Wild Game: My Mother, Her Secret, and Me

by Adrienne Brodeur

The prevailing wisdom concerning divorce at the time was that children were resilient creatures who would fare better with happy parents. This was the new paradigm, or at least it was the version of it that our parents embraced and that we helped spin. (Today we understand that what’s best for the parents is not necessarily best for the children.) On top of my mother’s desk, frozen in a 1970s acrylic-cube frame, are six photos of Peter and me taken during this period. In every shot, our eyes look vacant and our expressions radiate worry and loss.

To this day, I cannot imagine my parents ever having been in love, nor can I fathom what attracted them to each other. Although there are photographs of them together in our baby albums, I have no memories of them as a married couple. My father wrote daily, loved to fish and garden, and was content to live within his means. My mother was insatiable and acquisitive, always striving for a better, more fabulous life. To me, my parents have always seemed like polar opposites.

the loneliness of human existence.

As any magician knows, it is not the smoke and mirrors that trick people; it is that the human mind makes assumptions and misunderstands them as truths.

when your parents get divorced and the two people you love and need most become adversaries.

“Embrace the mess, live fully, carry on.”

I knew Malabar loved me as much as she could love anyone.