Chapter Three: Forever Young

As Debbie’s car approached my parents’ driveway, seeing my house at the end of it and knowing that my mother wouldn’t be there to greet me took my breath away.  It’s a long driveway at about 800 feet.  The drive down the unpaved road was slow on the ice.  Still, I didn’t cry.  I just sat there in the passenger seat in complete shock. 

From the outside, the house looked dark, empty, and cold. My father designed and built our home back in the 70’s.  In addition to being a physician, my dad is an architect, a builder, writer, musician, and composer – a true renaissance man. He fought to abandon the mold of the “square-shaped” room when designing our house.  Most of the rooms in it are oddly shaped, with ceilings that rise and dip into strange patterns.  At the center of the foyer’s ceiling are glass cube windows that form a small cathedral at its top; likely scoring my father a few bonus points, in his mind, against his long-time enemy, God. But as Debbie’s car approached my house now, I was reminded of the house it had once been, before I met Jason and started a family.  It looked full of desperation and despair.  I tried so hard to breathe happiness and life back into that house throughout my thirties.  Having brought the children home as babies seemed to have done the trick at the time.  It forced my mother to locate my baby toys and crib and haul them back up from the basement for my own children to use.  As an extended family, we created new and happy memories there that I hoped would outweigh all the bad ones from years past.  I even purposefully waited to feed Chloe her first “meal” of baby food solids for a trip back home to visit my parents.  I took lots of pictures and created photo albums of these things all in the name of erasing the sadness.  I was actively fighting the ominous cloud that had resided above that residence for so many years. In a flash, with my mother now gone, however, it suddenly seemed to have all been done in vain.

My father answered the door as Debbie drove off, his face now elongated due to his new teeth.  I barely recognized him as we embraced. A familiar scent of burning wood from the woodstove floated out to greet me as soon as he opened the door.

“Dad.”  

“Darian.”  

I hugged him as tightly as I could, then we pulled apart, still holding each other’s hands.  I looked deeply into his eyes to make sure he was all right.

“She’s gone.  Your mother is gone,” my father said.

“I know, Papa.  I still can’t believe it.”  

“Come inside, it’s too cold out here.”

I walked past him into the house.  I looked around the foyer towards the spiral staircase to make sure it was really true. 

“It feels like she should be walking down those stairs right now,” I said, still wondering if it might happen. 

“She won’t.  She is dead.”  He nodded his head up and down, as if still trying to convince himself of this new reality.  I turned around and looked at my dad, trying to take everything in.

“You look amazing, Dad.  You have teeth!  Let me see,” I said as I walked back towards him.  My father tried to open his mouth.

“I can’t, it hurts too much.  It even hurts to talk.  My face is swollen.  I am hoping I will look better by tomorrow.”

“I think you look really good.”

“Really?  My face doesn’t look too long?”

“No.  It’s longer than it was, but you didn’t have any teeth before, so that’s to be expected.  I actually think you look quite handsome.  I’m not just saying that to make you feel good.”

“All right then.  If you say so, I will believe you.  I must look good.”  My father bent over, reaching for my suitcase.  “Here, let me help you with your luggage.”

“No, I’ve got it, Dad.  I only have the one bag.”  I pulled the suitcase from him.  “I’ll go throw this upstairs and then meet you back down by the fire.”

I walked into my old room and set my bag on the floor.  The room was freezing so I walked over to the thermostat and turned it up.  Then I peeked into my old bathroom.  Everything was immaculate, as if my mom had been expecting me.  It bothered me that she spent her last hours on this earth cleaning that stupid house.  But then it occurred to me that that’s probably how I would want my house to look on the day I died too.  The thought comforted me enough to walk back downstairs and join my father in front of the woodstove.  I walked into the family room and found my dad in his usual chair in front of the fire.  I carefully sat down in my mom’s old chair across the room from him feeling, for the moment, like a slight substitute.

“Your mother died in that chair,” my father said as his voice cracked, and his eyes began to wet.  My face contorted into an expression of slight shock as I shot back out of the chair and walked over to the sofa.

“She died in her chair?” I asked, a little freaked out.

“Yes, let me show you what happened.”

I wanted to object to the reenactment, but it was already too late.  My dad shot up and quickly walked over to her chair.  It was then that I realized he had been waiting to share this story with somebody for the past two days, so I allowed him to tell it. 

“She was sitting here.  I was sitting in my chair.  We are watching the Olympics and out of nowhere she screams.  The scream doesn’t even last for two seconds and then her body goes limp like this.”

My dad imitated the scream and then allowed his head to fall forward.  Then, without pause, he went through the motions and story once again.  As he told it for the second time, I noticed a crumpled piece of paper underneath her chair.  I stood up and walked towards her chair to grab it off the floor.  

“Oh, that’s nothing,” my father said.  “You can throw it away.  It’s the wrapper from the needle the paramedics injected into your mother’s heart when they were trying to resuscitate her.”  Then he picked back up where he had left off in his story.  Tears began to roll down my cheeks as I brought the wrapper to my heart, holding it there, and I began to cry harder.  Then my dad stopped talking and he began to cry with me.

“I’m sorry, this is probably too much right now,” my dad said.  “We can talk about it more tomorrow.  You had a long trip. Maybe you should get some sleep.  How about we go to Walmart tomorrow?”

“Huh?” I asked, confused by the sudden topic change.

“It will be good for us to get out of the house.  I go there every other day.  I see people there that I know.  We talk.  It’s a nice time.”

“Walmart?” I asked.

“They have vedy good prices.  Your mother was getting chicken there for nearly half the price of what she was paying at the other store.” 

That’s when it occurred to me that my dad didn’t know how to cook.

“You don’t know how to cook, do you Dad?”

“No, I haven’t eaten in two days.  But I have no appetite, so it has been fine.  Actually, with the surgery, I couldn’t eat today anyway.”

“Oh my God, Dad.  Let me make you something.”

