I have no idea what my parents’ anniversary date is. Growing up, I never heard any mention of their wedding or even saw a photo of that day. I also never remember them holding hands, never mind kissing. I didn’t think anything of it then—it’s just the way things were. As a kid, you don’t question your parents’ relationship.
We moved to Augusta when I was seven, and I consider that period our golden years. My father was a district sales manager for Chevrolet by then. He drove a giant ice-blue Monte Carlo with a single front bench and back seats without seat belts. Our house had wall-to-wall cream carpeting, an intercom system, and a vacuum that was attached to the wall. I loved that house, and that car, and I often wonder if that’s because I associate them with a time when everyone in my family seemed happy.
Every spring, our front yard erupted in bursts of orange and yellow marigolds and daffodils against a hot-pink azalea background. The garden was my dad’s great joy, a hobby he looked forward to each year, and I loved helping him plant the marigolds from seed. My mother loved them too, and what I didn’t know until I began writing this book was that she would harvest the seeds in the fall from the plants my father had grown the spring before. (If you pop the head off a marigold, all the seeds are in the pod at the base of the bloom.) She’d collect these seeds in small packets and dry them over the winter so they’d be ready to plant the next spring.
My dad would dig a small trench in the narrow garden beds that lined the walkway up to our front door, and then I would sprinkle the seeds down the center and cover them with earth before watering them in. I loved watching the green shoots poke their way through the soil, followed by a sturdy stem and finally a blast of sunshiny orange or yellow blooms. It was a thrilling payoff for this annual ritual.
My dad kept a garden in our backyard, too. There, he planted beefsteak tomatoes, as my mother’s favorite meal was a tomato sandwich made with two pieces of soft white bread, a slather of mayonnaise, and a sprinkle of salt. When I close my eyes, I can see the row of tomatoes sitting on the windowsill waiting to ripen. Most summers, he also experimented with green peppers, corn, okra, and sometimes sunflowers—a smaller version of the garden his parents, my Maw Maw and Paw Paw, grew in their backyard. Traditions passed down. But tomatoes were a staple, and his goal was to grow them big enough so one fat slice covered the entire piece of bread.
My mother was a picky eater, but she loved those tomato sandwiches. She was worried about the pesticides my dad used to keep the bugs at bay, so she would peel the tomato before eating it. I never thought much of it then, but like the missing wedding photos, these were all tiny clues about who my mother was and perhaps harbingers of things to come.
I was in sixth grade when things in my family took a dark turn. I can pinpoint the moment.
Bethany and I were still close friends, and she invited me for a sleepover. My mom didn’t like me going to other people’s homes, even for playdates. She never explained why. But looking back, I now realize that she didn’t see the value in nurturing these friendships because she didn’t have any friends beyond my Aunt Mary Anne, whom she spoke to on the phone weekly. I can’t recall my parents ever going out to dinner with other couples, or my mom even having coffee with a neighbor. So it was always a battle whenever I asked to hang out with my friends. But on this night, I was determined. I marched into her room and was stunned to see her sitting cross-legged on top of her neatly made bed, sobbing.
I had never seen her cry.
“Mommy?” I said.
She turned to me, tears streaming down her face, and said quietly, “He doesn’t love me anymore.”
I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Your father is going to leave me,” she said, her eyes puffy and red.
I didn’t know how to respond, so I said, “Bethany invited me to sleep over.”
She started shaking her head and crying even harder. “Don’t go! Stay with me!”
I was so caught off guard that I just ignored the bizarre behavior and asked, “Can I spend the night at Bethany’s?” I remember feeling paralyzed watching her come undone.
“Stay with me,” she pleaded. “Don’t go. Daddy doesn’t love me.”
I suddenly felt claustrophobic. All the air had been sucked out of that bedroom, and I just wanted to run. I quickly slipped out of her room and went straight to Bethany’s.
When I came home the following morning, I saw blankets and sheets left on the couch and my mother drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table. My father was mowing the lawn. The crying incident was never talked about again.
From then on, my dad started sleeping on the couch. And I began to notice that my mom would pick fights with him over the smallest things, like not taking out the garbage or scraping his plate while he was eating. She complained about the one beer he drank on Saturdays while he grilled. It was so petty and mean. Her rage so dwarfed any offense that I started defending my dad, and then she would get mad at me.
“Sutton, stay out of this!” she would say, and then storm out of the room.
Even worse, she started to ice me out. I would walk into the room and ask her a question or say hello. She would completely ignore me, as if I weren’t standing there in front of her.
Things were fracturing inside our house. The silence was both suffocating and confusing. The nights of pizza parties and balloon bouquets were evaporating. Our family was coming undone, and I had no idea why. No one ever sat me down and said, “We’re having a hard time. This is not about you.”
At school, Tracy Duffy was my best friend. Or so I thought. At the end of sixth grade, she started becoming friends with another girl and ignoring me. It was more than I could handle. One day at recess, all the stress and frustration I was feeling at home erupted into a torrent of profanity, all aimed at Tracy. I didn’t say it to Tracy’s face, I just went temporarily mental to another group of girls. I used pretty much every swear word I knew at the time, which probably wasn’t extensive—perhaps a few “God damns” and maybe a “fuck”—but for me that was outrageous! Word got back to Tracy, and some of her friends turned me in to the teachers, which was how I ended up in the principal’s office.
This was a first for me. The principal was both disappointed and surprised—I was a straight-A student and a goody two-shoes. And I was so mad and hurt that I didn’t even care. My home life was a disaster and my best friend was ditching me for someone else. I was thirteen years old and pissed off. The school called my parents, who were mortified, but no one connected any dots. I wasn’t even grounded. Once again, it was literally never talked about.
That June, I finished sixth grade, Hunter graduated from high school, and a month later, we moved to Detroit. My dad was being transferred again, this time to the General Motors headquarters as part of a cost-saving company downsize. But I didn’t understand that then. My parents never sat me down to explain what was happening, and so in my prepubescent wisdom, I thought we were moving because I was a difficult and socially awkward kid who was getting in trouble at school.
Everything changed in Michigan. My parents never shared a bedroom again. My mother stopped driving, and complained bitterly about the cold. She also had a real disdain for Northerners, whom she called Yankees. The word seemed to hurt her mouth when she said it, which was often. Over the next six years we lived there, if my mom wanted to be really mean, she’d say to me, “You’re a Yankee now.” I found that so confusing. You brought me here! I’d think. And also, what does that even mean?
I tried to talk to someone. In middle school, I made an appointment with one of the school’s counselors, not realizing they were hired to help students with their academic workload, not personal problems at home. The counselor just seemed confused.
“I’m not a therapist,” she said.
I was disappointed, and desperate for guidance.
And then she asked, “What makes you happy?”
“Performing,” I may have answered, as I already knew that the stage was the one place that made sense to me.
Hunter went to the University of Michigan to study musical theater, and I continued to perform as well—both in community theater groups and in high school too. My parents continued to come see us in every show, and tape record the rehearsals, too. When I asked my dad about this period in our lives, he said, “Y’all were our entertainment.”
But something had shifted.
When I think back on this time, I now realize it was when my mom stopped cross-stitching and my dad stopped growing things—even tomato plants. All that energy went into finding opportunities for me, in particular, to perform.