Dear Mother

"Yah ... I like that. Then what?" I continued. I was beginning to get into this game.

"I don't know. Why don't we wait and see how your mother reacts to the first letter or even the second before we decide." she said emphatically.

"OK ... jeez Penny ... you are really good at this ... mystery solving I mean." My compliment was meant sincerely.

"We haven't solved anything yet, Ron. We need to figure this out and I'm really keen to get to the bottom of this; one way or another."

Trust Penny to bring me down to earth. I drove her home, gave her a kiss on the cheek and headed for my home with a thousand questions in my head. What was my mother up to? Was she really an adulteress? One part of me hoped it wasn't true and yet another part said it may be the answer to my father's misery. The law was pretty hard on adultery; even in this enlightened age of 1957. He could get a divorce and she would be sent away with almost nothing but her clothes. In the old days, there would have been a mark of shame on her forehead. We're a lot more civilized now. But I wondered if Dad would think twice about sending her away.

I got home a little before nine, so I knew I wouldn't get a lecture from Mom. I headed up for my room to think about what I'd learned and what I would do next. As I lay on my bed, I wondered if my father knew anything about this. I wondered if he had any idea that she might be seeing someone else when he wasn't around. He was a smart guy. It was hard to believe my mother could fool him for a long period of time.

I pulled the now dog-eared copy of Playboy out from under my mattress. It was the one with the terrific pictures of Julie Newmar and Tina Louise. I could get an erection just thinking about those two women. I thought about Penny and wondered what she looked like without her clothes on. Pretty sexy, I bet. She had bumps in all the right places. She didn't wear tight clothes, so it was hard to tell, but I was pretty sure she had a nice body.

Penny and I were going to the movies on Saturday night and when I picked her up in my Dad's shiny new white and gold Dodge, I was feeling pretty good. She had her best pink and charcoal poodle skirt and saddle shoes with white socks and a pink blouse. She looked super! I held the door for her and she slipped onto the brocade and vinyl passenger seat. When I got in, she handed me an unsealed plain envelope with my mother's name and address on the front and PRIVATE typed in capital letters. There was no return address on the envelope; just the four cent stamp. I opened it and unfolded the single page. The single line of type simply asked the question: 'Who is Mr. Edwin Robinson?'

I stared at the letter for a moment while my thoughts raced through my head. What would she think when she got this? How would she react? My mother always got to the mail first since the delivery was just before noon. I would give anything to see how she looked when she opened this letter. I knew that wasn't going to happen since I would be at work when the mailman made his rounds. I looked at Penny without saying anything for a moment before I handed it back to her. I pushed the D button on the dashboard console and we headed off toward the theatre.

I couldn't tell you much about the movie that night. I wasn't paying attention as my mind was wandering to all sorts of strange thoughts about what was going to happen in the next few days. We had set the wheels in motion and when that letter was slipped into the mailbox in front of the drug store, there was no going back.

I figured that the letter wouldn't show up until Tuesday, but just to be sure, I would watch how my mother acted on Monday evening when I got home from work. I couldn't see anything different and when Dad came home, she didn't react any differently that she would have on any other night. I came to the conclusion that it hadn't arrived yet. The next day was the day she had been going to Mr. Robinson's house. I made sure I swung by in the afternoon and to my surprise, her car wasn't there. What if she wanted to warn him, I thought. I went by the plant where he worked and looked for his car. He drove a turquoise and white '55 Chev sedan but I couldn't see it or Mom's car in their parking lot.

I was home as early as I could get there and decided to engage my mother in conversation to see if I could detect anything different. I had thought of a topic; my going to Junior College here in town rather than to State for the first couple of years. It would mean I would be living at home and I wanted to see how she reacted to that.

"Say Mom, there's something I wanted to talk to you and Dad about." I began.

She looked at me kind of funny. "Why don't you wait until your Dad is home?" she asked.