“No, I don’t want to eat now.  Maybe tomorrow I will have something.”

“I have to teach you how to make a few things while I’m here, okay?”

“Yes, that would be good.  Also, I don’t know how to run the dishwasher or laundry machine.  Can you show me these things?”

“Of course.”

My father looked so helpless sitting there.  How would he be able to take care of himself?  He barely knew how to boil water.  

“Yeah, let’s go to Walmart tomorrow,” I continued.   “We’ll get some things that I can teach you how to make, all right?  Like rice.  Rice is pretty easy.  Pasta, even easier.  Stuff like that.”

“Vedy good.  I like this idea vedy much.”

We gave each other a little smile.  

“I think you’re right,” I said, my voice giving way to the exhaustion from the past few days.  “I am feeling pretty tired. I’m gonna head up to bed, okay?”  I walked over to my father and kissed him gently on the forehead.  “I love you, Papa.”

“I love you too.  Vedy, vedy much.”

I tried to keep that feeling of warmth and love close to me, but as I lay down in my bed, I began to feel the familiar tension that I am always trying to rise above whenever I’m in that house.  The house itself is situated in the middle of nowhere and has not been updated since it was first erected 40 years ago. For me, it is like a time capsule forever lost in an ocean of pain, always ready to pull me back down under the water.  There are no neighbors, no roads, and no streetlights.  The house is not a part of any community.  There is no noise, no sound whatsoever. Being there without my husband and children, I couldn’t help but give into the past as it swept over me in waves. My memories began to take over and became louder than life itself. I was suddenly 20 again, afraid of going to sleep, afraid of the recurring nightmare that had haunted me for months years ago.

In the nightmare, my parents are both seated in a frozen, stoic position side by side, on the sofa in the family room.  Their mouths are pursed into a tight-lipped smile, as if they are having their portrait slowly painted.  The curtains are all drawn, and the rooms are dark.  There is a sadistic laugh echoing throughout the house.  I realize that the laugh is coming from upstairs, so I slowly walk up the spiral staircase to conquer it.  At the top of the staircase is a laundry chute on the wall to my right.  In my dream, it is decorated with ornate jewels and gemstones that quickly shift into the shape of jagged teeth as I pass by.  

Beyond the chute is a hallway with two rooms positioned across from each other.  Both doors leading to the rooms are shut.  I turn the knob to the first door hoping to find my bedroom.  I walk in and the door behind me slams shut with a force so strong that my body is catapulted into the air.  There is no gravity in the room, so I am floating around like an astronaut in outer space, facing the door that just sucked me in.  Remaining levitated and positioned upright I see two, large, orange arms coming out of the wall on each side of the door.  There is a bell ringing behind me.  Bright yellow and orange lights flicker as I fight to spin my body around to take in the rest of the room.  My first spin leaves me upside down and the laughing gets louder.  It is then that I see four, huge, black boxes with white zeros on them, hanging on the back wall.  There are words above the numbers, but I can’t make them out because I am still upside down.  I try to spin myself to an upright position, but there is a force fighting me as I continue to struggle.  Then the force instantaneously vanishes out of nowhere and I begin to spin in uncontrollable somersaults through the air towards the door.  Attempting to slow down, I push my arms out to each side.  The maneuver works and I come to a stop.  The words, clear as day now, read “HOUSE” above the left two zeros and “DARIAN” above the right two zeros.  Immediately upon reading my name, a bright light whitewashes the entire room, cuing circus music to begin playing.  The force then returns, pulling my body towards one of the large, orange arms, which then swings back and smacks me forward.  This time, I quickly spin back to the far wall, hitting a large purple obstacle along the way.  When I hit it, the bell begins to ring and I see the numbers below “HOUSE” increase, like an old alarm clock from the 1970s. 

After this continues for several rounds and the house has won, gravity returns, and I drop to the floor in an instant.  I am still desperate to locate the source of the laughter, so I try the next room.  I open the door, feeling relieved when I see my bed and the familiar light, airy decor that I love so much.  However, when I go to climb into my pastel colored bed, my knee bangs into a cold, mirrored wall.  The mirror does not reflect my own image back to me, only my bedroom as I remember it.  Realizing now that my bed is only a reflection of my actual bed, I turn around to walk towards it in the opposite direction, but am met with another mirror.  I am trapped and there is no way out.  I begin to scream for help, slamming my hands into the mirrored walls that surround me.  But my desperation only makes the house laugh harder.  It is then that I finally realize that I am having a nightmare and the dream becomes lucid.  “I can control this,” I say to myself as I close my eyes and begin to slowly turn in circles.  I extend my arms and allow my fingertips to sweep across the mirrors.  “This is not real,” I say out loud.  The mirrors begin to melt.  I begin to spin faster, concentrating as hard as I can.  The faster I spin, the more slippery the mirrors become until they completely melt into cool water.  When I feel the water running through my fingers, I begin to slow down and the water morphs into silk fabrics that eventually lead to my bedding.  I am in my room, safe again.   The laughter stops.  I wake up.

I had this same nightmare repeatedly for several months after first moving back home from NYC. I had spent so many years and so much energy trying to get better after what had happened to me there. But with no markers of my present life to prove to me otherwise, it almost felt like nothing had changed, that I had never improved. Thinking back on it sent a shiver through me, as I lay alone in my bed.  “Stop thinking about it.  Think about happy things.  Think about your life now. Think about the kids,” I told myself.  Then I remembered I had forgotten to call them when I had arrived at the house, but it was too late now to call them now.  They were already fast asleep.  “Please God, I can’t handle nightmares tonight,” I told myself as I began to get sleepy.  I lay on my side, curled into a ball, and pulled the blanket over my ear in an effort to warm up.  Then I heard myself say “Mom” aloud to the empty room as I drifted to sleep. 

