Four

Saturday mornings were always fun.  The neighborhood ladies would congregate in our kitchen, sitting on the kitchen stools.  As the group expanded they would fan out to the dining room table.  The coffee klatch began around nine a.m. and ended a few hours later.  Our egg man, Richard English, who was beyond handsome, kind, tall and could have posed as Mr. Universe, made deliveries to our home an hour after the gathering began. Children were not allowed in the gathering.  Often Richard would sit in for a cup of coffee, enjoying the female conversation immensely.

Milk was delivered twice a week in a glass bottle courtesy of Cloverland Farms.  The coffee klatch phased out in my teen years.  Milk deliveries came to and end as most women were now working outside the home.  Many had their own cars.

People began to spend more time away from the neighborhoods, often going out to dinner on special occasions.

When I turned sixteen Mom and Nana took me to Haussner’s, a well known Baltimore restaurant for my November birthday. Haussner’s was known for its good photo and myriad of paintings on the wall.   I never questioned Dad’s absence.  He rarely went to family outings after I turned ten. 

I was around sixteen when things changed.  Christmas passed and was uneventful.  Mom was especially quiet.  A few months later, as I was rounding the hall in second floor of our Cape Cod, I heard our parents speaking in soft voices. Unaccustomed to hearing them talk, I listened. 

“Do you want to end it?” Dad asked.

“Yes,” Mom said in a faint voice. 

I awoke my brother and together we listened sitting at the top of the stairs. 

“I’ll move out,” Dad told Mom. 

My brother, two years my senior and I were speechless.  He was off to college the following year.

I knew Dad liked the ladies and that they liked him, that he was seeing someone.  The year before the divorce, he had introduced me to a woman who happened to be  in the restaurant where we were to have dinner.  He invited her to sit with us. They did most of the talking  I began to wonder why I was even invited to dinner.

A week after my parents had their talk, on Good Friday, a U’Haul truck backed into our driveway. I looked out from behind the curtains. 

“I wonder if we’re getting a package?” I thought excited. Just then the truck door opened and Dad got out. 

“Dad, what are you doing?” I asked.

He didn’t say a word.  He loaded up his single bed from his room, family albums,  A worn dresser and his nature books.  He folded his clothes on top of the boxes, hangers intact, turned around and called to me from a distance.

“Half Pint, I will give you a call,” he said with tears in his eyes.

“I don’t understand, Dad.  What is going on?” I replied, still in my nightgown

Silence.

The old battered U’Haul pulled out of the driveway.

 As I went back inside, tears covered my face as I searched for her mother.

Mom asked to speak with me.

“Honey, your dad and I are going to get a divorce.  You, your brother and I will stay here.  Everything is going to be alright.  Just don’t tell your friends.  People are funny about this.  They may not like you if they know you come from a broken home,” Mom said. 

“Did your Dad tell you about this?”

“No.”

I was more than shocked. It wasn’t just the divorce.  How could Dad not tell me he was leaving? How could I not share this with my friends?  Now I knew definitively our family was truly torn apart.  Not just emotionally, but physically. 

I didn’t say a word the rest of the day.  I didn’t need to.  They had said it all.

He flew to Mexico City before the divorce was finalized  in Maryland.  I could not understand how he could afford such a trip.  My family had little money, but Dad always seemed to find enough for his own personal needs.