My First Inkling That Something Was Wrong

My first inkling that something was wrong was when Mom said she couldn’t keep the kids.

“I don’t understand,” I told Dan later. “She’s always saying she doesn’t know how she could go on if it weren’t for her grandchildren.”

“Maybe she’s just busy,” Dan shrugged. “We’ll find a babysitter.”

“What if she’s sick? What if she’s got some terminal illness she’s not telling me about? I’ve heard stress and depression can cause…”

“Jenn, I’m sure she’s fine.”

How could my own husband be so nonchalant? Ignoring him, I plowed ahead. “Do you know what really tipped me off that something was wrong?”

Before Dan could respond, I blurted out the most surprising part of my conversation with Mom. “She said maybe Dad and Allison could keep them!”

I was gratified to see Dan’s eyebrows shoot up. He obviously realized Mom’s suggestion that Dad and his girlfriend keep our children was totally out of character. But then, infuriatingly, he said, “Wouldn’t hurt to ask them.”

“Dan, are you kidding me? Allison is a complete bimbo! She’s only two years older than me! And they’ve never, ever offered to keep the kids!”

I thought of Allison, the woman Dad had left Mom for. Dad seemed so proud of her and so pleased with himself. He didn’t notice the smug way Allison simpered at me when she said, ‘Oh, Jenn, I hope we can be such good friends! I could use some girl talk after being around men all day!”

The first time I met her, I stifled the urge to laugh and high-five my four-year-old daughter when Kaylie spilled red Kool-Aid on Allison’s tight white Chanel dress.

“Shit, this probably won’t come out!” Allison glared at Kaylie, dropping all pretense of liking kids as the dark stain spread across her lap. I waited for Dad’s expression to change from adoration to disgust when he realized what his girlfriend was really like, but he turned on us, instead! “You shouldn’t let Kaylie walk around with Kool-Aid. A kid that young is bound to spill it.”

That was the last time I took Kaylie and three-year-old Benjamin to see them, although Dad didn’t seem to care. Allison had bewitched him. I couldn’t understand how Mom had missed the signs: late nights when he claimed to be working; increased travel at a time when he could have settled into semi-retirement; canceling a vacation he and Mom had planned for months.

But Mom didn’t have an inkling that anything was wrong. She slaved away, entertaining Dad’s clients and keeping up with the paperwork that went along with running a business while Dad traveled all over the country with his Sales Rep.

The worst part of it was, How could a middle-aged woman with a thickening waistline, crows feet and hair going gray possibly compete? Mom didn’t seem healthy the last time I saw her, either. She had a hacking cough that wouldn’t go away and complained of stomach pains.

The whole thing upset me so much that I spent the summer at Dan’s parents’ summer home, thinking a beach getaway would be good for me and the kids. I hadn’t seen Mom in over a month, so I thought she’d be thrilled about having the kids for a weekend.

“I’m going over there,” I announced as Dan, apparently unconcerned, dug into a bag of potato chips. “I’m not waiting for Kaylie and Benjamin to wake up from their naps. I need to find out right now what’s wrong with Mom, and she won’t talk if the kids are clamoring for attention.”

“I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” Dan said. “But do whatever it takes to ease your mind.”

I started feeling guilty as soon as I pulled into Mom’s driveway. How could I have left her for the summer, especially after she developed that hacking cough? But Mom had insisted. “Go ahead and stay at the beach, Jennifer. I’ll be fine. I know this thing with Dad has been upsetting for you.”

Entering through the garage door, I called out so she wouldn’t think a burglar was rummaging through the house. “Mom?”

She wasn’t in the kitchen or the family room and the quiet was a little unsettling since her Acura TLX was in the garage. It seemed eerie to be creeping around the house I grew up in without Mom or Dad right around the corner. Maybe she was upstairs napping or at a neighbor’s. Or maybe something terrible had happened!

All kinds of worrisome thoughts tumbled around in my mind before I spotted her in the sunroom. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until I let it out in a long, relieved sigh. “Mom! I didn’t know where you were!”

“Jenn, is that you?” Mom whirled around, and to my utter amazement, I saw that she sat in front of an easel holding a paintbrush. She turned back and added a few feathery brush strokes, finishing touches to the red roof of a house. Even more surprising were the paintings propped all over the sun room. There were landscapes and seascapes, some as placid as the painting she was working on and others a turbulence of gray ocean swells and foaming white caps.

“Mom! Since when did you start painting?”

“I majored in Art Education, you know. I never had time when you and your brother were small to do anything with it, and when you were older my time was taken up with your dad’s business. But I’ve always wanted to get back to it. What do you think?”

“They’re great!” I glanced at the art, a plethora of canvases, then focused on my mother. “Mom, you look….different.” Her hair, longer than I had ever seen it, was pulled back in a casual ponytail. A few tendrils escaped and curled around her face, which seemed thinner. Instead of the slacks or skirts and blouses she always wore when Dad was around, she had on faded, paint-spattered jeans and a T shirt that hugged her figure.

“Have you lost weight?”

“I’ve been running,” Mom said. “I realized I needed to get my health back.”

As if all this weren’t surprising enough, I felt totally gob smacked by what happened next. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell Dan, who would be almost as shocked as I was.

“You won’t believe it,” I said later, after we had put the kids to bed. “I never even knew she painted. And then, just when I was getting used to the idea that my mother is an artist who looks kind of sexy for somebody her age…” I paused, letting my words lay the groundwork for the bomb I was about to drop.

“We were in the sun room talking, and this guy, at least 10 years younger than Mom, comes strolling in! He glances at me, says ‘You must be Jennifer,’ kisses Mom like it’s an everyday occurrence, and she introduces us. His name’s Eric something or other. And Dan, get this. The guy’s a hunk!”

I thought Dan would act shocked or outraged; maybe even say my mom was having a mid-life crisis, had lost her mind or that we needed to recruit Dad for some kind of intervention. But all he said was, “I guess we need to find a new babysitter.”