My Two Moms

I have two moms. No, they are not lesbian partners, though that would be fine with me. They are ex-best friends who share a daughter and a son and a man, my father. They are my mom and my step-mom. Their story is interesting, tragic and funny as hell.

My dad married my mom's best friend.

This sounds horrible, but it turns out it was a wonderful idea.

My parents divorced when I was eighteen. They had endured twenty years of each other. After a final, horrific and impassioned fight, they finally called it quits. That is another story, one I need more therapy to tell.

My dad married my step-mom about two years later. She was his neighbor, and she stopped by one day to check on him. She was recently divorced herself and thought about him sitting alone in his big old house and out of sympathy and curiosity she pulled her car up in the drive one afternoon. I should also mention that she is a beautiful, tall, skinny blond with a great sense of humor and a sly, knowing smile. My dad was hooked, and they quickly became an "item." I imagine that my dad was surprised, complemented and ultimately grateful for her interest and attention. It's easy to see what my dad sees in her. As far as what she sees in my dad, well, she must like his innate goodness and his capacity for laughter, because she didn't choose him for his full head of hair or his sense of style! She became pregnant, and they married and my brother Richard, 21 years my junior, was born - to the great amazement and joy of his siblings.

My mother and father met when they were both acting in a production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. My father played Romeo and yes, my mother played Juliet. I have the poster advertising the event, complete with their pictures on it, to prove it. I was born a little over a year later. I have always felt lucky that I have this proof of the fact that romance exists. How sweet, how perfect, how beautiful it is to know that my parents were once young, passionate and in love. They were also good looking. Again, I have the poster to prove it.

They began their life together having high expectations. This, I think, was the problem. After such a romantic beginning, there was nowhere to go but down. Can you imagine it? You are the lead in a play, and you fall in love with your leading lady. On opening night the crowd cheers as the curtain closes, as you pretend to lie dead upon your true love, whom your character has died for. You know the crowd is cheering not just for the play itself, but for you and for your love, your true love. Your real life love cannot help but fall short in this comparison. Where are the cheers when you have to return to the real life day-to-day work of a marriage? Where are the cheers when she asks you, for the umpteenth time, not to leave your wet towel on the bed? Honestly, I am amazed that they lasted as long as they did.

My mother remarried before my dad, to a man who, without fanfare, without cheering crowds, and completely without reservations, promised to love, honor and adore her. Which he has diligently done for the past sixteen years. He and my father could not be more different, and I think this is exactly what my mother needed.

But the story here is how much my mother has in common with my step-mom. The simple things are these; they are both beautiful, thin and strong-willed. They are both intelligent and successful. They are both social and they both love to shop. They both like parties and friends, good wine and good conversation. They both would die to protect their children. They are both generous and friendly to a fault. And they both love me.

They were friends before my step-mom became my step mom. As I mentioned earlier, my step-mom was also our neighbor. She lived less than a mile down the road from our big rambling farmhouse, in a lovely little yellow farmhouse of her own. She had a hairy, boisterous, Republican husband who my father had little affection for. He was a salesman, and my father detests all salesmen, with the exception of Willy Lowman. I remember them coming to our house for dinner and board games that got louder and more raucous after the kids went to bed. They were fun people, I thought, especially my future step-mom, who would shop on Saturdays with my mom. She would also often sympathise with me, and let me smoke cigarettes in her car. She and my mom had some good times together, and my mom helped her find the strength to kick that hairy Republican out of her house. (The final straw was when he cleaned the birdcage with her toothbrush and put it back by the bathroom sink for her to use. What an ingracious man!)

My future step-mom laid low while my parent's marriage went sour. She refused to choose sides as so many of their friends did. She has always been fair-minded that way. But I know when my mom finally heard that my dad was dating her, it must have been a bitter pill. It must have felt like a betrayal. My mom must have imagined the worst, she must have thought that perhaps it had all been an elaborate plan, spun out over months and maybe years. Yet everyone involved in their life knows that this wasn't true. My parent's problems came from within their marriage, not from outside of it. In the end the divorce was the best thing for both of them.

So after all of this, it is amazing to me that my mom and my step-mom are friends again. They managed to put aside their hurt feelings and do what was best for their children. They did what was best for me and for my brother. We are both adults now, and both of us could understand it if they hated each other. It would be reasonable to see them as rivals, bitter over the events of the past, of their broken marriages and broken friendship. But instead of hate, they have chosen love. Well, maybe not love, but at least understanding, empathy and kindness.

How do I know this? They have shown me in ways that defy contradiction that they have their priorities straight. When my son, their first grandson, was born, my mom was on one side holding my hand and my step-mom was on the other side, holding my other hand. When their grandson arrived, healthy and pink, I saw them look at one another and grin in relief. They have traveled a long, strange road, and they have come out on the other side of their travels as better, stronger and happier women. They both teach me what it means to be strong, what it means to be kind, and what it means to forgive.

I have two moms. And I like it that way.