"Yah ... I just wanted you to know that I've made a decision about college ... I'm going to go to Junior College here instead of State for the first two years. I can save some money and still live at home. That way I can save for my last two years at State." I explained.

I saw her shoulders slump and she didn't answer right away. She turned to go back into the kitchen and said: "We'll talk about this when your Dad gets home."

I couldn't really tell anything from that. I went up to my room and sat at my desk for a few minutes. I heard Mom come upstairs and go to her bedroom and close the door. That was unusual. I remembered where she usually put the envelopes from the daily mail and I quietly headed downstairs to the laundry room and checked the waste paper pail. There it was ... the envelope that I had mailed on Saturday night. There was no sign of the single page that was inside. So now I knew she had seen the question.

When Dad came home, I could tell that Mom wasn't her normal self. She didn't ignore him, but she stayed pretty well clear of him, it seemed to me. When I brought up the subject of Junior College at the dinner table, I don't think Dad was too excited about it. He said something about growing up by being on my own and I could get that at State, not here at home. I was a bit surprised, but then Dad was a good thinker and I had to respect his opinion. I dropped the subject; after all I still had my senior year and I had lots of time to decide. Mom hadn't said a word during the whole discussion.

After dinner, I rode my bike over to Penny's to report what had happened. She was as surprised as I was that my mother hadn't reacted more strongly to the letter. We talked about it a bit more and decided to see if she would be at the Robinson's on Thursday. I confessed to Penny that I had an empty feeling inside me and I didn't think anything good was going to come out of all this. We were playing with fire and someone was going to get burned. She gave me a big hug and it helped me feel better as well as a bit horny. We just sat and talked for a while and it was good to have someone to share all this with. I felt like I was carrying a big sack on my back and I wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible. I suggested we forget the whole thing and just ignore what was happening, but Penny reminded me of how unhappy I was before and didn't I want to see what was really going on? Of course, she was right.

On Thursday, I drove by the Robinson's and there was no sign of Mom's car sitting out front. I thought maybe she had been scared off by our letter so I was pleased at that. I turned the corner and had to slow down to let a car drive into the lane and when I looked up the lane, I thought I saw a familiar car. I drove around the block and looked from the other end. I could see Mom's car parked almost out of sight in the back of Robinson's house, right in front of the garage doors. I was surprised. Obviously our little memo hadn't bothered her very much. I was upset and it was all I could do to be nice to her at dinner. I got out of the house as quickly as I could and beat it over to Penny's.

"Well, Ron, I guess we have to go to the next step." she said with resignation. "The question is ... what's the next step?"

"I've been thinking about that a lot. I don't want to drag this out. I think we should send the next letter to Dad. Then it'll be up to him what happens." I said with a sigh of resignation.

"Are you sure?" Penny asked carefully.

"No ... but if we fire another warning shot ... well ... anything could happen. If we just send a one line note to Dad that asks him what mother's car is doing at the Robinson address every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon ... well ... then it's up to him to decide ... not us."

Penny just nodded and said she would prepare the letter that night She also said she would address it to his work, marked private. That way, my Mom wouldn't see it and open it ... even by accident.

Once again, I had that horrible, empty feeling that leaves you wanting to just lie down and do nothing for a while. I excused myself from Penny's house, promising to call her tomorrow and headed home. It took me a while on my bike. I wasn't moving very fast and I wasn't in any hurry to get there. I wondered if I hadn't gone too far with this plan. I began to think I might be in too deep. I guessed I would find out next week.

When Dad came home on Monday night, I could see something was wrong. He looked very unhappy. He hardly said a word when he came in the door and darn little at dinner. I couldn't see anything different about my mother's behavior, so I figured she didn't know what was going on. I was pretty sure Dad had gotten the letter that day and he was obviously upset at what it said. I thought maybe he was waiting 'till I was out of the house to talk to Mom about it, but when I got home from Penny's later, there was no sign of anything wrong. Mom was sitting by the radio, listening to her usual Lux Radio Theatre and Dad was in the basement workshop, doing something or other. No sign of trouble.