I awoke the next morning pleasantly surprised that I had not dreamed at all.  I almost always do and typically recall my dreams in vivid detail.  However, on this morning I felt refreshed as the sun beamed through my curtains.  It was at that moment that I decided to use the next two weeks as an opportunity to get to know my father even better.  We had always been quite close, but I now yearned to hear all of his stories.  With my mother suddenly gone, I realized how fleeting time was. My father was not going to live forever. That truth was louder now than ever before. But this trip home could provide an unforeseen opportunity. It didn’t have to only revolve around grieving. I could use the time to hear all of my father’s stories.  Instead, I would turn our time together into something that I could later think back on with fondness.  

My elevation in mood quickly lent itself to cherished memories of my mother.  There had been a time in my life when she had been happy.  Prior to the allegations against my father, she had been a woman full of love and laughter.  There had once been grand parties at our house with caterers and parking attendants in my youth.  When the money was flowing, we floated above all worries and enjoyed all life had to offer.  One of my favorite things to do with my mom and sister during those days was get an ice cream cone and go to the drive-in movie theater just outside of town.  I remember going to see Pinocchio with the two of them in my mom’s forest green Volkswagen bug.  I loved that car.  I begged her to keep it for me when I got older.  I have always been obsessed with vintage cars.  I would have kept it forever had she saved it for me.  After the movie, we zipped out of the parking lot as Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls” played on the radio.  It was the summer of 1979.  I was about to begin 6th grade and my sister was going into first.  My mom turned up the volume and let the disco music take over our car as she began to swerve it back and forth between lanes on the small country road, my sister and I screaming with delight in the back seat.  I began to laugh as I lay there in bed thinking about it.  What fun we used to have together!  What I would give to go back to that time, even for just one day.  I could have daydreamed longer had my dad not knocked on my bedroom door.

“Good Morning.  How did you sleep?” he asked.

“Hi Papa.  I had forgotten how quiet it is here.  I slept like a baby.”

My father walked over to me and sat on the edge of my bed, continuing to talk. 

“I am going to make some cream of wheat for breakfast,” he said.  “It is the one thing I can cook!  Would you like some?”

“Sure.”  I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had made me breakfast.  It felt especially nice to be parented and taken care of in that moment. “Let’s have a nice day together, Dad.  After breakfast, I’ll shower and take us into town, what do you say?”  I rolled over to grab my phone.  “I’m not even sure what time it is,” I continued, but before I could even check my dad chimed in with, “It is 10:30 in the morning.”  I hadn’t slept in that late since having children eight years before.  

“Yes, you can sleep while you are here,” my dad said, reading my mind as he stood up.  “There are no children.  There is no work!  We will just have a nice, relaxing time together.  You can sleep in every day if you like!”

My father’s voice trailed off as he walked out of the room, leaving me alone with my memories once again. The last time my dad and I had sat together on my bed was when I was a senior in high school.  My father had walked into this same room and sat down to ask if I had read the article he’d left on my bed about rape earlier that day.  I was about to move to NYC and my prom was quickly approaching.  My father had been leaving various articles covering the topics of rape and personal safety on my bed intermittently during that year to help prepare me for life on my own.  On the days he left articles for me to read, he would come in to talk to me about them before I went to sleep in the evenings.  I always gave him a hard time during these “little talks” of ours.

“So, what did you think about this article today?” my dad asked, sitting at the edge of my bed.

“Um, I’m pretty sure you can stop with the rape articles, Dad.  I’m like the last living virgin on the planet anyway.  If someone wants to rape me, I’m gonna throw him a party.”

“Darian, this is not a joke.  This is vedy serious.  You are pretty and small.  If someone wants to hurt you, it will be very easy.  You will not be able to fight him off physically so you will need to use your brain if you are in that situation.  Do you understand?  American men love two things.  Football and violence.”  

Whenever my dad talks about American men and their love of football he has this impersonation that he does where he scrunches up his face, trying to make himself look as stupid as possible, and then he throws his fists into the air and begins swinging at nothing.   

“Dad, nobody is going to rape me, okay?  I’m the weirdest looking girl at school.   I’m 17 and I don’t even have breasts yet!  I look like a branch that fell off a tree!  I’m pretty sure that’s not gonna turn anybody on.”

“What about this Sean Calvert person?  He seems to like you.  You are going to the prom together, are you not?”

“Yeah.”  I hesitated for a moment.  “Speaking of that, I wanna go on the pill.”  I dropped the news like a bomb and, without waiting for his response, continued to talk.  “There’s no way in hell that I’m moving to NYC a virgin.  Just so you know, I’m not going to do that under any circumstance.  I’ll be the only virgin at that entire school, so you can either put me on the pill now or watch me get pregnant because I’m having sex with Sean Calvert on prom night if it’s the last thing I do.”  

I had just accepted an offer to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in NYC following graduation.  I imagined the school would be full of very artsy people who were very sexually active, and I no longer wanted to be known as the skinny, innocent kid sister that everyone had always treated me like.  Born at the end of August, I was always one of the youngest in my class.  To make matters worse, I was super skinny and looked about 10 years younger than my actual age.  I had been shocked when a friend told me that Sean Calvert had a crush on me when I was in the eleventh grade.  

The first time I laid eyes on Sean, we were 11 years old.  Sean lived in a neighboring town at the time and was playing the drums in a local rock band at my middle school dance one evening.  As much as I loved to dance, I just sat on those steps leading up to the stage he was playing on, completely mesmerized by his drumming.  Who the heck was this guy?  He was nothing like any of meatheads I went to school with.  He was skinny like me and had a confidence about him that made me stop in my tracks.  “I want to know that drummer guy and be his friend,” I told the girl standing next to me at the dance.  “Bad luck, he doesn’t go to our school.  He’s from Norwood,” she replied.  But his bandmates were friends of mine from Potsdam so maybe there was hope.  Sean looked over at me every once in a while, enjoying the attention.  I sat there on the steps for the entire concert smiling from ear to ear.  Much to my shock and delight, he smiled back.  I had never felt so enthralled by watching someone play an instrument before.  There was something magical about watching someone my age living in his element with such gusto.

