THE ARGUMENT

My mother stands with her back against the sink, and Daddy stands before her. Mama’s pinched face, tense body, jabbing finger, and shrill voice express anger as only she can. Daddy’s eyes are on the floor, and he says nothing. She points at Daddy and shouts, “You don’t EVER stand up to him…he is using you…you are working every minute…he’s not.”

“Peggy, Peggy,” he mutters, “Peggy…. Peggy…..Peggy.” They are oblivious to my presence, doing homework at the kitchen table but learning more by watching them.

I had been in Daddy’s position often enough to identify with him. Her words were bullets when she got on one of these rants. “You and this whole family are good for nothing,” she’d yelled at me one day as she swept around the house picking up clutter. I protested, “That’s not true, I…...” She interrupted, “You act like I am your maid…I do all the work around this house…you assume I will do it…” Her voice rose to a crescendo, each word separated for emphasis “I …. get…. not… one.. drop.. of appreciation.”. At this point, I looked around to find my sister or father for support. They had disappeared, leaving me to fight this battle.

Now her focus is on my father and his transgressions, and he might as well disappear again. Avoiding any defense of himself, he keeps murmuring her name as the fight moves to the sunroom. Mama is raging about a book Daddy is writing with a mentor. “He will never give you the credit you deserve…. You will keep working all these extra hours…while he does little to nothing.” She stomps out of the sunroom into the utility room, with Daddy following behind. I edge into the sunroom to watch them. Daddy, too large to fit into the utility room, is leaning on the door frame while she continues to “let him have it”. My father’s face betrays the toll her words are taking on him. The tears in his eyes, an emotion I have never seen on my hero’s face, diminishes him in my eyes. I want to swoop down on my mother and attack her, scare her, and tell her to shut up, but I don’t have the courage.

My family arrived in Orlando, Florida, in 1959, my father with his new Ph.D. and an engineering job with Martin Marietta. They bought their first home, a ranch-style house with terrazzo floors, brand-new appliances, and lots of light through the windows. Florida! Mama regarded herself as a new, more sophisticated version and was thrilled to have money for the first time. Daddy insisted on living far away from the “get rich quick” culture of the neighborhoods that attracted other employees, but “The Plant” brought new prosperity to our family.

The book at the center of this conflict was a college textbook, his link to the academic life he loved. To my exasperated mother, it was an example of his failure to strive for the credit he and she deserved! She wanted us all to have the same opportunities as the newly rich, including attendance at a private school 15 miles from our house. Mama learned to drive at thirty-three years old so she could give us what she thought we needed.

I never saw the reconciliations that took place after these arguments. Eventually, the storms passed, and my parents returned to the normal affection they showed each other when Mama was happy. She was an expert at the “I am sorry” conversation, punctuated with kisses and hugs, and the power of her good graces sucked us back into her orbit every time.

The gossamer curtain separating me from my parent’s marriage parted that day. They had always been a unit, my parents, Mama and Daddy, but they suddenly became two people entangled in marriage. The apparent lack of balance in the yin and yang of their relationship implanted itself in my stomach (yang) but not far from my heart (yin).

This struggle between personalities continued to compete within me through two marriages. I married my mother and assumed the role of my father. I married my father and performed the role of my mother.

Only now, alone in my eighth decade, do I have peace.