The High School winter concert two nights ago: I was hardly surprised when Em announced he was going to catch it via the live feed at home instead of venturing out into the sub-freezing December night for a night of technically indifferent music. He’s been saying since Aaron entered high school that the kids don’t really care if the parents show up any more any way. I missed the autumn concert due to apathy on every front at home. I couldn’t bring myself to go alone to a concert that even my own firstborn – AJ – told me didn’t matter.
This time, I promised myself it would be different. Everyone else’s opinions be damned, I was going to go. I was encouraged when Sis said she might even make it to the show, depending on how her holiday travel packing wrapped up. Then I made the mistake of telling Em that Sis might be there.
Em started stewing in the resentment he’d left simmering on his back burner since Thanksgiving, and by the time I was ready to leave, he was skulking about the house like a thunderhead.
EM: “With your mom going, I feel like I should stay away. Why are they doing this to you?”
Typical Em: in his mind, all my unhappiness stems from other people, and everyone is being so unfair to “us”. The fact that these people love me and have not seen him sober and supporting me and our family does not justify their judgmental position. (Actually, my family could back off on the judgmental crap…but that’s another post.) But it the “poor Tara, look what your family has done to you” that gets my dander up. How dare he? I mean really, how can he be so blind to his own share of responsibility in this mess?
Oh right: I forgot about the alcoholic blinders. If he were to admit his share of responsibility, he’d have to admit how alcohol is what drives him to it.
ME: “If you want to go to the concert, then you should go. You shouldn’t stay away from Aaron’s last winter concert just because my family will be there. He won’t be in high school any more next year, you know. Although I am on my way out the door; you said you probably wouldn’t go, and I’d have thought if you changed your mind, you’d have started getting ready to go some time ago.”
EM, sarcastically: “Right, I have to change my jacket.”
ME: “I’m going to warm the car up; I’ll wait for you there.”
From there, Em’s “simple” jacket change proceeded to take almost 20 minutes. Invariably he has to make us late, and indeed, my plan for getting there in plenty of time dissolved. Along with my hope of going out for ice cream afterward with my mom and the kids. I mean, he’d been drinking, so I couldn’t just give him the keys and tell him my mom would drop us off later. But something like that would never even cross his mind, now would it? He was coming and he was the hero out to slay the family dragon.
The dragon, meanwhile, was sitting in the back of the theater, texting me to see if we were almost there. By the time I got my mother’s text, I was already inside the building and had no signal: but Em had sent him ahead to find seats, and Tardis had found 3 seats right in front of her while I was using the restroom. For some unfathomable reason, Em decided to call Tardis back from the seats, but he didn’t respond to a single tap. On the second attempt, my mother rapped his wrist sharply and hissed: “That lady is trying to film this concert with her iPhone.”
Em got Tardis anyway and stormed out. Another latecomer nabbed one of our 3 seats as soon as Tardis vacated, so between songs I leaned forward to talk to my mom.
ME: “Well, looks like we lost our group of 3 seats. We’re going to have to find somewhere else to sit.”
MOM: (venomously) “Well that’s what happens when you get here late.”
Considering I’d been ready to go in plenty of time until I spent nearly 20 minutes in the car waiting for Em, this was more than I could handle. I tracked Em down in the lobby, and complained that between him and my mom, I felt like I was stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
EM: “I’m trying not to be the hard place. I’m going outside for a cigarette.”
Tardis and I hovered on the edges of the concert hall uncomfortably trying to spot 3 new seats without disrupting the performance. After a couple of false starts, we found 3 seats a couple of rows in front of the videographer, near the back and center of the hall. We had to interrupt 4 persons to get through, so we waited until between songs and made our way in. Once seated, I was able to enjoy the concert for a while, but there was a similar disruption when Em arrived: I spent most of that song trying to make eye contact with him, and cringed as he took the seat to my right – dangerously close to the camera and emotionally too close for comfort at that very moment – instead of the seat left open for him to the left of Tardis. Em put his arm around my shoulder; I shrank away, and held his hand as a compromise.
I guess we enjoyed the rest of the concert: the repertoire was fun and mostly well performed, though Em and Tardis competed at bobbing heads near the end. My mom disappeared fantastically fast after the concert – all I could find was her rapidly vanishing vapor trail in the crowd – and so I figured I had been wrong to even imagine we might do a nice family outing afterward. I firmly shushed the nagging voice that said she only bailed on account of Em.
Em and I found the boys we made our way home. During the ride home, I even managed to convince myself it hadn’t been that bad, that maybe even it was a really nice family holiday outing.
Now, in the light of day, I can’t remember how I convinced myself of that.
Silent Screamings 