I began to talk a hundred miles a minute as soon as my parents picked me up from the dance.

“I wanna be a drummer!  I watched this boy from Norwood play the drums tonight.  He’s my age!  Oh my God, he was so amazing!!  I want to play the drums!!!  Please???  I think I’d be really good at it.  He’s got rhythm like I do!  I think that’s what I want to do with my life.  Can I?  Please say yes!  I don’t even enjoy playing the violin and you’ve been making me play it since I was three.  I was gonna quit before high school anyway.  I definitely don’t want to continue playing the violin in high school, so don’t even try to make me!  I wanna drum!  I have to drum!!!”

“Darian,” my mother said, interrupting my diatribe.  “Honey, girls don’t play the drums.  Do you know a single girl that plays the drums?”  I thought hard but couldn’t think of any.

“No drums and that is final,” my Dad added.  “I…don’t…like…noise,” he continued.  “Drumming is nothing but banging and noise.  There is no melody.  Drums are not even a real instrument. They are a toy.” 

I was so angry at their response that I decided to completely ignore them for the next week.  When that didn’t change their minds, I quit the violin a few weeks later.  If my parents weren’t going to allow me to choose my own instrument than I would never play another instrument again.

That weekend my father asked me, “Why are you quitting the violin?  You have been playing for over 10 years.  You are the first violinist in the orchestra.  Don’t you enjoy classical music?”

“Yes, I enjoy classical music.  I enjoy listening to it and even dancing to it.  But I don’t want to play it.  I don’t know, I guess it just doesn’t really set my soul on fire.  Classical music is you, not me.  I want to play funk music!”

“What?  Funk?  Is that what that boy was playing at the dance?”

“No, he was playing rock, which is fine.  I mean…like, whatever.  Everyone has their own internal rhythm, I suppose.  Mine just happens to be funk.”

“What are you even talking about right now?  What internal rhythm?  Nobody listens to funk in this house.”

“I do!  I listen to it all the time.  James Brown is my favorite musician in the world!”  

“That garbage?  Anybody can play that.  Darian, you have to train your ears to appreciate real music.  The first time I heard classical music, I had to cover my ears because it hurt so much.  But I trained myself to appreciate it until I loved it!  Now I own all of the greatest classical pieces ever composed.  Not even the faculty in the music department at Crane have a collection as thorough as mine!

“Why would you make yourself love something that you didn’t naturally enjoy?  Why would anyone ever do that?” 

My father had just provided me with a window into his own self-hatred for the first time.  It would take me years to put all of the pieces together, but I was beginning to understand that he had sacrificed part of himself years ago as he strove to become something that he was not.  And that something always tied back to being white and European.   

“Darian, if you want to quit the violin that is your choice,” my father continued.  “It is your life.  But I am not going to pay for lessons for you to learn the drums.  That is my choice.  That is a complete waste of money.”

So that was that.  It was clear that I would have no say in the matter, so I made the decision in that moment to never pick up another instrument again.  From that point on I focused my energies on dancing, singing, and acting, which were all activities that my parents both approved of.  I auditioned and was accepted into the Briansky Ballet Summer Intensive at Skidmore College that summer. I worked with Peter Martin, who was quickly rising to fame for his dancing.  He taught a master class that I took that July and a small group of us were chosen to travel out of town to watch him perform from backstage.  He was beautiful to watch, and I certainly had an appreciation for what he was doing but, still, I longed to dance to funk, Motown and hip-hop music.  Finally, at the end of that summer, a hip-hop teacher came and taught a master class for us at Skidmore.  I blew all of those little ballerinas out of the water with my dancing.  I was in my element, banging rhythms out with my feet and isolating my limbs to the beat of the music.  It was the closest thing to drumming I had come across that I was allowed to do.

Once I was in high school a couple of years later, I tried out for the school musical and after that experience, decided that it was my calling to perform on the stage.  I began taking private voice lessons with a voice professor at the Crane School of Music, which was part of Potsdam State College.  I did the bare minimum towards my high school academics during the daytime and focused my energies on my dance and voice lessons that came each afternoon when school finally let out.  When the final period bell would sound at the end of the school day, I would shoot out of there like a bat out of hell.  

Then one day as I was walking down the hall, at the beginning of my junior year, my jaw dropped as “that drummer guy,” Sean Calvert, walked past me on his way to class.  “What’s Sean Calvert doing at this school?” I quickly whispered to a friend standing next to me.  “He just transferred to Potsdam.  I think his parents split up or something a while back and he’s moved to Potsdam to live with his mom,” she replied.  That was the same year that Debbie Townson and I had become best friends.  One day a few weeks later, as I sat alone in the cafeteria with headphones on, Sean Calvert put his lunch tray down across from mine at the table.

“What are you listening you?” Sean asked, eyeing my hip new technology, a Sony Discman. I was the only kid at school with the new model. I froze for a moment unsure of how to handle the question, wondering if Sean would ridicule me for listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in a high school lunch cafeteria by myself. I pulled my right headphone off, leaving the left one on.

“Vivaldi’s Four Seasons,” I practically whispered before clearing my throat, which was now beginning to tighten.

“Can I hear it?” Sean asked, seemingly unaffected by my choice in music. Then he sat down directly in front of me.

“It’s pretty cool, the music sounds live on this thing,” I said, my hands slightly trembling as I handed him my headphones. Sean put on the headphones and listened to Vivaldi for the next fifteen minutes or so without saying anything. I could feel his eyes on me as I continued to look at my lap. Lunch period seemed excruciatingly long that day. I felt this strange mix of wanting the moment to end immediately while simultaneously wanting it to last forever. Then the bell finally rang. I looked back up at Sean to retrieve my Discman, but to my surprise Sean simply stood up and walked away with it still on, causing me to dart up from the table and dash out after him. I followed him to the tray belt and then out to the hallway, as a rush of students whisked past us. Sean pulled the headphones off and placed them back on my head. Then he handed me the Discman.

