Chapter Thirty-One
Two years into therapy with Irm, I had yet to be able to say, comfortably, that my father had killed himself. I was still road testing the “we have no proof” version of the story. Adding to my confusion was Mom. She had the same facts as I, had had them for far longer, and seemed equally unwilling to commit. That appeared to change in 1987, a few weeks before the thirteenth anniversary of Dad’s death. Mom was visiting me in New Haven and my friend Neil stopped by en route to the laundromat, prompting a discussion about dirty clothes.
“I think I was eleven when I learned to do laundry,” I said.
“You were twelve,” my mother corrected me. She wasn’t looking at me when she spoke, she was staring straight in front of her, into the air. “You were twelve because it was when I went into the hospital to have the polyps removed…”
“She had an operation on her small intestine,” I explained to Neil.
“…and I taught you and Amy how to use the washer and dryer because Dad and I weren’t sure if I was going to come out.”
I had never known the operation had been that serious. “Great,” I said. “You would have gone in ’73 and Dad would have gone in ’74.”
“If I’d gone in ’73,” my mother retorted quickly, “Dad wouldn’t have gone in ’74.”
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