It took a lot for me to understand my mother, and even more to forgive her, but I’ve learned to see her behavior in a wider context. One reason I didn’t is that my sons deserve to have a grandmother who adores them, so I chose to protect their relationship with her. I answered, pointing out that whether or not penetration took place is entirely beside the point, and if I were going to cut her out of my life I would have done so already. Then I got a second letter, begging me not to cut her out of my life, that she would always love me unconditionally. I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve done, but I can’t go back to change anything.” When I told her I was writing this essay, she responded, “You do what you want to do. It took a lot for me to understand my mother, and even more to forgive her. Later, a friend asked, “Why don’t you have it out with her?” (My husband, by then, long gone.) Impossible - she’s pathologically incapable of assuming responsibility and would resort to attacking, crying or inventing excuses. Occasionally I’ve alluded to that night. Last year she wrote telling me she didn’t have sexual intercourse with my husband, and it was painful and unfair to be “falsely accused.” This is the way of things in our family: hysterics when the cat’s tail gets caught in the door, but if your 16-year-old son takes off into the night in crisis or your 18-year-old daughter slashes her wrists, we don’t talk about it, it didn’t happen. Ours isn’t the only family like this, but with us the habit of denial runs especially deep. In the morning my husband goes to work, and my mother and I pretend nothing has happened. Eventually, my husband comes into our bedroom. I hear the door to the spare room where my mother sleeps open and close. “They deserve each other.” I take myself off to bed but can’t sleep. Unable to deal with it, I ignore them. I should throw a pot of cold water over them, throw them out of the house and out of my life, but I’m so tired my face is falling off and my bones are crumbling, and this is too outrageous to even acknowledge. My husband and my mother are making out, in front of me, in my living room. While I get my sons fed and ready for bed, I can see the massage is becoming something else. There’s an undercurrent, something unspoken, between them. My husband sits on the couch and my mother’s on the floor in front of him. The baby needs a bottle and the toddler demands a hug. The tension between me and my husband escalates daily. My mother has a loving bond with my boys, and it’s good to have another pair of hands and someone to talk to. They wake every single night - my older boy is asthmatic - and I’m the one who gets up to help them. My baby’s just over a year old and my toddler nearly 3. The author is a writer, performer and visual artist based in Melbourne, Australia.
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