“Cool. See ya,” Sean said.

“Bye,” I replied. Then I snapped out of a slight trance and instructed my feet to begin walking in the opposite direction of him.

Debbie would soon develop a crush on Sean’s best friend, Tim, also a musician, who was a year ahead of us in school.  By the time Debbie, Sean and I were seniors, the four of us had become inseparable spending nearly every weekend together until we graduated.  Still, I was not convinced that Sean actually found me attractive until one evening when the four of us snuck beers into my dad’s church.  We sat there drinking and laughing for hours.  It was there that I caught Sean starting at me.  “Your skin is so perfect.  It’s like a china doll,” he said.  Then Tim flashed Sean a “dude, chill out” facial expression while Debbie looked over at me and raised an “I told you so” eyebrow.  

I looked my father directly in the eyes as we sat together on my bed and demanded to be put on the birth control pill.  Then much to my surprise, my dad didn’t totally freak out.  He actually looked quite calm.  He simply nodded his head yes and then gently asked, “Have you discussed your intentions to have sex with Sean yet?” I sat in my bed in absolute horror.

“No!!! Why the hell would I do that???”

“Well, how will he know that this is your expectation for the night?”

“I dunno. I’ll figure it out.”  The thought hadn’t even occurred to me.  

Then my mom, who had apparently been listening in on our conversation from the hallway, walked into the room laughing in hysterics.  “Don’t worry, Rooz.  She’s not having sex with anyone anytime soon.  She still can’t even figure out how to use a ffffucking damn tampon!”  By this point, my mother was laughing so hard that she could barely breathe.  I could feel my hatred and rage moving up through my body as I began to cry.

“Shut the hell up, you fucking bitch!!!”

That ended her laughing fit pretty quickly.  There was dead silence.  My mom breathed in loudly through her nose and her words came out in quick, sharp beats.

“Watch it girl!”  She whipped out her pointer finger and began to wag it at me.  “You don’t talk to me like that!  I’m still your mother whether you like it or not!!!”

“Oh yeah?” I replied, now crying even harder.  “’Cause the last time I checked, real moms don’t make their daughter’s feel like a stupid piece of shit on purpose!!!”  I stormed out of my room, leaving my parents behind.

An hour later, my father found me sitting alone on our front porch.  He sat down in the chair next to me, both of us looking out ahead beyond our long driveway onto the chilly, spring day.

“Darian, you have a choice to make,” my father said.

“I don’t wanna talk about sex anymore, or rape, or any of that shit right now, Dad.”

“This is not about that.”

“What then?”

“You have a choice to make about your emotions.  You are half your mother and half me.  Sometimes, you let your emotions take over everything, just like your mother.  But you are young, so there is still time for you to learn this lesson.  Now your body is going through many changes, so you have hormones to suddenly deal with that were not there last year.  But, even more importantly, all human beings have a neocortex.  This is what differentiates us from the animals.  Have you learned about the neocortex at school yet?”

“No.”

“Let me tell you what it does.  It is our neocortex that allows us to process information to assist us into deciding how to act.  Whether we want to act aggressively or not.  When you are feeling heated like you want to explode, you can give your brain a few moments, and then the neocortex will have time to process the information to see if it is really necessary for you to act aggressively.  Your mother doesn’t want to hear the science behind her behavior.  Her problem is sometimes she does not give herself that time for her neocortex to do its job, so she lashes out in anger and frustration.  If you stay calm with her, it could actually help her and give her the time she needs to not blow up.  You have more power over other peoples’ behavior than you think.  But you must think in order to have that power.  Do you understand?  So, you have a decision to make.  And you should make it today, while you are still young.  Are you going to allow your emotions and other people’s emotions to trigger and control you, or are you going to use your brain to its fullest potential, and live a calmer, healthier, happier life?”

My father didn’t wait for my response.  He stood up and left me alone to think again, staring out onto that long road.  His words that day shaped my life and have stayed with and guided me through the most troubling of times.  It was literally at that moment that I decided to never allow other people to trigger me again.  My father had always been the calm, steady ship that managed to sail above my mother’s emotional stormy waves.  I wanted to be more like him, and now I knew it was a choice I was empowered to make.  I’ve apparently gotten quite well at it over the years.  My husband often tells me how I’m “completely unflappable” whenever we have described each other’s qualities to one another that we most admire.  “Nothing ever shakes you at all.  It’s pretty impressive, really.” If he only knew how many years of practice this skill has taken to acquire, because I most certainly wasn’t born with it.

The gift my father had given me on the porch that day had, in fact, been priceless.  I had just gotten my first period a few months prior to that and was certain I had been the last girl in our grade to get it.  Most of the girls I knew had gotten their first period when we were still in middle school.  So here I was a senior in high school and getting it for the first time, trying to get this whole “womanhood, virgin shit” thing out of the way during my last few months of high school.  It was a lot of pressure.  There were triggers everywhere I turned.  It was an emotional roller coaster, and quite honestly, it was all just a little too much to deal with.  My closest friends had offered to help me figure out the tampon thing, but I continued to resist any help.  

“Gross!” I’d say.  “I’m not gonna let you help me stick a fucking tampon up my crotch!  That would be completely awkward.  Not to mention totally fucking weird!”

Meanwhile, my mom continued to remind me on a nearly daily basis that inserting a tampon was a “complete no brainer” that even a dummy could figure it out in less than a minute.”  

“There’s a hole in your vagina,” my mom explained condescendingly.   “Find the hole and stick the tampon in it.  Voila!”  On “voila” she raised both of her hands and cupped my face with them.  “Why don’t you just use a mirror?” she would continue.

“Gross!  I don’t wanna see my vagina in a mirror!”

“Why not?  What the hell is the matter with you?” my Mom replied.

“I don’t want see that shit, okay?  Jesus!  It’ll probably make me vomit and pass out.  Just forget it.  I’ll figure it out!” 

