M is for Molly
Introduction to “M is for Molly”
When I was a teenager, I listened to Barry Manilow. A lot.
Yeah, I know, I told you a few pages ago that I was intensely into new-wave music. I was. And Barry Manilow. And Meatloaf, too. And Elton John and Boston and Kansas. So sue me.
Barry had the over-the-top melodrama, the same thing that I got from Jim Steinman and Meatloaf (when Barry recorded the Steinman song “Read ‘Em And Weep” I thought he had done it specifically for me, since I was sure that I was the only one in the center of that very very obscure Meatloaf-Manilow Venn diagram).
And the best song Barry ever did was not one of his big orchestrated ballads; it was an early, simple song titled “Sandra.” Instead of overpowering it with a big arrangement, he just sings quietly, with passion only in all the right places.
It was written by a fellow named Enoch Anderson. He wrote a few songs for Barry and some other artists, but was never able to make a living at it, so he went back to school, got a Ph.D., and now he teaches English at colleges here in southern California (and still writes songs here and there). He describes how he wrote “Sandra”:
“I was going to bed very tired one night and suddenly had the impression of this woman and her unhappy story, as though she were right there in the room. I was irritated, didn’t want to write anything, but I felt she deserved to be heard so I hurriedly scrawled down the lyric and went to sleep.”*
And so this is my attempt to build a story around that song.
Enoch’s story is part of this, as well, because that’s how stories (and songs, too, apparently) happen; they ask to be told, beg to be told, demand to be told. Once you start them, they often write themselves. I know, that sounds like hooey; well, wait until it happens to you.
We’ll speak more of this later. In the meantime, pay attention to the people in your life, even the ones that seem happy.
[ * https://michaelcavacini.com/2015/08/03/a-conversation-with-enoch-anderson/]
* Reader’s note: Contains strong language and/or adult situations.
Bobby was gorgeous...God, he was gorgeous. Just looking at him made things move inside her.
Her friends were merciless. “Oooo Molly, how you gonna handle that?” “Molly’s gonna get her itches scratched now...” “Oh, girl, you need help with that one, let me know, huh?”
It just made her laugh. That Bobby liked her was so...amazing. He was so smart, so polite, so respectful, and sooooo gorgeous.
She’d put away her fairy princess dreams a year ago, at 17, after Michael. She and Michael; two broken people, trying to fix each other. Too young, too needy, too close, too fast...and then there was pregnancy and then miscarriage and then the awful silence. There were no words. Words felt like a waste of time; why bother? And besides, words just made it worse. God, just the sound of Michael’s voice made it worse.
And Bobby had always been there, just in her peripheral vision. He had been one of those guys that you didn’t really look at; he was never the one in focus, not the one at the center of the picture. He was the smiling one in the back row.
But now he was blossoming...was that enough of a word? He was blossoming the way 18-year-old boys do sometimes; like he finally stepped forward and said, “hey, I’m here too.” A little time in the gym, a little time shopping for clothes, a little growing up, a little more willingness to speak up where before he’d been quiet...and he stepped out of Michael’s shadow and she saw that he was so much more than twice what Michael had been.
Her friends noticed, too. “Wait, is that Bobby? What the hell happened to him? Where has he been?”
She had noticed him, and he had noticed her. He always seemed to be looking at just her.
Drove her girlfriends crazy.
They went to college together; dated the whole time through. Bobby had dabbled in physics, dabbled in philosophy, finally settled on a business degree; it was practical, and Bobby was a practical guy. He enjoyed his time with his friends; their video games, their fantasy football, their dreams about starting businesses and getting rich and famous.
She did religious studies; it spoke to something deep inside her, and she found she was really good at it. Top-of-her-class good. It wasn’t something that Bobby understood, but he tried to show interest. They would read together, study together, but when they talked together it was about each other and their tomorrows, together; about kids and houses and cities and furniture. When he talked about business, she smiled and tried to be interested. When she talked about religion, he smiled and tried to be interested. But when they talked about houses and kids, they both smiled and they were both interested.
They were married six weeks after graduation. She got to wear her fairy princess dress.
“You’re coming, aren’t you?”
Molly sighed into the phone. “Jenny, you know I’d love to but… with the kids, and Bobby so busy at work...”
There was a long silence. “Ok, well, it won’t be the same without you, you know?”
Molly smiled a sort-of smile. “Thanks for saying that, Jenny. I love you. Say hi to everybody.”
She clicked off the phone. The day had already been busy; plumbers in the master bath, the cable guy on the roof, taking the SUV for an oil change, picking up Bobby’s high-blood- pressure medication at the pharmacy. High blood pressure, at his age; she still couldn’t believe it. But really, she could believe it.
The mail was on the kitchen counter. One envelope was from the alumni office at Princeton; apparently they considered you an alum even if you didn’t graduate. She thought about her two semesters of grad school, how much fun it had been, how alive she had felt, how right it felt. But that summer, Bobby had found an investor for his business, an angel funder he just couldn’t turn down, and so they were off to Houston. At least it was close to Mom and Dad.
He promised that she could go back to school, after his things got off the ground.
And then she was pregnant. The ‘pill’ gave her nausea and, though her friends told her not to, she stopped taking it. She and Bobby were being ‘careful’ in other ways, but apparently not careful enough. She knew it early; she knew what being pregnant felt like. The thought of it made her sick all over again. She made an appointment at a “family planning” clinic; she never went.
After Wendy was born, she was tired, but she was overjoyed. She’d always seen herself as a mom, someday. And Wendy was delightful; red hair and squatty little nose and lungs like Pavarotti. Even in the weariness of 2 a.m. feedings, she held that little body and it gave her such hope, a sense of purpose that pushed through the weariness.
