property to be given or taken away at will. A child’s view of his or her parent’s divorce is a far different thing than that of anyone else. Stepping back into this time through the words of my mother opened up wounds I kept stitched shut for decades.

As I sat on the floor of my warm and cozy office space in a spare bedroom, memories flooded forward and overflowed until I couldn’t hold them back any longer.

***

My senior year in college was nothing short of a freaking nightmare. My long time boyfriend broke up with me in September and all the fun I expected to have as a senior on the brink of real adult life, flitted away in a fog of disbelief.

I’d gone to college four years earlier with no real plan in mind. I only wanted to escape my mother’s grip and be free to do whatever I wanted. No curfew, no rules. High school classes had been easy for me, though I wasn’t a scholar I graduated in the top 20% of my class. I was accepted to every college I applied to including a few pricey private ones I was not allowed to attend. I chose Bowling Green State University arriving there one chilly fall day in 1973 without any idea of what college life would turn out to be.

Studying had never been my strong suit while in college, drinking had been, and my grades reflected that. Somehow I managed to stay enrolled. Between Friday afternoon “teas” with the fraternity boys and Thursday nights downtown bar hopping, I managed to find an excuse to drown my sorrows seven days a week.

Looking back, I fell into the trap all my friends did at that time. We were college girls fully expecting to start exciting careers of some

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