Those four words, “I’ll figure it out,” had become my mantra that year.  And whenever I said it, it meant that the conversation was finished once and for all.  Eventually, my parents both learned to give me the space I needed away from them during that time.  Part of carving out my own space involved me practically moving in with Debbie Townson’s family.  Debbie’s parents had been born in America and were a breath of fresh air compared to mine.  They ate things like tacos.  I had never even heard of tacos before I began sleeping at Debbie’s house on a regular basis.  One night, on what felt like a rare evening at my own parents’ house, I recall asking my mom if she had ever heard of a taco.  

“Of course I’ve heard of a taco!” my mother exclaimed condescendingly.  

“Why don’t you ever make them then?  They’re like the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten in my entire life?”

“Tacos?  Who the hell eats tacos?”

“I’m pretty sure everyone in America is eating them, except for us,” I retorted back.

“Oh, give me a break!  Tacos are ridiculous!  Any idiot can make a taco.  Tacos aren’t dinner!  They’re just a bunch of condiments thrown together on a plate!”

The more time I spent with the Townson family, however, the more I realized how having parents who were both immigrants had shaped my life and made me different from others.  It also opened my eyes to how many things I had been missing out on.  I’ll never forget the look on Mrs. Townson’s face when she asked, “you’ve never had a taco, honey?  Ever?”  And even more awesome than tacos, was the fact that Mrs. Townson owned a cake baking business. Her house consistently smelled amazing and there was always delicious cake to eat every day of the week!  I mean, seriously, who wouldn’t have moved in with them?

During our senior year, as soon as Friday would roll around, it was Debbie and I, and Tim and Sean.  The four of us were always together.  Debbie and I were now singing some vocals in the boys’ band, and we both had roles in our high school musical with Sean and Tim both playing in the orchestra pit.  If we weren’t all rehearsing for the show together, we were rehearsing top 40 songs for the band to prepare for a school dance.  As June approached, I could barely imagine life without the three of them.  Sometimes at band rehearsals, Sean would let me sit on his lap and play the snare while he hit the bass drum with his foot.  He seemed aware that in addition to my wanting to kiss him that I kind of wanted to be him.  

One weekend, much to my surprise, my parents let me go to Canada with Debbie and the boys to see Billy Idol in concert.  I was shocked that my parents agreed to let me go.  I actually had strep throat at the time and remember telling Sean, “We can still make out though, because I’ve been on antibiotics for more than 24 hours.  And if you do catch it, which I don’t think you will, I can just give you some antibiotics to stay on for a week.  But you have to stay on them for the whole week or you could get worse.”  Sean didn’t look all that reassured.   

All things considered, it was a thrill to leave the country together and an even bigger thrill to stay out all night with no adult supervision.  But Sean seemed to be a little on edge the whole time we were there.  We ended up finding ourselves in the middle of a mosh pit and when a fight broke out directly in front of us at the concert, I felt two hands grab me around the hips and swoop me off the ground away from the conflict.  It seemed Sean had gotten me out of there just in time.  Then he looked at me and said, “Let’s get outta here.  I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to stay.”  I had never seen him take charge like that before.  It was at that moment that I realized that he felt responsible for me.  On the one hand that felt nice but, even more than that, I wanted him to think of me as a grown up, as a woman.  I wanted him to know that I could take care of myself.  But everyone seemed tired and we ended up going straight home after the concert.  Ironically, I (the one with strep throat) had been prepared to stay out all night.  It was a letdown.  

A couple of weeks later while we were in school one day, Sean stopped me in the hall to tell me he had gotten into the University of North Texas for percussion.  He was kind of looking at the ground when he said it, then he looked up and said, “You should apply there.  They have a theater program too.”

“In Texas?  Why the hell would I want to study theater in Texas?” I asked, completely baffled.

As soon as the words escaped my mouth, I realized what had just happened.  His invitation had escaped me in that moment.  But by the time I had figured it out, Sean had already rolled his eyes and walked away.  What I wanted to tell him was that I wished he would come to NYC with me; that the thought of not having him in my life made me feel sick.  But I never got to tell him that.  Instead, I just stood there in the hallway of our high school alone, hating myself and wishing I were dead.

Things were a bit strained between us after that.  The prom was around the corner and he still hadn’t asked me to go.  Debbie and I laid awake in her bed one evening staring up at her ceiling.

“So, you and Tim are definitely going to the prom together, right?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t understand why Sean hasn’t asked me yet.  Do you think he’s mad at me?  Maybe he’s already asked someone else.  Have you heard anything?  Can you ask Tim?”

“Who the hell else would Sean ask to the prom?  The four of us are always together.”

“I don’t know.  I know he’s dated some older girls, which is perfect!  I’m hoping they’ve taught him all about sex so that come prom night, I can just pass out and he can take care of all of that stuff for me.”

“Take care of all of what stuff for you?” Debbie asked, completely confused.

“My virginity, duh!”

“What?  Why do you want to be passed out for that?”

“I don’t wanna participate in any of that stupid shit!  I heard it’s really painful for girls the first time anyway.  Also, I wouldn’t trust anybody else to take care of it for me, so I have to do this before we graduate and move.  What if I never see him again?  I can’t stay a virgin forever!  And if I’m passed out, I won’t feel the pain.  I’ve got it all planned out.  I just have to look like…a woman, you know?  Or, like, I don’t know…older.  Sexy, I guess.”  My voice grew louder as I looked down at my chest.  “It’s hard though because I don’t have any breasts yet!”

“Darian, you’re nuts. You know that, right?”

“Oh, that’s really nice.  The girl who’s had perfectly developed breasts since she was five is calling me names now.”

It was sometimes difficult being friends with someone whose body had matured so much quicker than mine.  If there had only been a magic pill I could have taken to make my breasts finally appear, I would have totally downed that pill without a second thought.  I had heard from a few girls at school that dog walking could help develop breasts.  Something about pulling on the leash was supposed to strengthen your chest muscles.  I was thrilled when a stray dog happened to show up at my house the following week. I begged my mom to let me keep it.  I, of course, did not share with her that the sole purpose of keeping the dog was for my personal breast development.  