What happened on that Tuesday afternoon took me a while to find out. The way I understand it, Dad got some time off work that afternoon and went over to the neighborhood where the Robinsons lived. He parked the car and walked to their house and looked around. He couldn't see Mom's car out front, so he went around to the lane and spotted it there, likely in the spot she had been parked on Thursday. I guess he must have decided to take the bull by the horns and went up to the back door and knocked. When nobody answered, he tried the door and it was unlocked and he walked in. He must have heard voices and he headed to the front bedroom and there he found Mom and Mr. Robinson in their underwear and they were lying on the bed.

He must have scared the daylights out of Mr. Robinson because I heard he tried to hide in the closet while Dad was yelling at Mom. It was a pretty ugly scene. He apparently took her car keys from her purse and stormed out of the house and took Mom's car and brought it home; putting it in the garage. It never went in the garage! That was reserved for the Dodge. I don't know how he got his car; maybe he took a cab, but by the time I got home, the Dodge was in the driveway and Dad was sitting at the kitchen table with a pretty strong looking drink in front of him. There was no sign of Mom.

I had to play dumb at this stage or I really would have been in trouble so I just asked Dad where Mom was.

"She's not here." he said with an angry voice. "And she isn't going to be here any more." He almost spat the words out.

"What do you mean?" I asked innocently.

"I caught her in bed with another man, son. She cheated on me ... on us. She's been unfaithful and I'm going to divorce her." he said with direct and simple conviction.

"Holy cow, Dad. Are you sure?" I wasn't faking now. I was really alarmed at how quickly he had decided to take action. I thought he'd be torn up or sad or wondering why it had happened; but this was a lot different than I expected. He seemed to be angry all right, but there was something else as well. Like he wanted revenge or something. I didn't like what I saw then. This was a different Dad than I was used to.

"It's hard not to be sure when they're lying on a bed together with almost no clothes on. Your mother didn't even try to deny it." He wasn't looking at me when he talked. He took another drink from the glass and just stared at it. "She is going to pay for this. She's not going to have anything when this is over. She's going to be lucky to have the clothes on her back." There was no mistaking the anger in his voice. I was hoping my mother didn't do anything stupid and try to come home tonight. I was afraid of what would happen. But that brought up another question. Where was she? Where would she go? Where could she go? I needed to talk to Penny and I told Dad I was going over there and I didn't feel like any dinner. He just nodded and I left on my bike and pedaled slowly toward my girlfriend's house.

When I got to the Lane house, I was a basket case. It was all I could do to tell Penny what Dad had told me. It was the worst kind of result I could have expected. I just sat around with my head in my hands and moped. I wasn't very good company that night or for a few nights afterward. My mother had disappeared and it would be a long time before I would hear from her again.

-0-

I was surprised that Dad and I were able to get along on our own as well as we did. We did our own laundry except for his shirts and we even tried to learn to iron things; but not very well. We shared the vacuuming and we figured out how to make simple meals for ourselves so that we ate properly and didn't get sick. Dad surprised me when he gave me the keys to Mom's car. Actually, it was Dad's car; he just let Mom drive it. I promised to keep it in good shape and wash it every week. I was doing that for Mom anyway, so it was no big deal. There wouldn't be many seniors at my school who had their own car, so I felt pretty lucky.

Dad told me that they had a hard time finding Mom to serve her with the divorce papers, but eventually they caught up with her at her Aunt's house in Salem and the legal stuff was under way. Dad said that the court would be pretty hard on her since the grounds were Adultery and that was pretty serious stuff. He didn't know what would happen to Ed Robinson; but he was named as something called the correspondent in the proceedings. I guess that meant he was the other guy. It took almost a year for the divorce to go through and Mom was left with almost nothing when it was done. Dad said he had given her $500.00 and all her clothes and jewelry and that was it. It would give her a chance to move somewhere and start a new life. Her days in our little town were over. Too many people knew what she did and probably would never let her forget it.