Most nights, that is.
Matthew was different. It was hard after Matthew. They’d had a very rational discussion after Wendy was born, about whether they’d have more kids and if so, when...and it seemed so rational to have two kids, close together, so that Molly would be out of the nursing-and- diapering phase sooner and be able to go back to grad school, at least part-time.
But she hadn’t counted on the darkness that descended after Matthew. The boy himself was fine; he was a quiet baby, easily contented, not loud like his sister. But Molly felt empty, like somehow this time they had taken something out of her that she needed.
Bobby tried to be supportive, but he didn’t really understand. She didn’t really understand, either. As he found himself running out of things to say, he tried to find things to do for her; he had always been good with his hands and with building things. So when she stopped nursing, she asked him to build a liquor cabinet for the den.
She had learned how much was too much. It had taken months. Absinthe had been the mysterious party drink back in college; it felt much less mysterious at noon in an empty house. But it was effective, if nothing else. And only one, well mixed, and no later than noon; she had to be completely clear to drive and pick up the kids from school.
After the kids were home, there would be time for a second; maybe rum and coke, maybe a whiskey sour. Vacuuming and dishes were a little more bearable with a little buzz on.
But only the two; no more than that.
Except that afternoon when Bobby called, on their anniversary, and said that a new client had shown up unexpectedly and they’d have to cancel their dinner plans and he was so sorry.
On that afternoon, she’d had yet one more...as best she could recall, it was only one more. And then she called Jenny. Several minutes into the call, Molly was aware that she was more than buzzed and doing all the talking. She was telling Jenny her whole life, which Jenny knew already. She had known Jenny since they were eight.
“....and goddammit Michael calls and tells me he’s working late, on our goddamn anniversary…” She paused to take another sip.
There was a long pause. “Molly?”
“Yeah?”
“You said...Michael.”
The words didn’t register with her at all. “Wha…?” She switched the phone to her other ear.
“You said Michael...not Bobby. You said Michael called.”
Something awful throbbed in the front of her head. “Hey, Jenny, y’know what, fuck you!” She clicked off the phone and dropped it on the floor.
The doorbell rang. Now what? She stood up and wished she hadn’t. She waited for the spinning to stop, or at least slow down, and made her way to the door.
There was an annoyingly fresh-faced blonde girl on the doorstep. Molly wondered for a moment whether that’s what she had looked like when she met Michael. No, not Michael. Bobby. Screw Michael.
The spinning slowed enough that something clicked into place. The babysitter. Shit, she’d forgotten to cancel the babysitter.
“Come in, come in,” Molly waved indeterminately, and stumbled backwards towards a chair. The kids came running into the front room and latched onto the babysitter’s legs as she touseled their hair.
The kids chattered on and on. The babysitter looked anxiously at Molly. The only ones talking were the kids.
Finally, the babysitter nervously suggested that she could walk the kids over to the Chuck-E-Cheese. Molly found a couple of twenties in her purse and tossed them onto a table. She felt her eyes closing.
The chime of the grandfather clock in the hall woke her. Six o’clock. Their reservations had been for six o’clock. She pushed herself up out of the chair and moved towards the kitchen.
Oh God her head hurt, and her stomach too. When did she eat last? She’d been saving her calories for dinner, trying not to eat everything in the house and get all fat and disgusting like she’d gotten after Matthew.
She shook a couple of antacids out of the bottle. She reached up into the cupboard for a glass to get some water, but her fingers weren’t working right.
The glass slipped out of her hand and crashed onto the marble counter.
The counter was covered with broken glass, a couple pieces larger than the others. It was immediately apparent to her what the glass was there for. She picked up the largest piece and slashed it twice, hard, across her left wrist, then sat down on the tile, her back against the oven. She put her head back, against the glass of the oven door, and let the tiredness wash over her.
A knocking sound brought her out of her drowsiness; a knock with a familiar rhythm. It was Mom. The knock came three more times, then there was the sound of a key in the lock. “Molly?” The voice sounded far away. “Molly, honey, are you here? Jenny called me…”
Without thinking, she started to get up. But it was too hard. And her left hand was in a pool of something wet and warm.
She wouldn’t look at me, as I stood next to her hospital bed. So I was talking to the top of my daughter’s head.
I had waited across the room while she and her Mom talked quietly, confidentially, tenderly. I had waited until the room was empty, until I moved close.
I’d overheard bits of their conversation, so it seemed...what, redundant?...to ask her how she felt and how she was. I knew how she was, and she knew I knew. She’d been a daddy’s girl; I had never had to ask how she was feeling.
And so it probably wasn’t fair, for me to re-start a conversation we’d had a dozen times… before she was married. But I did. Because this was how we were, she and I. Tact and subtlety were afterthoughts.
I tried to say it with no intonation at all. “Was he the safe choice?”
We weren’t touching, but I still felt her body tense up, before I saw her fists clench, her shoulders tighten, her breathing get louder. When she looked up at me, her eyes were brimming with tears and flame.
“What’s so fucking wrong with safe, huh?” her words stabbed at me. “What’s so fucking wrong with safe? How would you even know? It’s your fucking world...you’ve never even had to think about ‘safe’!” She spit that last word out, lips curled in accusation.
She looked away, her anger spent. “How would you even know?” Her shoulders began to shake and I could hear her sobbing.
I wanted to say that I understood. I wanted to say that I ‘got it.’ I wanted to say that she was… what? Right? Was she right?
I looked at my wedding ring.
And I realized at that moment that I understood none of it. Not at all.
I said nothing.
All I could think to do was bend down and put my cheek against the top of her head. She reached for my arm, and pulled it around her, like a comforter.