“Since when do you like dogs?” my mother asked.

“Since now! They’re really great exercise, you know,” I retorted back.

“But you dance for four hours every day.  Why do you need more exercise?” my mom continued.

“Dog walking is more aerobic.  My dance teacher told me so.  It’ll be great!”

My parents, both looking perplexed, watched me through the sliding glass door at 6am that morning as I let the dog pull me in every direction at the speed of light across our 20 acre property before I headed off to school.  They allowed me to keep the dog for 72 hours.  And although my chest was in pain by the third day, I still saw no improvement.  Not even the slightest bulge.  When they argued that there was no reason to keep the dog with me leaving for NYC in a few months, I couldn’t disagree with them.  Although I have to admit, I had already gotten attached to the little guy.  He was a pug, and had I not been moving I would have pushed harder to keep him.  

“I have not had breasts since I was five, you dork!” Debbie exclaimed.  

“Sorry, since you were eight.”

“You should just ask Sean to go.”

“To the prom?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not cool, is it?  Isn’t the guy supposed to ask?  What if he says no?  I’d literally die if he said no.”

“He’s not gonna say no. Just ask him.”

I got up the nerve to ask Sean to the prom a few days later.  My entire body shook as I let the words come out of my mouth.  When they finally came out, he gave me that same little smile that he had flashed at me when we were eleven and said, “Sure, I’ll go with you.”  I managed not to jump on him and start screaming which would have been totally awkward. Debbie and Tim were actually standing less than ten feet away, in her backyard, watching us and looking completely bored as they waited for Sean and me to get our shit together.  I spun around, walking slowly towards them trying to look as calm and cool as possible.

“So, it looks like Sean and I are going to the prom together too,” I informed them as nonchalantly as I could.

Debbie flashed me a “duh” facial expression as Sean walked over to join the rest of us.

“Nice,” Tim said, “so we can all go together then.”

“Yeah,” I said now having a harder time holding in my excitement, “Debbie, maybe your dad will let us take his 1950 Chevy!”

“Oh, I highly doubt he’s gonna trust us with that,” she responded.  “But I’m sure we’ll figure something out.  We still have a little time.”  

Debbie was on the prom committee so when she told us the songs that were being considered for the theme song, the four of us sat in her car listening to all the contenders.  Music had been a big part of our lives together.  Sean had made me several “mixed tapes” throughout the year, introducing me to all kinds of new music.  I leaned over to Tim and asked him if one of the songs we were listening to was called “Don’t Dream it’s Over” or “Don’t Dream, it’s Over?  A comma could really change the meaning here.”  

“I think it’s the latter,” he replied. 

“Well, that’s kind of depressing for a prom theme song,” I continued.  “Let’s vote for something else.  Something more uplifting.”

The prom was now solidified, and the world suddenly seemed right again.   My parents took me to a mall in Syracuse, NY, three hours away, so that my mom and I could go dress shopping.  While my father played his musical compositions for various mall security officers, my mom helped me decide which dress made my non-existent breasts look the biggest.  Then my mom gently grabbed my arm and asked me to look at her.  “I’m sorry I made fun of you the other day,” she said as her eyes filled with guilt and sincerity.  “I shouldn’t have done that.  It was wrong.  If you want, I can help you with the whole tampon thing tonight when we get back.”  

“No, it’s okay.  It doesn’t matter.  I think I’ve got it.”

“You figured it out all ready?”

“No, but I know what I need to do.  It’ll be fine.”

My mom didn’t look convinced, so I shifted the conversation back to her feeling badly.  “But thank you for apologizing. That means a lot.”

“I do love you, you know,” my mom said, smiling as she took in how grown-up I looked in a prom dress.  We had found the right one.

The long-awaited night finally arrived.  Debbie and the boys showed up at my house to pick me up.  Tim had already given Debbie her corsage, which slipped around her wrist with an elastic band.  Sean presented me with a hand-held corsage that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with.  I looked up at my mother confused and she whispered to me, “You hold it like a bride.  You need to bring it with you and hold it.  It’s beautiful!”  

“What a lovely corsage, Sean!” my mother said loud enough for everyone to hear.  Then she looked over to me and opened her eyes wide signaling for me to agree. 

“Yeah, it’s really nice, Sean.  Thank you,” I said and then I gave him a little kiss on the cheek and the four of us headed out to dinner.      

We drove to Canada, had a nice dinner, and then started pounding vodka on the way back to the prom.  It’s the one and only time in my life that I have ever been completely drunk.  I do remember dancing to the theme song, “Forever Young,” my arms draped around Sean’s neck as my head rested on his chest.  For the entirety of that song, I wished my life could stay right there indefinitely.  It felt so safe.  There was so much unknown looming over me.  I hadn’t told anyone, but the truth was I was terrified of everything that lay ahead.  Moving away from home, NYC, adulthood.  The thought of having to face it all without Debbie, Tim, and Sean by my side seemed unnatural.   And sex!  Oh my God, sex!  I had to get it over with as soon as possible and the night was quickly slipping away.

After the prom the four of us went to an after party at “the sands,” a teenage drinking spot in the woods outside of town.  As I continued to drink it occurred to me that I wasn’t exactly sure how to communicate my intentions to Sean.  In addition, I was still dressed for the prom, which I quickly learned was poor attire for the woods.  Beginning to feel desperate, I wondered if I could communicate to Sean with my eyes the way my mom always used her eyes to communicate to me.  I obviously couldn’t verbally communicate my intentions to Sean for fear of being labeled a slut, every 17-year-old girl’s worst fear.  Thus, began the strange eyeball exchange between the two of us that left him looking utterly confused.  Sean finally opened his eyes wide, mocking me and then walked off somewhere with Tim, which I presumed was in an effort to locate more alcohol.   Debbie and I walked in the opposite direction.  Feeling defeated, I rested my head on Debbie’s shoulder.