My Dad found a new lady; actually someone from his office that he had know for a few years. Her husband had been killed in Korea and she needed a job and she was working in Dad's office. I guess they were both on the rebound, sort of, and started dating about three months after Mom left as far as I could tell. He said her name was Jeanine Carter and he really liked her and I would get to meet her someday soon. My Dad must have spent almost every night visiting with Jeanine. I was glad to see him happy again. He had recovered quickly from that anger and revenge that I saw that afternoon and was back to his old self.

We talked a lot about College and we agreed that it was my decision on whether to go to State right away or stay here for Junior College for two years. I thought it would depend on whether I could get a swimming scholarship at State. That would help with the money. Dad didn't seem too worried about money and told me to do what I really wanted to do and not worry about the cost. That took a lot of pressure off.

Penny and I are really very close still. She too was upset at the outcome of my parent's marriage and what we had caused to happen. She felt very guilty that if she hadn't suggested the letters, they might still be together. I reminded her of how unhappy they both were before all this happened and she had to agree that maybe it was for the best.

I had lost track of my mother and I hadn't tried very hard to find her. I received a Christmas card from her and the address was her Aunt's place in Salem, so I guessed that she was still living there. I didn't send her one and I didn't feel guilty about it. A few months later, we received a notification from a lawyer that her Aunt had died and left some money for me in her will. It was a $100.00 bond toward my education. I didn't even remember the lady, so I was pretty surprised that she would leave me something. That money was almost a third of the first year tuition at State, so I was very grateful.

Dad had introduced me to Jeanine at Thanksgiving and I saw her several times as she came over for dinner and such. She was pretty with blonde hair, big boobs and a nice, big smile that she used often. I think she was about 35, so she wasn't much younger than Dad. I could see why he liked her. She was fun and always seemed to be happy; just the opposite of my mother in the past few years. It didn't come as a big surprise when he told me one night that he was going to ask Jeanine to marry him as soon as the divorce was final. If she said yes, then he wanted to ask her to move in with us. After all, they would be engaged and she could stay in the spare bedroom and that way there wouldn't be any hanky panky. Besides, they would be saving a lot of money.

I had to laugh. Can you imagine in this day and age people worrying about that sort of thing? Hadn't they heard it was 1958 and times were changing? Just read a Playboy magazine and see what's been going on. Boy, my Dad had some catching up to do. Anyway, I was just happy to see him happy and I didn't see any problem getting along with Jeanine.

I'd been doing pretty well in school thanks to all the help I got from Penny. She and I would study together and I really enjoyed my time with her. Actually, the most valuable thing she did for me was to teach me how to study. Once I had a system, my results were a lot better. I was doing well on the swim team too and we were headed for the State High School Championships if we kept going the way we were going. I was hoping this would lead to an athletic scholarship, but I wasn't counting on it. Penny hadn't decided on her next step. She was way too smart not to go to college, but I gather money might have been a problem. I suggested she apply for an academic scholarship or bursary I think they called it. Every little bit would help. She would probably go to the local Junior College, just to keep the costs down.

In early May I received a letter and I recognized the handwriting before I saw the contents. It was from my mother. I put it on my desk, unopened and tried to steady myself before I read it. I never expected to hear from her again. I had thought about her a lot. She would never see me married or see any of her grandchildren. We would never talk to each other again probably. She had been exiled; banished from my life. It was a shaking pair of hands that slit the letter flap and pulled out the contents.

My Dearest Ronald:

I have been trying to write this letter for a long time and I have finally summoned the courage to do so. There are so many things I want to say to you and so many things I want to apologize for. I know that in the past few years you have been very unhappy with me. That's because I was very unhappy too. Your father and I had a very good marriage until five years ago when he seemed to become dissatisfied with me. He would not tell me what the problem was about, but I could tell by his attitude and his behavior that I was the source of that unhappiness. I wondered if he had found someone else that he had fallen in love with but he denied this and said I was being foolish.