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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

Sisterhood is powerless
How feminism has made men's lives safer -- and women's more dangerous.
By Jennifer Foote Sweeney and Alisa Smith
[03/14/00]

What a few good women can do
On Mother's Day, a million mothers will march for gun control.
By Jean Hanff Korelitz
[03/13/00]

A child shoots a child
It isn't about guns; it's about neglect.
By Beth Broeker
[03/13/00]

My brother's keeper
I have saved him all my life, but now there are too many miles between me and the paraded condoms, the muffled awe.
By Chris Colin
[03/10/00]

"Terminus"
A harrowing poem about rape and murder in the Balkans.
By Nicholas Christopher
[03/09/00]

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I was ready for closure, but I was not prepared for what happens in court. When it came time to see the judge, he made us raise our right hands and swear on the Bible that we had done all we could to salvage the marriage. To every question we each said, "I do" -- just as we had on our wedding day -- until the judge pronounced us divorced. Earlier that morning, my daughter, Ali, then 10, had asked, "Is it like a wedding, except you each say 'I don't'?"

Sad, huh?

The echo of our original vows put a sheen of melancholy over my anger. I think this is why I agreed to our having lunch together afterward at a diner just like the one we had gone to in New York after our simple wedding in 1969. I had worn a white minidress, we read from "The Prophet" and then we were married. On the day of our divorce, as on our wedding day, we both ordered eggs over easy with bacon. We smeared grape jelly on white toast. After a while I gathered the courage to ask the question that had been on my mind for a few months. I wanted to know why she had left him. How could a set of feelings strong enough to cause the breakup of a family vanish just like that?

With a little quiver in his voice, he told me that she had fallen in love with another woman. It wasn't just some thing she was going through. She had been a lesbian for years, she now knew. A lesbian! He still found it hard to believe. Impossible really. He had lost me, his daughter, now her. He sighed and let his lip tremble.

At that moment, I was feeling a little sad for him. So I stayed and let him talk. He told me how she had cut her hair to her chin. He had liked it well enough, so just to show him that his liking it was totally beside the point, she went out the very next day and cut it to her ears. Then she shaved it above her ears. The most amazing thing of all was that she still looked beautiful -- but she was lost to him forever. At that point I did not hesitate to tell him that he'd get over it.

We didn't linger over coffee. I couldn't wait to get back home so I could start calling my friends. My story had a perfect ending.

"He fell in love with a very beautiful, very young woman who spent every weekend in the house where I once lived. She used all my dishes and towels, and once, when I had to drop off Ali, I went into the bathroom, and her diaphragm was right there on the edge of the sink."

"He's scum."

"Actually, she only used my things for a couple of years. Before the fire."

"The fire?"

"Yes. Sometimes I think I caused it. I think if a person focuses that much hate on one location, the feelings vibrate, create their own heat. Or maybe I am a witch. In any case, there was a fire, and nobody got hurt, but almost all the furniture and household stuff was destroyed, and after that I never had to picture them together in my space."

"Are they still together?"

"Oh, no." I pause a little and let the smile creep into my voice. "She discovered she was gay and left him."

Women laugh. They howl. They are delighted by this story. Men tend to look pained.

"And that's not all," I add while I still have the person's attention. "Afterward he was so sad that he went out for a drive so he could visit all their favorite places and say goodbye. Then on the way home he totaled his car. They had matching cars, you know. She may still have hers. Oh there is a God."

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