“This isn’t fucking working!  Sean doesn’t seem to understand what I’m trying to tell him.  He clearly doesn’t understand eyeball language so I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to do!  And, how the hell am I supposed to have sex with him in the woods with a prom dress on anyway?  Can I use your car?  I don’t understand how people do any of this? What am I gonna do?”  

“Honey, first of all, you’re going to need to stop peeing because I’m about to fucking drop you and this is the longest fucking pee in the history of mankind!  By the way, your little 80-pound body is totally dead weight when you’re drunk.”

“Hold on, I’m almost done.”  

“No, seriously.  I can’t hold you up any longer. I’m letting go now.”

“No, wait!  Do you have any toilet paper with you?”

“Darian!”

“Okay, I’m done.  Where’s Sean?  I’m ready to have sex,” I said, pulling up my underwear. I stumbled out of Debbie’s hold and headed towards the parking lot.

“Sean, where are you?  I’m ready!!!”  I screamed out into the night.  Debbie ran after me.

“Honey, Sean and Tim left already.  Nobody is having sex with you tonight.  I’m taking you back to my parents’ house and putting you to bed.”

“What?”  I spun around quickly, my head nearly spinning off my neck.  The move left me feeling completely dizzy, like I was going to vomit right then and there.  

“You heard me.”

“What do you mean he left?  What the fuck?  Why?  I don’t understand.  Tonight is the night!  I have to do this!  I have to do this!!!  My mom is gonna make fun of me!  I told her I had it all figured it out.  I can’t move to NYC now!  The whole city is gonna make fun of me, Debbie.  You don’t understand.”  Tears began to stream down my face.

“C’mon Babe.  It’s time to get you home.”

The next thing I remember is Debbie waking me up the next morning to let me know that Tim had called and that the boys had been worried about me and wanted us to meet them at McDonald’s for breakfast.  

“Sean was worried about me?” I asked, wanting further clarification.

“Darian, you were completely plastered.  I didn’t even think you had that much to drink.  It’s that little body of yours.”

“I don’t know if I want to see him.  I feel so stupid now.”

“Don’t worry, the boys left way before you started crying in the parking lot.”

“I cried?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus Christ.  I’m never drinking again.”

“Let’s just go and meet them.  They just wanna hang out like we always do, that’s all.”

“All right.”

I figured it would be good to see Sean before school on Monday to make sure he didn’t think I was a complete idiot and to also get something in my stomach.  I wasn’t feeling so hot, my first and only hangover.  Debbie and I threw on some clothes and met up with the boys to recount our big evening out.  Fortunately, Sean seemed oblivious to the drama that had occurred in his absence the night before, or at least he was pretending to be.  Regardless, apparently nothing had changed between us.  

The prom was over, and graduation was in a couple of weeks.  High school and our time together were coming to an end.  On our last weekend before graduation, the four of us decided to hang out behind the high school, listen to music and talk over a few beers, except that I didn’t drink any.  After the prom fiasco I had decided that the reason it was called “getting wasted” was because drinking alcohol was a complete waste of time.  All drinking did was make you emotional and have to pee a lot and the new Darian wasn’t going to get emotional anymore.  Tim and Debbie leaned up against the car holding hands, occasionally kissing, as I sat next to them on the hood of the car looking up at Sean.  Sean had climbed the wall above the back door of our high school and was sitting alone high up on the ledge looking down at the three of us.  

“Be careful up there, don’t fall!” I called up to him.  It turned out I felt responsible for him too.  I couldn’t help but wonder who would watch after him in Texas.  The night felt melancholy knowing that this would be the last time the four of us would hang out like this.  My eyes got watery as I looked up at Sean realizing that he had already begun the process of pulling himself away from me, from us.  Then he looked down at the three of us and said, “It’s hard to believe this is all just gonna be a memory someday.”

“Darian,” my dad called from downstairs.  “The cream of wheat is ready!  Come join me.  Let’s start our day.”

“Okay, I’ll be right down!” I yelled back.

I grabbed my phone off my nightstand and dialed Debbie’s number.

“Hi Honey,” Debbie answered.

“Hey, are you still in Potsdam?”

“No I left for New Jersey first thing this morning.  I have a meeting I have to get to.  I’m still on the road.”

“Oh my god, Debbie, I can’t believe you did all this driving just to get me home.  I really don’t know how to thank you for everything.”  She thought I had been simply thanking her for the drive home, but I was actually thanking her for the past 30 years.

“Your welcome, Honey.  Glad I was able to get you to Potsdam to be with your dad.  Are you doing all right?”

“Well, I’m staring at a crumpled wrapper that once encased the needle the paramedics injected into my mother’s heart when they were trying to resuscitate her.  I can’t seem to bring myself to throw it away, but other than that I’m doing great.”

“Throw the paper out, honey.  She’s not in it.  Just toss it.  That’s creepy anyway.”

“I know, I will.  It’s good to be home though.  Thank God I came up here, Debbie.  I had forgotten my dad doesn’t even know how to cook! He hasn’t eaten since my mom died!”

“Oh boy! You’re gonna have your work cut out for you girl.”

“Yeah, but it’ll be nice too.  I’m really happy I’m with him. All right. Well, I’ll let you focus on your drive.  Call me once your home, okay?”

“Will do.  We’ll talk tonight.  Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I got out of bed and grabbed the paper wrapper off my nightstand, stopping at the trashcan on my way out.  I stood there for a moment looking down at the paper and then placed it on my dresser instead.  “Maybe tomorrow,” I thought.  “I can always throw it out tomorrow.”  I wasn’t quite ready to throw away the one thing I knew had been with my mom when she died.  Then I opened the door and headed down the spiral staircase to begin my day with my dad.  The smell of the wood burning in the stove combined with the thought of him making me breakfast left a smile on my face the whole way down.

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