We Linharts were a family of impassioned tirades and traditions. Not tradition, but our own practices. As a family in its entirety the four of us went to a movie every Sunday night, stashing bags of our own popcorn and soda cans in coat pockets and purses. Every summer we took a road trip out east to visit big cities and our Dad’s side relatives. And we ducked into the alcove at the top of the stairs when Mom and Dad started fighting and wailing. Our mother invested in us the belief that we should have passions to keep our hearts safe from falling in love too hard. We came from parents married young, not even out of college, and lovers of music and the arts. Laura took up singing while I floundered in literature, initially calling myself a writer, but finally settling with the enjoyment and reading aspect alone. We were not a family close in chi, but couldn’t seem to keep ourselves apart or deny the obligations.
There was a painting at the top of the stairs of a Flamenco dancer. The woman in the painting was beautiful and flexible, her arms went one way as her waist and legs were contorted in angles pointing in another direction. Sometimes after dinner we’d sit at the top of the stairs, leaned against the wall underneath the painting and listen to our parents talk as they washed the dishes. We judge each other’s growth by the amount of space between the top of our heads and the bottom of the rustic bronzed and engraved frame. We named the Flamenco dancer Natasha.
We believed that Natasha protected us. When we were scared or sad we went to her for comfort. When we first moved to the house Laura slept under Natasha the first few nights. Natasha was a birthday gift from Dad to Mom. He bought it in Spain on a business trip when they were first married. He brought it home with him and surprised her a month later on her birthday.
Curiosity drew us to the top of the stairs when our parents had their talks. They sat in the dark on the couch against the wall. We listened to them talk, not always understanding, but wondering about all things adult. We wondered why they never talked at the dinner table when we were there. We wanted to be included in the conversations. In fact, neither of them spoke at dinner. They only barely asked to pass the butter. Dinner was the only time they spent together in the same room besides their talks and our family traditions.
Before dinner Dad usually came home, slamming his briefcase on the kitchen counter, and went on his usual rant. He didn’t like his boss, his coworkers, or his growing responsibilities, and he proved it by kicking and overturning an empty chair at the kitchen table. It almost always happened after a terse dinner of cold words Mom tried to combat dinners like that by asking Laura and me about our day. We’d go through the details trying to avoid any pauses, but there were always pauses. After dinner Mom sat on the couch and Dad on the chair, and they always sat in the dark. They never turned a lamp on, never looked at one another in the clarity of illumination. And we sat at the top of the stairs peering through the stair rail bars.
I remember being twelve with a six year old Laura at my side, we leaned against the wall under the protection of Natasha, and listened to our parents talk after dinner. The wooden bars on the stairs rail were loose and it wobbled whenever someone went up or down the stairs. Through the bars you could see into the living room. Mom’s voice was wavering and unsure. She stumbled over her words as though the ones she wanted didn’t exist. And Dad’s voice was hard and short. Only one syllable words. The distance and difference between them scared us. “I think we need to talk about this. Andrew, something is going on. You don’t talk to me, and you don’t look at me, ever.” The chair creaked as Dad stood up and started walking away, towards the basement door around the corner.
“Emma, just back off.” Mom went back to the kitchen then and finished cleaning up after our dinner. I took Laura to her room and played with her toys with her. She was very young then, and her favorite toy was her little doll. She had a doll sized chest full of clothing options for the doll.
Our father’s desk in the basement was next to the vent that was directly below and led to the vent in Laura’s room. Our father had quit smoking three times in two years, and we could smell the smoke creeping upwards.
“Tara, are Mom and Dad going to get a divorce?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s a divorce?”
“It’s when a Mom and Dad don’t want to be together anymore, and one of them moves out.”
“I don’t want one of them to leave.”
“Me either.” Our parents had always fought, but they were usually more discreet. They more frequently ended with one of them walking away from the other. We had heard of our friends’ parents getting divorces, and our friends not seeing their fathers anymore. We were afraid that it would happen to us. We liked the idea of two Christmases and two birthdays, but we afraid of losing our father. Our school had a father daughter dance every year. We feared that like our friends’ fathers our father would move farther away and come see us less often. And we were afraid that he might forget about us.
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