Successful husband.
Accomplished children.
Tasteful home decor.
A Christmas card people remembered.
The problem was that only part of that image was real.
My father had retired from a middle-management job at a manufacturing company four years earlier. He was quiet in the way some people confuse with kindness. He would rather mow the lawn than confront my mother about anything. I loved him, but I had stopped counting on him for backup somewhere around age twelve.
Sometimes he looked at me with sad eyes, like he knew I was being treated unfairly.
Then he said nothing.
Conflict with Donna was never worth it to him.
Then there was Kyle.
My brother was thirty-one and had held six different jobs in eight years, never for more than eighteen months. Sales rep at a car dealership. Bartender. Insurance adjuster. Personal trainer for three months. Each time he quit or was let go, my mother found a reason it was not his fault.
