My family is exploding
◊ The four of us tried to go out for lunch together, my parents and my crazy sister and me. My sister started talking about rum and drinking and the sports bar down the street and her plans to go there tonight. My mom, who had been uncharacteristically thin-lipped and silent, cut in. "I want to leave. I can't listen to her, she's pushing my buttons, she does this on purpose. I'm leaving," she said. She pushed her chair back.
"Stop it, Mom," I snapped. "This is the kind of argument you have at home, not at a restaurant. We'll talk about it at home." I turned to my sister. "Linda, you know what pisses her off. Just don't talk about stuff that pisses her off when we're all here, OK?"
It wasn't enough. My sister couldn't take the hint and a few minutes later my mom shoved her chair back, said she couldn't stand being there, and walked out. She had maybe had four sips of her coffee. The waitress thought my mom was coming back and didn't clear it away so it sat there, cooling, the cream still not stirred all the way in.
Across from me was a middle-aged couple that held hands across the table and drank pink cocktails out of martini glasses and shared a salad and a plate of appetizers. They were talking steadily and smiling a lot. The woman had her napkin unfolded on the table in front of her and was writing things down on it with a pen she'd brought.
I wanted so hard to be them. I hate being the family that fights at restaurants. Sometimes I hate my sister for being so selfish, for not seeing how easy it is to make my parents happy, for not caring how unhappy she makes them. Both of them hurt so bad. Lately they can barely talk to each other without fighting.
I spent an hour and a half, two hours talking to them tonight, playing referee. I tried to get them to listen to each other and realize that they're not as far apart as they think they are. I felt like the stupid little kid in those stupid little kids' movies who's always trying, in his stupid little-kid way, to make his parents all better again.
It worked, a little. By the end of it they could get through two minutes of conversation without bickering. My dad shared his idea for an anti-Bush bumper sticker and my mom, who was sporting a Kerry/Edwards pin on her shirt, laughed and meant it. I hugged them both and told them I loved them.
They never used to be like this.