How we lose our voices
I’m 38. I’m sitting in a café in New Mexico next to my boyfriend MacGyver. After visiting relatives, we are stopping for brunch before heading back home to Texas. He’d been struggling with whether or not to see his mom before we left, and his guilt had finally won. She sits across from us in the booth, complaining about the pain in her leg and the leaky roof at her rental house.
The waitress comes over for our order and I give her mine. She looks at MacGyver next.
“I’ll just have coffee,” he says quietly without looking up.
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” asks the waitress.
“Coffee,” MacGyver’s mom speaks. “He doesn’t eat breakfast. He just wants coffee.”
The waitress turns to his mom and takes her order. As she fumes over how long we'd been waiting, I watch the tension increase in MacGyver’s shoulders. He fidgets with his napkin and looks out the window. He loves huevos rancheros with red chile sauce. But he skips breakfast when he feels anxious. He's 40, but I see what he looks like at 17.
* * *
I’m 41, visiting my parents with my kids, ages 16 and 17. Driving from the airport, we are sitting in the back seat of their Buick, my step dad driving and my mom in the passenger seat. Conversation is easy to hear from back to front.
“How was your flight?” my step dad asks me.
“He asked how your flight was” my mom repeats to me.
“It was smooth. No problems with connections,” I answer.
“She said it was smooth and there were no problems with connections,” she repeats to my step dad.
“Mike,” I address him directly. “Mom told me that you guys went dancing last night. What was the band called?”
I see him open his mouth and take a breath, but Mom speaks: “Oh it was the MarDels! They are our favorites! Remember when we used to go to the free concerts in the park? We hadn’t seen them since before Covid!”
My daughter looks at me. I shrug.
* * *
Later that week, I pass my mom in the hallway and she stops me to ask if my kids would like to go to a park.
“I don’t know. Their door is open,” I say, pointing to their bedroom. “Why don’t you ask them?”
A flash of annoyance overshadows her face. I leave her standing there as I pass on through the hall, but I never hear her knock on their door.
* * *
I'm in the kitchen as my mom prepares dinner at the counter. My daughter Amy is at the dining table, layering paper mache to make a mask for her high school art class. The sticky mixture is getting all over her, the wet paper refusing to form into a cat face. She shakes a gob of glue roughly from her hands and it hits me in the face.
"Maybe you could make cookies after dinner," my mom suggests from the other side of the counter. "Do you think Amy would like that?"
My daughter scowls down at her project and starts ripping off the last layer of gooey strips.
"Do you have the ingredients, or will I need to take your car to the store?" I ask, trying not to absorb the seething energy radiating from the girl behind me.
"On second thought, cookies might not be a great idea," my mom says, glancing over my shoulder. "She's at the age where she needs to watch her weight."
"I'm right here!" Amy shouts. "Don't you know I can hear you?"
* * *
I’m 17, sitting in the back seat with my 5-year-old sister, Mom driving us to church. As the ministering sister of a multitude of ladies, Mom chauffeurs an elderly British woman every week. It is a silent drive until we pull up at Margaret’s house and the Victorian lady eases herself into the passenger seat, filling the car with the scent of stale lavender.
We have hardly pulled out of her driveway when I start hearing about myself.
“You know, Julie went to a dance last night. She went with a boy I don’t know, but I think they had a good time. She likes to dance.”
“Oh that’s nice,” Margaret smiles. “I remember when I was young, I used to like to dance. My husband has never really liked it though, so I hardly remember those days.”
“I wasn’t sure she was going to go,” Mom continues. “She turned 16 last year, but nobody has asked her out on any dates yet.”
“You mean she asked the boy?” Margaret says, horrified. “Girls these days!”
Did they forget I was in the car?
* * *
I’m 36. My nephew is getting baptized. I tell my sister-in-law that I will be there, but my kids won’t be attending since the baptism lands on their dad’s weekend.
“That’s ridiculous. Why wouldn’t he let them attend their own cousin’s baptism?” she says over the phone. I imagine her rolling her eyes.
“Because their cousin is a Vogler. And Mormon.”
“But he’s Mormon too. And it’s his nephew too,” she counters.
“That’s not how he sees it.”
“You need to just tell him the kids need to support their family,” she insists.
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“Then I’ll call him and ask him myself!”
“Please stay out of this,” I plead. “That will make it worse. He hates me and everyone related to me.”
“Nonsense!”
An hour later, I get a nasty text from my ex-husband accusing me of trying to steal his weekend with the kids by siccing my family on him. I sigh.
* * *
I’m 37. My boyfriend and I are going away together for a week and my mom flies in to town to stay with my kids. She's only seen her grandkids a few times in their lives and I will be back on Saturday in time for Easter Sunday. However, Easter falls on their dad’s visitation weekend and he had refused to swap weekends.
“Their dad will understand the importance of seeing their grandmother,” my mom insists. “I’m sure he only refused to let them stay because you asked him."
“Mom, he sees you as the mirror image of me. He already said no. Please don’t push him. It will only make him angry.”
“So what? It can’t hurt to ask. And if he gets angry, then he gets angry. No big deal.”
“Please stay out of it,” I repeat. “I am not a kid anymore and can fight my own fights.”
“But they are my grandchildren!”
When we return from our trip, Mom apologizes for the kids’ absence. “I tried, but when their dad came to the door, he said he missed them and he was legally protected to have them that weekend.”
My kids later mirror their dad’s resentment that they were stuck with their stranger-grandparents the whole week. I don’t bother explaining that their dad had refused to watch them while I was out of town, despite his availability. I also don’t bother mentioning his nasty text about my mom and how I disrespected his parental rights. Nobody believes me that I get punished when they interfere with my ex.
* * *
I’m 42. The day after Father’s Day, I get an email from Mom that begins without any salutation. “I think Fathers Day would be especially hard for your family. It's really not that great for your step dad either since...the boys don't really think much about him on father's day. All except for your sister of course.... And my the oldest son always remembers him and sometimes the others. So I pretty much play it down and just make it a good day for him.”
Does this mean the card I sent my step dad hasn't arrived in the mail yet? Have I hurt my his feelings? Or is she expressing her own feelings of neglect on his behalf? I feel accused of failing to reach out and honor this stoic man who does not reach out to me. Did she forget that he too has a voice? It is not her job to be his mouthpiece just because he chooses not to speak.
It isn’t worth replying to the indirect implication of my thoughtlessness. I will let the late Father’s Day card speak for itself.
The next day, I receive a brief note from my step dad thanking me for the card. There is no apology from my mom for the misunderstanding; there is none needed since she didn’t actually confront me. For all I know, she never felt hurt. Maybe she was just thinking out loud, like copy-and-pasting her journal entry into an email.
* * *
“Can I take your order Sir,” the waitress says to MacGyver’s nephew. I watch the 17-year-old boy look up expectantly at my boyfriend MacGyver, 40.
“Don’t look at me,” MacGyver says. “She is talking to you.”
“I’ll take the enchilada plate,” he answers, his words coming out in a whisper as he looks down at the table.
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
He looks over at MacGyver and MacGyver nods.
“The enchilada plate,” his nephew repeats louder, staring at her clipboard, unable to meet her eyes.
MacGyver’s nephew looks back at him. He nods again. His nephew sits up a little straighter. All his relatives have told me his nephew is just like him.
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