Wild Game: My Mother, Her Secret, and Me

by Adrienne Brodeur

felt as if I were watching myself from above, unable to comprehend the happiness of the people around me.

Relatable

Like a woman possessed, I bought packs of three-by-five notecards and started compulsively jotting down my impressions of every book I read. On the front of each card, I detailed my overall response to the book, transcribed lines I loved, and highlighted essential themes, noting when those themes intersected with my own story. On the back, I wrote down words I hadn’t known and their definitions.

Try a kindle! Ever heard of it?

the collective assumption that Ben would be lost without his wife of almost fifty years.

understood then that the squabs would be his offering to my mother. Just as soon as Jack and I turned our backs and were on our way to the airport, Ben would take his leave of the house as well and rush to where my mother awaited him with open arms.

The situation was wholly absurd: Our parents were tying the knot as ours was unraveling. We hadn’t told anyone; we’d barely admitted it to ourselves. And we still loved each other.

My mother became Jack’s stepmother. My father-in-law became my stepfather. And Jack would forevermore be my stepbrother.

After a few weeks on lithium, I became suicidal, fantasizing in painstaking detail the ways in which I might kill myself. Pills were an appealing option, readily available and seemingly not too gruesome, except I had no idea what and how much to take.

First, I felt the pleasantly exhausted sensation of having pulled into my driveway after being on a long road trip. Then I nearly choked on the feeling of arriving home.

“And if you think I intend for my mother’s necklace to support your new bohemian lifestyle, think again. That piece is going straight to a museum where it belongs.”

Instead, my mother said, “Has it ever occurred to you, Rennie, that I don’t want you anywhere near me?”

Why is it that an insult stays with you forever, whereas love and praise passes through you like water through a sieve?

Malabar had made it to the glorious final act and it was time for the denouement, not for a new plot twist about the daughter’s unhappiness.

They had fallen into an easy domestic routine with traditional roles: Ben made the cocktails, stoked the fires, grilled the meats; Malabar orchestrated the home, their social calendar, and everything else.

My life currently

Still, I was expecting a more emotional response, along with some assurance of love and support. Not only were Ben and Malabar unfazed by the news that our marriage was officially over, they were uninterested in discussing the matter further.

“That no one considered Chelsea’s well-being. Not for one minute,” my stepfather said. My mother shook her head. Jack squeezed my knee under the table and we locked eyes. This was the aspect of our parents’ affair that had always horrified Jack most: not that they had betrayed their spouses, not the elaborateness of their deceptions, but that they had used me to facilitate their relationship and never acknowledged the pain that had caused me.

He was forty-one to my thirty-six, intelligent, and attractive, and we fell into an easy banter, exchanging family histories and career paths.

Our allegiance had always been to Malabar, not each other; we’d grown up like vines willing to strangle each other for sunshine.

Malabar was the only mother I had, but she was not the mother I wanted to be.

“You still don’t get it. The necklace is priceless. It’s un-appraisable.”

Fake?

told us my mother had an aggressive spindle-cell melanoma and prepared us for the worst.

know my mother loved me,” Malabar said, carefully choosing each word, “but not so much as she loved herself.”

I thought of my own daughter and tried to imagine circumstances where I might do the same: Wake up, please. Wake up. Not a single one came to mind.

“I’ve always felt you came first, your possessions and passions,” I said, “and I was secondary.”

Surely

So hopeful

“Rennie, I know you’re going to be mad at me”—pause—“but I want my necklace back.”

“Honey, just keep it. Keep the necklace,” she said, backpedaling. “Let’s just be friends again.” Not in a million years, I thought.

As I embraced my husband and children, I realized that I’d broken the chain. I

And I knew that every time I failed to become more like my mother, I became more like me.

Imagine, a jettisoned and broken bottle, tumbled by waves, weathered by sand, etched by salt, returning to shore, where beauty is found in its scars.

Sometimes I want to ask my daughter, Are you okay? Am I getting this right? The answer came not long ago when she walked into my study, perplexed by an English assignment. She was tasked with writing an essay about a personal challenge she’d had to overcome herself, a time when the adults in her life were unavailable and she’d had to handle matters on her own. “I don’t get this,” she said, apparently mystified at the thought of parents who were absent or unsupportive. I thought of all those moments my parents were absent, and I blinked back tears. “Mom, what would you write if you were me?”

Andrea and Olivia Brodeur, sunshine in human form;

had no idea that other families didn’t analyze every mouthful, have “test” nights, or spend months perfecting a doughnut recipe. Nor did I understand how excessive the drinking was.

Plimoth Plantation New England Cookery Book by Malabar Hornblower The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found by Martin W. Sandler

So cool. Her parents books